Zooko Wilcox of Electric Coin Company explains how the centralization of economic activity around web servers drove the adoption and enforcement of HTTPS encryption.
“And the big reason for that transition is that it turns out in that two-point system between the web server and the web browser, that web server became the center of our economy, and encryption is, became necessary for business purposes.”
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More from Zooko Wilcox
AssertionContradicted
Wilcox: Zcash provided the first practical application of zero-knowledge proofs
“Like I say, it was a very important scientific discovery, but it didn't get practical application until my company implemented it. We made some scientific advances that made it sufficiently practical, and we implemented it and deployed it to the world in this …”
Zooko WilcoxAug 29, 2019▶ 8:27Security and Privacy for Crypto with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Wilcox: Zero-knowledge proofs could solve blockchain scalability bottlenecks
“Zero knowledge proofs might be a breakthrough to solve the scaling problem that has stopped all the blockchains so far. Because the scaling problem is, you remember, everybody wants to be sure of everything that goes into the blockchain. That means the more pe…”
Zooko WilcoxAug 29, 2019▶ 10:50Security and Privacy for Crypto with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Opinion
Wilcox: Centralized personal data databases are a national security threat
“But as we've learned over the last couple of years, this isn't safe, it's not scalable, and it's ballooned from not just being a personal security problem, and not just being a business security problem, but even being a national security problem.”
Zooko WilcoxAug 29, 2019▶ 13:24Security and Privacy for Crypto with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
AssertionPartly supported
Wilcox: The NSA led a government faction opposing early HTTPS encryption
“There was a faction within the US government led by the NSA that objected to the development of HTTPS.”
Zooko WilcoxAug 29, 2019▶ 1:36Security and Privacy for Crypto with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Wilcox: Traditional point-to-point encryption cannot be applied to blockchains
“You can't apply this encryption to blockchain, because all this encryption from Julius Caesar to Alan Turing to Netscape is point to point.”
Zooko WilcoxAug 29, 2019▶ 3:20Security and Privacy for Crypto with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Wilcox: Satoshi Nakamoto failed to encrypt Bitcoin due to early ZK limits
“So when Satoshi Nakamoto was inventing Bitcoin, he tried to figure out how to add encryption into it, and he couldn't figure it out. It didn't fit, because back then, 10 whole years ago we didn't have good enough zero-knowledge proofs.”
Zooko WilcoxAug 29, 2019▶ 3:54Security and Privacy for Crypto with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
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