CITP Blog is hosted by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, a research center that studies digital technologies in public life. Here you’ll find comment and analysis from the digital frontier, written by the Center’s faculty, students, and friends.
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On March 11, 2013, Bitcoin experienced a technical crisis. Versions 0.7 and 0.8 of the software diverged from each other in behavior due to a bug, causing the block chain…
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Congress' Fast Track to Bad Law
Congress appears poised to pass Trade Promotion Authority, otherwise known as “fast track,” for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). If this happens, it will likely close the door to…
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An empirical study of Namecoin and lessons for decentralized namespace design
[Let’s welcome to Freedom to Tinker first-year grad student Miles Carlsten, who, with fellow first-years Harry Kalodner and Paul Ellenbogen, worked on a neat study of Namecoin. — Arvind Narayanan] Namecoin…
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The story behind the picture of Nick Szabo with other Bitcoin researchers and developers
Reddit seems to have discovered this picture of a group of 20 Bitcoin people having dinner, and the community seems intrigued by Nick Szabo’s public presence. It’s actually an old…
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Bitcoin faces a crossroads, needs an effective decision-making process
Joint post with Andrew Miller. Virtually unknown outside the Bitcoin community, a debate is raging about whether or not to increase the maximum size of Bitcoin blocks. Blocks are created…
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The Error of Fast Tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
National media reported yesterday that a Congressional agreement has been reached on so-called “fast track” authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). This international agreement, having been negotiated under extreme secrecy…
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Bitcoin is a game within a game
In this series on Bitcoin and game theory, I’ve argued that Bitcoin’s stability is fundamentally a game-theoretic proposition and shown how we’ve had blind spots for years in our theoretical…
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Decertifying the worst voting machine in the US
On Apr 14 2015, the Virginia State Board of Elections immediately decertified use of the AVS WinVote touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine. This seems pretty minor, but it…
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Scan This or Scan Me? User Privacy & Barcode-Scanning Applications
[Please welcome guest bloggers Eric Smith and Nina Kollars. Eric Smith serves as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for a higher ed consortium with membership consisting of Bucknell University,…