--- Log opened Tue Jul 30 00:00:35 2013 00:00 < amiller> there's tons of protocols that are trivial with a trusted third party and impossible with just a bunch of separate players 00:01 < amiller> a trusted third party is typically allowed to keep secret state 00:01 < amiller> that seems essential, since basically the way a ttp is used is that you have to know you're talking to the ttp, so it basically has to hold a private key and it is recognized by its public key 00:02 < amiller> so bitcoin seems like it could do almost anything a trusted third party could do, except for keep a secret 00:02 < amiller> which means it can't sign anything 00:02 < petertodd> heh, bitcoin's signature algorithm is simply a very hard problem... 00:02 < amiller> this is the sense in which the proof-of-work acts as a substitute for holding a secret 00:03 < amiller> it's the network aggregate signature 00:03 < amiller> it's almost like secret sharing, except for the secret 00:03 < petertodd> interesting cncept, sounds about right to me --- Log closed Wed Jul 31 00:00:38 2013