For someone like me who has some money invested in bitcoins and other cryptocoins (especially litecoin), seeing Atlantis rising (a drug market using litecoin as the main currency) was a very good news. Sadly they had to shutdown months after not doing so much for the https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_usd" target="_blank">LTC value.
Here's Silk Road's head statement on the news :
Atlantis was good for Silk Road and the community at large and I am sad to see it go. Yes they were a bit cocky and aggressive, but they never crossed the line and did anything unethical, and they served their customers well. They reminded us in the Silk Road administration that to stay #1, we have to be constantly thinking of our users and how to serve them best and can not take for granted your loyalty.
There has been more than one occasion where I have wanted to quit as well. Without going into details, the stress of being DPR is sometimes overwhelming. What keeps me going is the understanding that what we are doing here is more important than my insignificant little life. I believe what we are doing will have rippling effects for generations to come and could be part of a monumental shift in how human beings organize and relate to one another.
I have gone through the mental exercise of spending a lifetime in prison and of dying for this cause. I have let the fear pass through me and with clarity commit myself fully to the mission and values outlined in the Silk Road charter. If you haven’t read it yet, please do. Here is the link:
“(link omitted)”
The bottom line is… Silk Road is here to stay so long as there is breath in my lungs, a spark in my mind, and fire in my heart. I know many of you in this community feel the same way and is an honor to stand beside you here.
Lastly, to anyone considering opening another market, you WILL face unexpected challenges one way or another, and if you don’t have the conviction to overcome them then your efforts will likely be in vain. And please open up a dialogue with me if you do open another site. Even competitors can talk from time to time on friendly terms :)
Atlantis admins, if you are reading this, I hope you stick around and contribute as you are able.
I have at the moment 5 classes which are all taught in french (I guess because there are not enough foreigners this year), but some of them use english for their slides.
Programmation
Nothing really new to me, some people coming from the same bachelor as I (mathematics) have difficulties getting to know Linux and programming as a whole for the first time. I'm used to coding so I'm pretty confident (I shouldn't relax too much though). We started on a fast-course on C, GCC, Emacs, SVN... and will move on later with Java.
It's taught by Emmanuel Fleury who is a very chill professor, good vibe, very easy to talk to. And the best part is that everything he talks about is online here so if you're interested in the course I'm taking you can have a look there.
PS: we're learning a bit of LaTeX AND will have to submit final reports in LaTeX. This is great as I have sought a good occasion to learn it for a while.
PS2: I'm using LearnXinYminutes.com to get back into C (haven't coded in C for more than 4 years). It's a great website and I recommend it to you if you want to learn something about any language and already have knowledge in programming.
Théorie de l'information
Taught by the head of the Cryptology Master, Gilles Zemor, the course seems like an introduction to some of the concepts around Cryptography. Our first classes were about Entropy (which I talked about a bit in the previous post) and easy notions of probability. Here are the professor's notes about the course.
Arithmétique
The only "real" Math course we have, and I'm a bit surprised since this is a "Mathematics" Master". It's essentially about rings, it's about stuff I already learned. Nothing really captivating at the moment.
Automates et Complexité
This is one of the most intriguing course, people coming from an IT bachelor seem to have no problem with it. I don't really understand the point of learning this but I like it, it's a lot like Regular Expressions and is about logic more than learning concepts by heart. As a programmer it just seems like funny games to me :) (it might get more difficult very quickly).
Note : it's taught by Anca Muscholl.
Réseaux
The only course I had to choose, but we didn't have much choice since they removed half of the available courses including the one I wanted to take (Probability). The course is taught by... it's a rapid introduction about network concept. I'm not really into it, it speaks too briefly about many things, some are interesting, some are not. I was supposed to have an application class but apparently our professor fell asleep on his way (he's narcoleptic).
Overall I was surprised by the absence of real "cryptology courses". But the professors told us they would come very quickly in the second semester, so nothing to worry about.
Hey guys, I'm David Wong, a 24 years old french dude who's going to start a Master of Cryptology in the university of Bordeaux 1.
Cryptology (or as Americans like to call it: Cryptography, because we all know they don't care about etymology) is the study of the techniques for secure communications (thanks Wikipedia!), from withdrawing money with a fake credit card to establishing a safe phone conversation between two government officials, it can mean a lot of things... I still have no clue what my future job will be, that's why I had the idea of making this small blog where I could post about my ventures into this new world and, hopefully, being able to take a step back and see what I did, what I liked, what happened in two years of Master (and maybe more).
I've already took Cryptography I given by Dan Boneh from Stanford and I must say I really enjoyed going through his course. Might be one of the most interesting and eloquent teacher I had in my life, and I have never met him. Had a few back and forth mail exchanges with him but sadly, there was no collaboration between our universities. California I'll see you later in life I guess.
I'll also post some thoughts about the new city I'll be moving to : Bordeaux. This is for at least 2 years, or less if I change my mind. Anyway, this is going to be exciting!
I successfully found a new place after less than two weeks of exhausting research.
It's a pain looking for a place in Bordeaux, a real pain, and fortunately I'm french (I've seen lots of places that wouldn't take foreigners). But I found a place! After squatting at 