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OpenTimestamps
OpenTimestamps (OTS) is an open-source project that aims to provide a standard format for blockchain timestamping. With the advent of systems like Bitcoin, it is possible to create and verify proofs of existence of documents (timestamps) without relying on a trusted third party; this represents an enhancement in terms of security, since it excludes the possibility of a malicious (or careless) trusted third party to compromise the timestamp. OTS defines a set of rules for conveniently creating timestamps and later independently verifying them. Currently, timestamping with Bitcoin is fully supported, however the format is flexible enough to support a variety of methods. Anyone could create timestamps with the permissionless blockchain by paying the transaction fees, for convenience OTS built an infrastructure that aggregates timestamp requests from users and packs them into transactions funded by public calendar servers; as a result, users can timestamp for free, in a trust-minimi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GitHub
GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug tracking system, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. Headquartered in California, GitHub, Inc. has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018. It is commonly used to host open source software development projects. GitHub reported having over 100 million developers and more than 420 million Repository (version control), repositories, including at least 28 million public repositories. It is the world's largest source code host Over five billion developer contributions were made to more than 500 million open source projects in 2024. About Founding The development of the GitHub platform began on October 19, 2005. The site was launched in April 2008 by Tom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defensive Publication
A defensive publication, or defensive disclosure, is an intellectual property strategy used to prevent another party from obtaining a patent on a product, apparatus or method for instance. The strategy consists in disclosing an enabling description and/or drawing of the product, apparatus or method so that it enters the public domain and becomes prior art. Therefore, the defensive publication of perhaps otherwise patentable information may work to defeat the novelty of a subsequent patent application. Unintentional defensive publication by incidental disclosure can render intellectual property as prior art. One reason why companies decide to use defensive publication over patents is cost. In the United States, for example, to obtain a published patent application, one must incur at least filing fee, examination fee, search fees, and early publication fees (currently $530, minimum plus $300 for early publication), and meet the filing requirements for a proper patent application. : ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic Number (programming)
In computer programming, a magic number is any of the following: * A unique value with unexplained meaning or multiple occurrences which could (preferably) be replaced with a named constant * A constant numerical or text value used to identify a file format or protocol ) * A distinctive unique value that is unlikely to be mistaken for other meanings (e.g., Universally Unique Identifiers) Unnamed numerical constants The term ''magic number'' or ''magic constant'' refers to the anti-pattern of using numbers directly in source code. This breaks one of the oldest rules of programming, dating back to the COBOL, FORTRAN and PL/1 manuals of the 1960s. In the following example that computes the price after tax, 1.05 is considered a magic number: price_tax = 1.05 * price The use of unnamed magic numbers in code obscures the developers' intent in choosing that number, increases opportunities for subtle errors, and makes it more difficult for the program to be adapted and extended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filename Extension
A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (for example, .txt, .mp3, .exe) that indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically delimited from the rest of the filename with a full stop (period), but in some systems it is separated with spaces. Some file systems, such as the FAT file system used in DOS, implement filename extensions as a feature of the file system itself and may limit the length and format of the extension, while others, such as Unix file systems, the VFAT file system, and NTFS, treat filename extensions as part of the filename without special distinction. Operating system and file system support The Multics file system stores the file name as a single string, not split into base name and extension components, allowing the "." to be just another character allowed in file names. It allows for variable-length filenames, permitting more than o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Character Encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical values that make up a character encoding are known as code points and collectively comprise a code space or a code page. Early character encodings that originated with optical or electrical telegraphy and in early computers could only represent a subset of the characters used in written languages, sometimes restricted to Letter case, upper case letters, Numeral system, numerals and some punctuation only. Over time, character encodings capable of representing more characters were created, such as ASCII, the ISO/IEC 8859 encodings, various computer vendor encodings, and Unicode encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16. The Popularity of text encodings, most popular character encoding on the World Wide Web is UTF-8, which is used in 98.2% of surve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Binary File
