Perspectives on Technology and The World

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[kyles-tech-world]

Cardano & Ethereum (A Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare)

This past weekend I went on a short trip to Bend, OR to backpack with a friend of mine named Nick who introduced me to block-chain and crypto currency starting in 2015 or 2016. Our hike left plenty of time for talking about various technologies related to crypto but it wasn't long before we started into a disagreement about the 2 leaders in the Layer-2 crypto space, Cardano and Ethereum. On one hand I believe Cardano will provide the protocol & currency that is widely adopted throughout the world. Nick believes Ethereum will take this crown. As the conversation deepened, it became clear that our beliefs stemmed directly from the principles each company abides by, but that I did not truly understand the differences between these approaches. Needless to say, without an understanding of the differences in company philosophy, it's hard to know who could be the ultimate winner. The ramblings below serve to outline the core principles of each company and how these principles affect timelines for growth and feature-sets moving forward. I hope you enjoy and learn some things along the way as I know I have. Also, a thank you to Nick for constantly pushing my knowledge!

IOHK & The Cardano Foundation:

Started in 2015, Cardano was created following a dispute between Vitalik Buterin and Charles Hoskinson, both of whom helped Co-found Ethereum. The dispute was centered around the principles that would govern growth and scaling from a business standpoint for Ethereum moving forward. Charles believed in a for-profit model of development whereas Vitalik wanted to keep Ethereum open-source/non-profit. This dispute and separation from Ethereum meant that Charles and Cardano needed to start from the ground up and produce all assets and features of Cardano from within - no more reliance on an open-source community.

One of the primary pain points for a Layer 1 cryptocurrency is the lack of efficiency and scalability. Bitcoin is the poster child for these weaknesses, with Ethereum initially falling into this group as well (this has since changed for Ethereum but remained true until recent years). Large amounts of energy and computing resources are consumed to verify the transactions using a Proof-Of-Work protocol whereas Cardano implemented a Proof-Of-Stake mechanism from the get-go to alleviate these issues.

Another distinction that Cardano has is in the coding language it is built on, Haskell. Invented in 1990, Haskell is a statically typed language designed to integrate well with mathematical formulas and algorithms as well as providing extremely high degrees of reliability and security within the language itself. Considered a purely "functional" language, Haskell functions are designed to run with essentially no chance of unintended side-effects elsewhere in code. This is a crucial point in it's comparison to Ethereum, whose coding language Solidity is more akin to JavaScript which has no such feature (or limitation depending on which camp you're in). I have started playing around with Haskell, and the basic gist is the language is built of tiny interconnected pieces of code that are effectively isolated, meaning one chunk of code can only run one way and cannot be modified without breaking the entire "process stack" of functions. Security and reliability are the name of the game here with an added benefit of efficiency.

These features are why I equate Cardano to the Tortoise in this fairy tale - they appear to be the "wise" cryptocurrency that learned from the large player's (Ethereum/Bitcoin) mistakes. So far, Cardano has released and supported the following features:

- Proof-Of-Stake using Ouroboros protocol

- Desktop and Mobile Crypto Wallet Clients

- Stake Pools and Decentralized Community

- Smart Contracts (apparently this release didn't go so well this September. I'll have a blog post discussing what happened. )

Being a Tortoise isn't all sunshine and rainbows however.

Cardano's funding, research, and verification model of development means that producing a working and vetted feature within the Cardano ecosystem can take a LONG time. IOHK and Cardano also gave up features and abilities that are retained within Ethereum including a faster pace of innovation, inherent full decentralization, and an arguably much lower bar to cross for users to develop on the Ethereum blockchain.

