Fwd: Does the bloom filter pose risks to consumer-wide acceptance of BitCoin?

[Jonathan Camilleri <ca...@gmail.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Camilleri <ca...@gmail.com>
Date: 29 December 2013 11:47
Subject: Does the bloom filter pose risks to consumer-wide acceptance of
BitCoin?
To: helpdesk@spectrocoin.com


Caruana (2013) contends that bitcoin uses a bloom filter to verify payments
reducing the time it takes to search for payments by matching across a
number of hashkeys using bitwise operators, rather then scanning the whole
network.  This may lead to a number of false positives from a probabilistic
point of view.  Bloom filter seems to be the underlying technology used
within various distributed data engines including Apache Accumolo.

How does your company cover this technical risk?
Has BitCoin gained acceptance of the European Central Bank as yet?
I have not to date come across the equivalent exchange rate used for
BitCoin, is there a table of exchange rates published?

References
1. Look algorithm using bloom filter
http://godwincaruana.me/lookalgorithmtechnique-bloom-filter/
2. Bloom Filter, available online at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter.
3. Apache Accumolo - http://accumulo.apache.org/mailing_list.html

Regards,

-- 
Jonathan Camilleri
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathancamilleri

Mobile (MT): ++356 7982 7113
E-mail: camilleri.jon@gmail.com
Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this
e-mail.

I usually reply to e-mails within 2 business days.  If it's urgent, give me
a call.



-- 
Jonathan Camilleri

Mobile (MT): ++356 7982 7113
E-mail: camilleri.jon@gmail.com
Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this
e-mail.

I usually reply to e-mails within 2 business days.  If it's urgent, give me
a call.

Re: Does the bloom filter pose risks to consumer-wide acceptance of BitCoin?

[Christopher <ct...@apache.org>]

Jon-

I have no knowledge of BitCoin, but bloom filters are designed to
allow for false positives, but guarantee no false negatives. While
Apache Accumulo does not depend on bloom filters as a core underlying
technology, they are optionally used in per-file indexes to quickly
avoid searching data files that cannot possibly match a given query,
as a performance enhancement.

In the case of false positives for Accumulo, it simply means that more
data is searched through than necessary. But, since there can be no
false negatives, we can skip reading any files when examining the
bloom filter results in a negative... because the desired data cannot
possibly be found in that file.

I cannot speak for BitCoin, but any other correct reliance on bloom
filters likely operates quite similarly, quickly eliminating
non-matches, to limit the search within the potential matches of
positives and false positives.



--
Christopher L Tubbs II
http://gravatar.com/ctubbsii


On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 7:37 AM, Jonathan Camilleri
<ca...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jonathan Camilleri <ca...@gmail.com>
> Date: 29 December 2013 11:47
> Subject: Does the bloom filter pose risks to consumer-wide acceptance of
> BitCoin?
> To: helpdesk@spectrocoin.com
>
>
> Caruana (2013) contends that bitcoin uses a bloom filter to verify payments
> reducing the time it takes to search for payments by matching across a
> number of hashkeys using bitwise operators, rather then scanning the whole
> network.  This may lead to a number of false positives from a probabilistic
> point of view.  Bloom filter seems to be the underlying technology used
> within various distributed data engines including Apache Accumolo.
>
> How does your company cover this technical risk?
> Has BitCoin gained acceptance of the European Central Bank as yet?
> I have not to date come across the equivalent exchange rate used for
> BitCoin, is there a table of exchange rates published?
>
> References
> 1. Look algorithm using bloom filter
> http://godwincaruana.me/lookalgorithmtechnique-bloom-filter/
> 2. Bloom Filter, available online at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter.
> 3. Apache Accumolo - http://accumulo.apache.org/mailing_list.html
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Jonathan Camilleri
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathancamilleri
>
> Mobile (MT): ++356 7982 7113
> E-mail: camilleri.jon@gmail.com
> Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this
> e-mail.
>
> I usually reply to e-mails within 2 business days.  If it's urgent, give me
> a call.
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Camilleri
>
> Mobile (MT): ++356 7982 7113
> E-mail: camilleri.jon@gmail.com
> Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this
> e-mail.
>
> I usually reply to e-mails within 2 business days.  If it's urgent, give me
> a call.