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nighthawk

nighthawk on Hacker News

Re:Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US on Monday August 08, 2016 @01:22PM (#12249347)
I'm a huge fan of http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/ for finding USGS maps - it's a simple, visual browser to find all available years + scale levels for any location.

Ask HN: Pseudocode for the Bitcoin Mining Algorithm?

Posted by nighthawk on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @07:32PM
from the ask-hn dept.

I get the general gist of what problem must be solved for bitcoin mining, namely wanting to find a nonce that pairs with your data to result in a hash with x leading zeros where x is the current difficulty level.However, I'm having trouble finding the exact algorithm, which uses double SHA-256 encryption, etc.Can someone give or point me to the full pseudo code for the mining algorithm?

( Read More... | 1 comment | 9 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: Bitcoin Mining Operations Perpetuating Weaknesses in SHA-256? on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @05:59AM (#6760376)
Thanks, I think I phrased the question poorly as I wasn't suggesting a weakness in bitcoin, I was wondering whether there might be any value to the mining output.

Ask HN: Bitcoin Mining Operations Perpetuating Weaknesses in SHA-256?

Posted by nighthawk on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @04:20AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Is it possible that bitcoin mining operations are actually generating the analog of a giant rainbow table to aid in the decryption of SHA-256 data?Perhaps some mechanism that would facilitate a birthday attack, collisions, etc.?I thought I'd float this out there to people who know more about cryptography and the weaknesses of these algorithms than I do.

( Read More... | 5 comments | 3 points | on HN )
Re:How I Fired Myself on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @01:27PM (#5293928)
the monumental fuck up was cancelling mysql backup and having all engineers work directly with the production database, what you did was INEVITABLE..
Re:Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker on Wednesday January 16, 2013 @01:35AM (#5065668)
>"He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse."

That's a bold statement - I don't know his full history or all the facts of his case, but what you're implying is that someone's past actions and convictions are all that's needed to asses their present guilt.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was innocent and maybe he knew everyone would think like you? It doesn't take much to realize that this way of thinking quickly leads to a conviction regardless of the facts.

Re:Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker on Wednesday January 16, 2013 @01:07AM (#5065582)
maybe, but there's a lot more to it than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_James

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/hacker/

Re: Frieman contests carpool violation, corporate personhood... on Sunday January 06, 2013 @12:31AM (#5015436)
definitely agree, gonna be tough to argue that the corporation itself was "present" in his car
Re:How non-competes are damaging the Massachusetts economy: Angela's s... on Thursday September 15, 2011 @01:47PM (#3001291)
this is definitely one thing that california's got right.

"Non-compete agreements are automatically void as a matter of law in California, except for a small set of specific situations expressly authorized by statute. They were outlawed by the original California Civil Code in 1872."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

Ask HN: How much of Techcrunch's reporting is just re-blogs of stories from HN?

Posted by nighthawk on Monday August 22, 2011 @11:53PM
from the ask-hn dept.

Is it just me or are other people noticing that a lot of TechCrunch's content showed up on HN several hours before it shows up on TechCrunch?Which leads me to wonder, how much longer will mainstream media outlets be relevant? And is TechCrunch really that much different / better than a "content farm" like ehow, which they seem to dislike so much?

( Read More... | 4 comments | 15 points | on HN )

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