The Ethereum Foundation:

Ethereum is the brainchild of Vitalik Buterin, a Russian born developer and computer scientist. Vitalik first gained notoriety when the Bitcoin Whitepaper caught his attention in 2009/2010. Vitalik’s interest eventually pushed him to co-found the Bitcoin Magazine in 2011 where he continued to create posts about cryptocurrency and decentralized economics. During this time, Vitalik learned of the limitations of something like Bitcoin and understood that changes and features would need to be added if this were to scale appropriately. Starting in 2013, Vitalik began writing his own Whitepaper for a new currency, Ethereum. Ethereum was designed to fill holes in Bitcoin’s functionality while also allowing for increased involvement from outside developers - hence the eventual creation of the Ethereum Foundation in 2014. 

The Ethereum Foundation describes itself as the following:

“The EF is not a company, or even a traditional non-profit. Their role is not to control or lead Ethereum, nor are they the only organization that funds critical development of Ethereum-related technologies. The EF is one part of a much larger ecosystem.”

In other words, development work is not done directly by developers hired by Ethereum, but rather grants and funding/resources are given to those who simply work within the Ethereum ecosystem. This open-source style of development means that many more people are working on the Ethereum blockchain at a given time in comparison to Cardano, but that work might not be synced together. Changes to the blockchain and features are rapid meaning “cool stuff” can be made quickly and easily. The link below shows the the myriad of ways you can get involved with Ethereum and contribute to it’s development:

https://ethereum.org/en/community/

This is where my personal hesitation on Ethereum comes in. When I visit that site as a business, I have no idea who to contact or what central agency can help me implement Ethereum into my business. It’s up to me to know how I want to implement the blockchain into my business and up to me to find developers from there. Cardano on the other hand, has a handy link and a physical address helping to establish a physical presence similar to what companies are used to dealing with now. The link below illustrates this. 

https://iohk.io/en/contact-commercial

Working in IT, there are governing bodies and agencies which set protocol standards to support security and reliability of hardware and software. Without these organizing bodies, technology in Enterprise environments would be the “wild west” and invariably efficiency & reliability would go down. These standards are why I can reliably connect an HDMI cable to any HDMI port and it “just works”. By structuring a foundation like Ethereum has, I worry that development work might get disorganized or be  a source of frustration for a typical business to implement. On the other hand, Cardano and IOHK are unbearably slow to develop and implement so it has it’s own downsides. 

Regardless of all of these facts, I can’t say reliably where either of these will go in the future which is why I hold both currencies. Maybe Ethereum is too ahead of it’s time and Cardano is stuck in the past? Maybe there is a middle ground that someone will snatch up? I hope you learned as much as I did in this post....This is not meant to advise investment decisions but merely to provide context for the vision of these companies (or foundations). Let me know your thoughts in comments below or on Twitter!

[kyles-tech-world]

Ran (hobbled??) along the Polecat loop yesterday after work. Not ready for the length but views were spectacular as were the 🦌 we saw at the end of the run. Thanks to mi hombre @oz.aguiar for keeping me humble and motivated. Next up is Cervidae Peak eh amigo?😁🤟 https://www.instagram.com/p/CT8Jb9qPODOL5dhNVEHBHWMdJfrw_Nzk8OnNkE0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[kyles-tech-world]

Hiked Westland Valley Trail a couple of weeks ago and snapped this photo of a couple friends. Good times with good people (at Boise, Idaho) https://www.instagram.com/p/CT42aNrFuoj73uOIefY62AhpAXkSgyb76YMx900/?utm_medium=tumblr

[kyles-tech-world]

Linux File System’s & Their History

Foreword: Linux file systems have been some of the most confusing to deal with in my experience. My experience of course, being that of installing distros and not understanding why the GRUB prompt shows a ill-partitioned disk, or indicating some other problem with how the partitions have been formatted. This gap in knowledge leads me to pulling my hair out and reinstalling Linux more often than attempting repairs to file systems. This post serves to teach me more about how the Linux File System works and hopefully serves as a resource for you to learn as well.

