{"product_id":"bits-to-bitcoin-how-our-digital-stuff-works-9780262037938","title":"Bits to Bitcoin: How Our Digital Stuff Works","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn accessible guide to our digital infrastructure  explaining the basics of operating systems  networks  security  and other topics for the general reader. Most of us feel at home in front of a computer; we own smartphones  tablets  and laptops; we look things up online and check social media to see what our friends are doing. But we may be a bit fuzzy about how any of this really works. In Bits to Bitcoin  Mark Stuart Day offers an accessible guide to our digital infrastructure  explaining the basics of operating systems  networks  security  and related topics for the general reader. He takes the reader from a single process to multiple processes that interact with each other; he explores processes that fail and processes that overcome failures; and he examines processes that attack each other or defend themselves against attacks. Day tells us that steps are digital but ramps are analog; that computation is about doing something with stuff and that both the stuff and the doing can be digital. He explains timesharing  deadlock  and thrashing; virtual memory and virtual machines; packets and networks; resources and servers; secret keys and public keys; Moores law and Thompsons hack. He describes how building in redundancy guards against failure and how endpoints communicate across the Internet. He explains why programs crash or have other bugs  why they are attacked by viruses  and why those problems are hard to fix. Finally  after examining secrets  trust  and cheating  he explains the mechanisms that allow the Bitcoin system to record money transfers accurately while fending off attacks.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67958673571893,"sku":"ByrdShop_0262037939","price":27.51,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780262037938.jpg?v=1794476097","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/bits-to-bitcoin-how-our-digital-stuff-works-9780262037938","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}