Unsigned integer means an integer that hasn’t been cryptographically signed by the chain of blocks right?
The verdict quotes this exchange (page 163):
Q: Just out of curiosity, do you know what unsigned means in that?
A: I do. Basically it’s unsigned variable, it’s not an integer with–
Q: With what?
A: It’s larger. I’m not sure how – I mean, on the stand here, I’m not sure how I’d say it, but –
Q: Take a wild guess.
A: How I would describe it, I’m not quite sure. I know what it is.
Q: Okay.
A: I’m not terribly good when I’m trying to do things like this. Writing it down would be different.
Q: Well, do you recall you mentioned that you had a book by Professor Stroustrup?
A: I do.
Q: You haven’t disclosed that book, but you have disclosed three other books about C++, so I want to take you to one of those. It’s {L1/199/1}, and could we go to page 47. Do you see that it explains that “unsigned” means that it cannot be negative?
A: Yes, I do understand that. Would I have thought of saying it in such a simple way? No.
one of the things that I really love about this is that, while there are indeed some nuances you can get into (platforms/archs, number theory, internal representations, …), it’s one of the rare computerwords in english that you could viably reason about on first principles without knowing much and get a sortacorrect answer
Unsigned integers are larger because… Because the containing variables don’t have a signature that crypto-statically constrains it to the lower set! (Yes that must be it)
Unsigned integer means an integer that hasn’t been cryptographically signed by the chain of blocks right?The verdict quotes this exchange (page 163):
one of the things that I really love about this is that, while there are indeed some nuances you can get into (platforms/archs, number theory, internal representations, …), it’s one of the rare computerwords in english that you could viably reason about on first principles without knowing much and get a sortacorrect answer
and yet
Unsigned integers are larger because… Because the containing variables don’t have a signature that crypto-statically constrains it to the lower set! (Yes that must be it)
“my computer’s so secure! it does mean I can only use 32-bit applications on this 64-bit cpu, but alas. all for security!”
(even typing that made me wince. I hope anyone who had to deal with 32->64 in any capacity some years ago doesn’t get hurt reading this)