History:

EXT or Extended File System was created in 1992 by Remy Card to overcome limitations of the original Unix file system and it's successor named MINIX. EXT needed to exist because MINIX had limitations including a lack of large partition sizing (max of 64MB) and a limit to the length of file names (14 characters) which Remy aimed to fix. By 1993, ext2 was being developed by Remy Card as a replacement for the original ext file system. Following this in 2001, ext3 was created to add support for Journaling which is an important foundation of memory devices today. Journaling allows the File System to keep a record of every transaction or transfer within the file system. The record helps prevent corrupted data following a system crash as well as potentially provide speed increases during transfers. As of today, 4 versions of ext have been produced with the most recent version being ext4 (kinda figures huh?).

Features:

Some of the differences between these file systems can be confusing, so I laid out the chart below which will hopefully help:

MINIX: + Basic File Access + Less Complex than UFS

ext: + 2GB File Size + > 64MB Partition Sizes

ext2: + > 16GB File Size (Depending on Block Size) + Up to 32TB Max File System Size

ext3: + Journaled + Allowed in-place upgrades from ext2 to ext3

ext4: + Current default for Debian and Ubuntu + 16TB Max File Size + 1 EB File System Size (That's 1 Billion GB!!) + Backwards Compatible + Unlimited Sub-directories + Improved Timestamps

Future Outlook:

Clearly the latest ext4 has benefits that should last us far into the future. As data gathering and storage become cheaper and more ubiquitous, it's not hard to imagine a world where you can use 1,000's of GB's worth of data very quickly. Having an "extended" (pardon the pun) feature-set for your file systems that continuously improves will always be needed. So, what are the Linux Foundations next steps for this file system? Are there any planned updates or a road map for future changes? Long story short - multiple file systems are in the works that can potentially replace ext4 including ZFS, XFS, and BTRFS although each of them are far from complete. ext4 is slated to stick around for the coming future until one of these 3 new systems takes over. Once they do, you can be sure I'll have an update here explaining my frustrations with that one as well! Until next time.....

[kyles-tech-world]

What is Microsoft Exchange Anyways?

Foreword: In my time as a Desktop Support Specialist working at University, I have been tasked with enabling Outlook w/ Mail Merge and Mass Mail. Although I can usually get this running without issues my lack  of understanding the technology behind email servers as well as security considerations for mass mail prevent me from effectively troubleshooting at times. This document serves as a learning record for the expansion of my knowledge on Exchange Servers and can hopefully serve as a brief introduction and history of Microsoft Exchange.  

A Microsoft Exchange Server is a Windows Server that contains features and protocols to allow communication through Messaging, E-Mail, and Telephone. Due to having these features reside on a Windows platform, benefits such as policy reporting, compliance, smart searching, and database manipulation are available. First released with Ver. 4.0 in 1996, Exchange allows an Enterprise to integrate their Active Directory and the personnel information it contains for easy communication, operation, and reporting. In addition, Microsoft Exchange integrates closely with the Office Suite of products allowing for supercharged productivity.

The primary purpose for Microsoft Exchange to exist was the lack of a centralized database solution for Enterprise that was interactable, synced, and provided an API for adding new functionality. In addition, the 1990's signified the explosion of proprietary email clients from large companies such as AOL, Hotmail, Mail.com, and Yahoo! Mail. None of these providers had both a directory for users, groups, machines, etc... so Microsoft used this opportunity to corner the business market (before GMail took off in Enterprise). It turns out this was a very smart move for Microsoft as Exchange has become the leading Server software for managing Organizational pieces of a business. In addition, Exchange does not allow ad-targeting for their email clients AND support HIPAA compliance which is huge for businesses. Features continue to be added to Microsoft Exchange and although other companies like Google and Apple have expanded their offering's, the roots of Microsoft Exchange are here to stay and in my (albeit biased) opinion, that's a good thing.

