Author: Arvind Narayanan
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Why the Cornell paper on Bitcoin mining is important
Joint post with Andrew Miller, University of Maryland. Bitcoin is broken, claims a new paper by Cornell researchers Ittay Eyal and Emin Gun Sirer. No it isn’t, respond Bitcoiners. Yes it is, say the authors. Our own Ed Felten weighed in with a detailed analysis, refuting the paper’s claim that a coalition of…
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Ethical dilemmas faced by software engineers: A roundup of responses
Two weeks ago I asked for real-life examples of ethical dilemmas in software engineering. Many of you sent responses by email, twitter, and comments. Thank you for taking the time! Here is a quick summary (in no particular order). Aaron Massey has written a very thoughtful post in response. I encourage you to give it…
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Ethical dilemmas faced by software engineers: A request for real-world examples
Software developers create the architectures that govern our online and often our offline lives — from software-controlled cars and medical systems to digital content consumption and behavioral advertising. In fact, software shapes our societal values. Are the creators of code aware of the power that they wield, and the responsibilities that go with it? As…
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The low-transaction-fee argument for Bitcoin is silly
A common argument advanced by Bitcoin proponents is that unlike banks and credit cards, Bitcoin has low (or even zero) transaction fees. The claim is a complete red herring, and in this post I’ll explain why. Let’s assume for the purposes of argument that Bitcoin transaction fees are, in fact, zero. There are small mining-related…
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Computer science education done right: A rookie’s view from the front lines at Princeton
In many organizations that are leaders in their field, new inductees often report being awed when they start to comprehend how sophisticated the system is compared to what they’d assumed. Engineers joining Google, for example, seem to express that feeling about the company’s internal technical architecture. Princeton’s system for teaching large undergraduate CS classes has…
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Bitcoin grows up, gets its own hardware
The big news in the Bitcoin world is that there are several Bitcoin-mining ASICs (custom chips) already shipping or about to be launched. Avalon in particular has been getting some attention recently. Bitcoin mining moved long ago from CPUs to GPUs, but this takes it one step further. The expectation is that very soon most…
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Goodbye, Stanford. Hello, Princeton!
[Editor’s note: The Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) is delighted to welcome Arvind Narayanan as an Assistant Professor in Computer Science, and an affiliated faculty member in CITP. Narayanan is a leading researcher in digital privacy, data anonymization, and technology policy. His work has been widely published, and includes a paper with CITP co-authors…