A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document files containing formatted text, such as older Microsoft Word document files, contain the text of the document but also contain formatting information in binary form. Background and terminology All modern computers store information in the form of bits (binary digits), using binary code. For this reason, all data stored on a computer is, in some sense, "binary". However, one particularly useful and ubiquitous type of data stored on a computer is one in which the bits represent text, by way of a character encoding. Those files are called " text files" and files which are not like that are referred to as "binary files", as a sort of retronym or hypernym. Some "text files" contain portions that are actually binary data, and many "binary fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Node (networking)
In Computer network, networking, a node (, ‘knot’) is either a redistribution point or a communication endpoint within telecommunication networks. A physical network node is an electronic device that is attached to a network, and is capable of creating, receiving, or transmitting information over a communication channel. In data communication, a physical network node may either be data communication equipment (such as a modem, Network hub, hub, Network bridge, bridge or Network switch, switch) or data terminal equipment (such as a digital telephone handset, a printer or a host computer). A Passivity (engineering), passive distribution point such as a distribution frame or patch panel is not a node. Computer networks In data communication, a physical network node may either be data communication equipment (DCE) such as a modem, Network hub, hub, Network bridge, bridge or Network switch, switch; or data terminal equipment (DTE) such as a digital telephone handset, a printe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptographic Nonce
In cryptography, a nonce is an arbitrary number that can be used just once in a cryptographic communication. It is often a random or pseudo-random number issued in an authentication protocol to ensure that each communication session is unique, and therefore that old communications cannot be reused in replay attacks. Nonces can also be useful as initialization vectors and in cryptographic hash functions. Definition A nonce is an arbitrary number used only once in a cryptographic communication, in the spirit of a nonce word. They are often random or pseudo-random numbers. Many nonces also include a timestamp to ensure exact timeliness, though this requires clock synchronisation between organisations. The addition of a client nonce ("cnonce") helps to improve the security in some ways as implemented in digest access authentication. To ensure that a nonce is used only once, it should be time-variant (including a suitably fine-grained timestamp in its value), or generated w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concatenation
In formal language theory and computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining character strings end-to-end. For example, the concatenation of "snow" and "ball" is "snowball". In certain formalizations of concatenation theory, also called string theory, string concatenation is a primitive notion. Syntax In many programming languages, string concatenation is a binary infix operator, and in some it is written without an operator. This is implemented in different ways: * Overloading the plus sign + Example from C#: "Hello, " + "World" has the value "Hello, World". * Dedicated operator, such as . in PHP, & in Visual Basic, and , , in SQL. This has the advantage over reusing + that it allows implicit type conversion to string. * string literal concatenation, which means that adjacent strings are concatenated without any operator. Example from C: "Hello, " "World" has the value "Hello, World". In many scientific publications or standards the con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SHA-2
SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) is a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and first published in 2001. They are built using the Merkle–Damgård construction, from a one-way compression function itself built using the Davies–Meyer structure from a specialized block cipher. SHA-2 includes significant changes from its predecessor, SHA-1. The SHA-2 family consists of six hash functions with digests (hash values) that are 224, 256, 384 or 512 bits: SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA-512/224, SHA-512/256. SHA-256 and SHA-512 are hash functions whose digests are eight 32-bit and 64-bit words, respectively. They use different shift amounts and additive constants, but their structures are otherwise virtually identical, differing only in the number of rounds. SHA-224 and SHA-384 are truncated versions of SHA-256 and SHA-512 respectively, computed with different initial values. SHA-512/224 and SHA-512/256 are also truncate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (abbreviation: ETH) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-source software. Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin. Other founders include Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin. In 2014, development work began and was crowdfunded, and the network went live on 30 July 2015. Ethereum allows anyone to deploy decentralized applications onto it, with which users can interact. Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications provide financial instruments that do not directly rely on financial intermediaries like brokerages, exchanges, or banks. This facilitates borrowing against cryptocurrency holdings or lending them out for interest. Ethereum also allows users to create and exchange non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are tokens that can be tied to un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