As great as Exchange can be, it does have some limitations including a lack of Cloud infrastructure until recently, where Microsoft offers Exchange 365 for a cheaper rate enabling businesses to integrate Enterprise level services for cheaper rates. Typically, cost has been the biggest limiting factor for Exchange in comparison to free offerings from Google which may be why many businesses opt for Google service integration instead of Microsoft. Exchange also doesn't provide robust email/spam filtering like Gmail does. You can only enable and disabled Spam & Filtering, granular control is not available.

Exchange is built on a proprietary messaging protocol named MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface). MAPI is similar to IMAP, POP3, and SMTP which all allow a server to recognize and communicate with E-mail clients such as GMail and Thunderbird. The downside to this implementation of protocol is that it tends to have issues playing nicely with GMail or POP/IMAP services. In my experience, very specific settings need to be made to allow a GMail data to communicate through an Exchange server. Typically this means users may be able to reliably send email out, but receiving and syncing email through another server may be unreliable or simply won't work at all. This limitation is important in considering which service to go with at an Enterprise level as not only do upfront costs need to be considered, but also operational costs. An organization may choose to save money by going with IMAP/GSuite and be OK with receiving limited customer support and less storage. Exchange businesses have access to greater support, security, compliance, and cross-application integration.

[kyles-tech-world]

Cryptocurrency Origins

Trade and Value have been concepts in human history that have evolved as the complexity of our society increases. The introduction of modern technology created both a massive increase in efficiency and bandwidth of trade but it is becoming increasingly clear that the trope of running overspending and “printing more money” is not a long term solution for both the United States as well as the world as a whole. Since the early 1980′s people have begun looking at ways to improve the weaknesses of the economic transaction engine but it wasn’t until the turn of the 2010′s that Cryptocurrency was seen as the front-runner for fixing Trade and Value systems around the world. This serves as a brief history of the invention of concepts behind Crypto. 

Modern cryptographic software solutions began with a cryptographer named David Chaum in the 1980's who created the "blinding" algorithm. This algorithm was a method for sending unalterable messages to another party. David then created DigiCash in the Netherlands which was a centralized for-profit company that sold digital currency based on this blinding algorithm. Forced to deal with banks only due to regulations at the time, DigiCash was looking for a way out. Microsoft initially offered to pickup the tech, but the deal fell through.

Through the early 1990's, the foundations for "decentralization" and "blockchaining" would be researched and released by Wei Dai and Nick Szabo respectively (Pieces to the puzzle slowly coming into play). A slow roll, eventually companies like WebMoney (Russian) and PayPal (US) were invented using similar pieces of the technology backbone. Up until 2009, Florida based e-gold became a modern example of employing unsecured crypto technology. Users can send gold in and they receive "e-gold" coins which could be exchanged for pure gold or US currency. Due to its lack of security features, it disbanded in 2009 as a result of abuse. 

Bitcoin quickly followed these following a release of a research paper by a pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Bitcoin is regarded as the first platform to "get it right" by having the following: + Publicly Available + Decentralized + User Anonymity + Ledger via Blockchain + Built-in scarcity to provide value

I’ll go over the specifics of technologies like Bitcoin and how they operate over a network and interact with transaction ledgers (history of transactions like banks store for us now) in a separate post, but these principles and slow steps from the 1980′s until now have clarified and defined the need for a 1. Decentralized, 2. Cryptographically Secure, and 3. Scalable monetary transaction system to replace and modernize the world and concepts of Value and Trade. 

If you would like to learn more about Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin’s Origins, more information can be found at the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin

[kyles-tech-world]

About Me

Welcome to my blog! I intend to use this as an easy way to showcase the topics I am actively learning about as well as reflect my thoughts and opinions on said topics. At the moment I am heavily interested in Computer Systems, Coding, Philosophy, and Crypto/DeFi. I also have varying levels of interest in topics including History, Science, Art, Music, and Nature so there may be some posts about that as well. Eventually I plan to have a website that hosts projects and can showcase some of my creations a little better, but for now Tumblr seems like a great solution to get thoughts and notes down as I learn about this amazing world of ours. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the musings of this particular ape as he navigates the human condition.