In Class IV of the SAFE Network School we get down to bedrock on one of the most important aspects of the SAFE Network. We have loads of fun, actually. It’s back to school for sure, but also has a bright gem of entertainment to help bring the lesson home.
With this material we are able to get our feet on solid ground on not only how the network organizes and administers so many intricate actions, but we see the foundations of the very different, but very powerful method of establishing consensus and truth within the SAFE Network.
Please understand that the data dealt with here may lack the full clarity it should if you have not become quite familiar with the material in the previous SAFE Network School Classes. Going over the relevant sections of the SAFE Network Wiki and these podcasts and referenced material more than once is recommended for best comprehension. The technology underlying the SAFE Network contains a number of new innovations/discoveries, all in play at once. Understanding does not yield well to snapshots.
Magic Word
Listen for the magic word, and submit it to your LetsTalkBitcoin.com account to claim a share of this week’s listener award distribution of LTBcoin. Listeners now have a full week from the release date to submit a magic word. The magic word for this episode must be submitted by 1 pm Pacific Time on October 28, 2015.
Music
Music for this episode: SAFE Crossroads, an original piece, composed and performed by Nicholas Koteskey of Two Faced Heroes
Thank you for your consistent effort and high quality subject matter. I listened to it while going off to sleep…that is when the brain retains the most information.
The SAFE school series in particular is an amazing set of podcasts!!!
Just an idea but for future podcasts, perhaps you could do some more of these ‘one-man’ narratives on the more human consequences and paradigm shifts brought about by the design of the SAFE network. Areas such as surveillance, copyright, propaganda, censorship, free trade to name a few would be great fun to flesh out (although a big challenge I’m sure, and not short on nuance and subjectivity).
A really big thanks for the hard work btw. I really appreciate it as I seem to soak up audio content far more naturally that the written.
Once last thing @fergish, will there be a standalone iTunes version of the podcast coming soon (so I can make sure I don’t miss it)?
XOR is a unique logic function and while simple to describe the logic function (see below), its effect on many bits produce very unique logic that transforms the numbers rather perform maths on them. It works on a per bit level where maths works on the number as a whole. disclaimer: I did my first XOR logic in 1972.
if the 2 input bits are the same its output gives zero
if the 2 input bits are different its output gives one
It should be on iTunes as part of the LTBn feed, and I think SafeCrossroads as well. Not sure what you mean by “stand alone”, though, unless you mean all the School podcasts, just as its own series. Those I’ll be grouping on the safecrossroads.net site, sometime soon. Putting them out separately on iTunes as a series is a good idea.
I’m afraid that’s way above my ability to answer. Seems like @neo is certain, though. The other thing I was thinking before I saw his answer, though, is to watch the videos. Erick talks about a couple other properties that xor lends.
And that was the super KISS answer. Until you use XOR a lot it is very counter intuitive in its outcomes. I see it along the lines of FFT (Fast Fourier Transforms) where the frequency spectrum/domain is transformed to/from the time domain) and allows what we do to linear addressing to be done to what seems random addressing.
For anyone not used to xor functioning it really can seem like magic or “blow ones mind”, the effects/properties are thus quite impressive and prevents analysis based on the internet addressing scheme. Like looking for an object in normal space, but really the object is in an alternative reality where its component parts are scattered throughout normal space but still a complete whole object. Just the same the SAFE network will be like that object when viewed from the normal internet space perspective, just a scattering of components seemingly unconnected in any logical fashion.
I was first very confused by xor being mentioned in self-encryption and address space. Finally I dug in enough to realize that it was part of a whole set of wild and crazy math-world voodoo, but it was a discrete tool that could be applied in different ways. That, plus some stuff from Erick Lavoie, let me break it down enough to at least see that basic tool and one of its results.
Your praise of the usefulness of xor adds to my awe, but I’m not completely baffled and intimidated anymore, thank heavens!
You see, I’ve discovered the TRUTH: It’s all magic!! But ANYBODY can do magic if they know the tricks.
Yes, bitwise XOR, but that’s actually addition modulo 2. And adding whole addresses is addition modulo 2^512.
And 01101 ^ 01011 = 00110 too! Well, I will have to listen to the podcast again, because I didn’t grasp what ‘distance’ between addresses means. Maybe it’s the Hamming distance that is used. I was thinking of the distance as a 512 bit number.
try some examples and you wil see for yourself it is not. Nothing like addition any style. You can have some cases where the result is the same, but it is not because an addition was done.
Your example given underneath threw me off and thought you mean any number of bits in the number.
If you mean adding 2 one bit numbers modulo 2 then yes the results are the same but not for the same reasons.
If you mean adding using two bits then no it is not. For example 01^01 is 00 but adding modulo 2 is 10
I suspect you meant two 1 bit numbers.
Really though 1 bit can hardly be called a “number” in any useful arithmetic sense.
Now if one implemented a modulo 2 on each bit position of two 512 bit “numbers” then it would perform similar, but be a very deceptive way to say it was modulo 2 “on each bit” because not only is it confusing but also hides the real functionality
[edit: added highlight to better clarify what I said ]