Hash functions are used to uniquely identify big chunks of data. By a finger print, we don't mean a set of swirls on a piece of paper. We mean aneteof chunka data. So you take a big chunk o data, like a p d f or an e male picture. And, um, you feed it through this hash function and what comes out the other end is a short string that is sort of very uniquely tied to that piece of data you put inside. It's shorter than the original, much, much shorter. Or can be the same size as the original, and so um. Its itsa.
For something of such obvious importance, money is kind of mysterious. It can, as Homer Simpson once memorably noted, be exchanged for goods and services. But who decides exactly how many goods/services a given unit of money can buy? And what maintains the social contract that we all agree to go along with it? Technology is changing what money is and how we use it, and Neha Narula is a leader in thinking about where money is going. One much-hyped aspect is the advent of blockchain technology, which has led to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. We talk about what the blockchain really is, how it enables new kinds of currency, and from a wider perspective whether it can help restore a more individualistic, decentralized Web. Neha Narula is the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT. She obtained her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT, and worked at Google and Digg before joining the faculty there. She is an expert on scalable databases, secure software, cryptocurrencies, and online privacy.
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