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okTurtles Blog
Company blog · blog.okturtles.comsecurityprogramming
okTurtles Blog is the company blog at blog.okturtles.com, writing about security and programming. Since 2014, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times, most often “The Zcash Catch”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
okTurtles blog, linked in HN threads as a critique of ZCash and as background on SSL certificates and self-hosted email. Commenters cite its posts as support for their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Supporting beneficial decentralization technologies.
Most-linked posts?
- The Zcash Catch3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-03-02
- Introducing the dotDNS metaTLD2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-03-01
- How to Compromise Zcash and Take Over the World2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-09-12
- Certificate transparency on blockchains2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-03-25
- Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-02
- CONIKS vs. Key Transparency vs. Certificate Transparency vs. Blockchains2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-04-13
- The Trouble with Certificate Transparency2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-24
What Hacker News says?
ZCash requires a trusted setup, takes a 20% fee from miners, and active mixing requires 8GB of RAM. https://blog.okturtles.com/2016/03/the-zcash-catch/ http://weuse.cash/2016/06/09/btc-xmr-zcash/ If you are interested in anonymous blockchains, I highly encourage you to look into Monero. It meets or exceeds that of ZCash. And Monero's RingCT is currently implemented and in use on TestNet with a target "go-live" this…
Comment linking /2016/03/the-zcash-catch/
on “ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency”Submitted Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives as a story · 316 points
HN discussionCertificate Transparency does little to solve this problem. It doesn't stop MITM attacks. It might have a chance of helping a small number of companies that have the resources to monitor all logs, but that's after the attack and only if all relevant CAs are participating in the system. It gives ordinary users nothing and requires sysadmins to go to extreme lengths. Most websites are unlikely to benefit: https://blog…
Comment linking /2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/
on “Government-Linked Certificate Authorities in OS X”Submitted Dell, Google, and Internet Security as a story · 91 points
HN discussion> Huh? Read the post, it's all there: https://blog.okturtles.com/2014/09/the-trouble-with-certific...
Comment linking /2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/
on “Google warns of unauthorized TLS certificates trusted by almost all OSes”Submitted DNSChain 0.5 released, brings full HTTPS support, Openname Resolver API and more as a story · 77 points
HN discussion> Certificate Transparency is a solution CT would not have prevented these attacks. Google would be exactly where they are right now: knowing who issued cert, and that's it. Short form: https://github.com/okTurtles/dnschain/blob/master/docs/Compa... Long form: https://blog.okturtles.com/2014/09/the-trouble-with-certific... (EDIT: How about an honest discussion instead of a downvote? If you disagree, you are welcome…
Comment linking /2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/
on “Google warns of unauthorized TLS certificates trusted by almost all OSes”Submitted Introducing the dotDNS metaTLD as a story · 76 points
HN discussionWe wrote a blog post to answer this question: https://blog.okturtles.com/2015/03/certificate-transparency-...
Comment linking /2015/03/certificate-transparency-on-blockchains/
on “Maintaining Digital Certificate Security”Submitted Proof of Transition: New Thin Client Technique for Blockchains as a story · 34 points
HN discussion> I wonder if certificate transparency could be mandated for intermediate certificates sooner than a full DV rollout could. It should be mentioned that Certificate Transparency would not have prevented this attack (nor any other such attack). Google has nothing to gain from CT beyond where they are right now: knowing who issued the cert. Details: https://blog.okturtles.com/2014/09/the-trouble-with-certific... TLDR:…
Comment linking /2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/
on “Maintaining Digital Certificate Security”Submitted Certificate transparency on blockchains as a story · 26 points
HN discussion> CT is a simple idea. On its face the idea of making a note of what certificates are created is a simple idea, but in reality CT is far from simple, and it does not actually "fix" these sorts of problems. CT is an attempt a transparency, that's it. It cannot prevent MITM attacks because it allows unaffiliated third-parties to issue certificates on your website's behalf (same as X.509), something that they have no b…
Comment linking /2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/
on “Maintaining Digital Certificate Security”Submitted The Trouble with Certificate Transparency as a story · 14 points
HN discussionhttp://blog.okturtles.com/2014/09/the-trouble-with-certifica... Disclaimer: okTurtles is a competitor to the traditional CA system.
Comment linking /2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/
on “WoSign: Free two-year multi-domain SSL certificate”Submitted The Zcash Catch as a story · 9 points
HN discussionokTurtles presented a demo video at EFF CUP at SOUPS 2014 conference that also explains the basics of DNSChain in what could be an easier-to-digest manner: http://blog.okturtles.com/2014/07/okturtles-demo-at-soups-20...
Comment linking /2014/07/okturtles-demo-at-soups-2014-eff-cup-crypto-usability-prize/
on “A Blockchain-based DNS and HTTP server”Submitted How to Compromise Zcash and Take Over the World as a story · 7 points
HN discussionEven if you host your own email server, your emails are still handled by routers and the destination server unencrypted. You are not trusting others much less than not hosting your own email. If you have your own domain and you don't trust others with your conversations with others, I think you are better off hosting a chat server over an encrypted protocol, such as XMPP or IRC or https://blog.okturtles.com/2015/11/…
Comment linking /2015/11/five-open-source-slack-alternatives/
on “Ask HN: Why is it still so hard to host your own email/calendar that just works?”Submitted CONIKS vs. Key Transparency vs. Certificate Transparency vs. Blockchains as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis is an utterly stupid comment. If you read an article that slammed MongoDB's eventual consistency and encouraged people to use mysql instead would you call it a "mysql pump? This is also not the first time someone has smacked down ZCash for being ill-conceived and dangerous: https://blog.okturtles.com/2016/03/the-zcash-catch/
Comment linking /2016/03/the-zcash-catch/
on “On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and why ZCash is a bad idea”Submitted CONIKS vs. Key Transparency vs. Certificate Transparency vs. Blockchains as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWorth it? You sure? Check this out: https://blog.okturtles.com/2016/09/how-to-compromise-zcash-a...
Comment linking /2016/09/how-to-compromise-zcash-and-take-over-the-world/
on “Zcash Integration Guide”> I'm curious about this. Any references? Yes, see my post above for links about one possible cryptocurrency approach called Group Currency (disclaimer: I am one of the contributors to that idea). Group currencies can be thought of as "company-tribes" where relationships are familial instead of exchange-based. We'll post a simplified version of this scheme to https://blog.okturtles.com soon. The TLDR of the simple m…
Comment linking /
on “China’s Troubling Robot Revolution”Did you read the comment I linked to where I provided those details? Here it is again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7826443 And if you want a longer version of that, you can go here: http://blog.okturtles.com/2014/02/introducing-the-dotdns-met... > I'm no expert on CAs but saying their certs are not securely authenticated is worrying. Yes. I'm glad we agree on that. :P
Comment linking /2014/02/introducing-the-dotdns-metatld/
on “Ask HN: How bad is it to use a self-signed SSL certificate?”Some more info on what DNSChain does (it goes a bit beyond access to .bit, it also provides a RESTful and securely authenticated HTTP API to the blockchain, currently reading but writing is possible): + *.dns metaTLD (blockchain agnostic): http://blog.okturtles.com/2014/02/introducing-the-dotdns-met... + whitepaper that gives overview: http://okturtles.com/other/dnsnmc_okturtles_overview.pdf
Comment linking /2014/02/introducing-the-dotdns-metatld/
on “Show HN: A different approach against online censorship”
