And a minimal CSS framework.
238 karma · joined October 26, 2010
Perhaps the AI age makes everyone more data privacy conscious.
I've also long thought that eventually every household will eventually have a mini server for home automation and storing personal information. The rise of the cloud kinda slowed this down, but I don't think cloud and home server are mutually exclusive.
Of course the hard part is gaining enough critical mass to make a significant switch. JSON had AJAX. YAML had Rails. What could make JSON5 or KDL break out?
You could ask what would happen if Cisco tried to force a new version of TCP/IP with unwelcome changes?
The comparison isn't quite the same yet, but it could be in the future and many bitcoin supporters think that's how it will turn out.
Bitcoin has a chance at becoming a currency because in the past it has been hard to reach a global consensus on value.
It may be possible to use a bitcoin based timestamping solution like https://github.com/goblin/chronobit to record the rights, but I can't see where the incentive is for everybody to support a distributed database of such rights.
The deflationary nature of bitcoin is it's hardest aspect to defend because there really hasn't been anything like it in history before. A finite asset that is easy to transfer over long distances without central interferance really is unprecedented.
I think you have bought in to the bitcoin fantasy that it will be the only currency in use. I don't think that will ever happen for a variety of reasons. If gold and fiat can coexist why not bitcoin too?. Loaning bitcoins seems to be a crazy proposition, so I suspect inflationary currencies will stick around just for that reason. Not to mention bitcoin by itself is fairly terrible for in person transactions, if you add a service on top what is the difference for the customer between that and a credit card company?. Fiat is useful and solves problems that bitcoin doesn't.
Regarding mining, I have my own concerns, bitcoin proponents love to describe mining as “securing the network” and equate it with vaults and security guards used in banks. This comparison is at least partly flawed, mining prevents double spends and nothing else. It's certainly true that a centralized ledger could prevent double spends for tiny fraction of the cost of mining, but globally who can be trusted by all parties to adminster it?. The comparison isn't one sided however, it is much cheaper to securely store (and move) bitcoins than gold for example.
Energy use is tricky, preserving the environment should be a top a priority, but should we aspire to use less energy?. One question I have often asked but never got a good answer to, how much of the worlds energy needs to be devoted to mining to prevent a 51% attack?. If it is north of 30% of the worlds energy output then right now that would seem a huge waste. But if we had access to cheaper, cleaner renewable energy, would it still be a problem?.
Malware?, it's just a symptom of larger problem, computer security is terrible. No one is really sure who to plame, users, applications, operating systems and hardware makers all come into the firing line. If bitcoin pushes forward computer security surely that can only be a good thing?.
I'm unconvinced about whether greshams law applies to mining due to the performance disparity between ASICs and CPU/GPUs, but surely if computer security improves this problem diminishes?.
Either the leak is justified or it's not. Either way the press is not responsible.
If the leak is not justified then the blame lies with the leaker and the organisation that the info was leaked from. If private companies poorly secure customer info they often get fined, but there seems to be no comeback when the leak involves a government.
The situation I worry about more is when someone is operating outside of the law, for example if you legitimately but unknowingly end up with some coins that were previously stolen, and then some guys with baseball bats turn up at your house.
You could say that the creator of Bitcoin decreed that it had value (I'm not sure I would agree), but it's still different from government backed money because nobody is forced to use Bitcoin (to pay taxes for example).
It certainly seems that within the Bitcoin community the word fiat now means government backed money, I suspect if Bitcoin becomes more successful it may end up redefining the word.
Yes there are a lot of CCTV cameras, there are a lot in most American cities too, in both cases most of them are operated privately.
What is different is that Britain has a much higher population density, so the surveillance appears more obvious, and makes for some skewed stats.
As for GCHQ, I would be surprised if they were notably worse than the NSA when it comes to snooping.
What I can't argue with though, is that there is definitely a perceived democratic deficit in the EU. I won't argue about whether it is real or not, it doesn't matter, what does is a lot of Europeans (not just the British) don't like EU bureaucracy.
Freeways is an interesting one, most places license people to drive, for very good reasons (just one of them being a help to law enforcement).
It seems like a bit of silly argument considering I don't believe a truly anonymous untraceable currency is possible but let's suppose it is. My pessimistic nature makes me think that the top 3 things it would be used for would be tax evasion, bribery and extortion.
Hypothetically someone steals a lot of money from somebody else, if the amount is large enough the victim may be willing to do a lot of detective work in order to trace the funds.
This detective work might include...
* Blockchain analysis
* Offering money to bitcoin mixers in return for information
* Traditional private investigation
Cash has the same problem, bills can be tracked if the parties involved are motivated enough. Cash does go a long way to providing privacy though, for example in days gone by a husband might have bought a pornographic magazine with cash and the wife would be unaware.
This will annoy the libertarian crowd, but a truly anonymous and untraceable medium of exchange is not only most likely impossible, but also undesirable. The failed war on drugs aside, a lot of the things people want to do completely anonymously are illegal for good reasons (CP, human trafficking, etc).
It remains to be seen if bitcoin can offer the same kind of privacy that cash does, if bitcoin adoption continues I expect blockchain analysis to become very sophisticated.
What actually is happening here, is that miners have the opportunity to put a small amount of arbitrary data in a block when they mine. Ideally this is should be random data, its purpose is to change the data being hashed so you get a different hash each time you try.
In my view the author of bitcoin set a bad precedent by including a newspaper headline referring to bank bailouts in the very first block. However I can't begrudge him for that too much. Since 2009, people have included prayers and accusations of illegal activity (trolling) in blocks.
Assuming increased bitcoin adoption, I see mining getting more and more centralized, already I don't think any of the major mining pools would be silly enough to include CP or other illegal content. It would take many blocks to store a non trivial sized image in the blockchain, and if they put a link in instead then of course the host could be taken down.
I can see a federated exchange, lot's of exchanges using using each others liquidity to do trades.
Remembering 10 random words in order isn't that much easier than 10 random alpha numeric chars and symbols. The words might have some mnemonic value, but the point is, if you need entropy, don't mess about, use a real private key.
Whether you realise it or not, what you want from a private key is lots of entropy.
A simple pass phrase is easily cracked, a complicated one is hard to remember (and it needs to be remembered exactly).
There may potentially be a small amount of middle ground here, particularly if your memory is very good, but what happens if you get dementia as you get older?.
If you must use a pass phrase, use it to encrypt a truly random private key, this way the only the private key is exposed to the blockchain. An attacker would need the encrypted copy of your private key to brute force it, don't keep this online unless you need to send bitcoins.
I just think the term is misleading, especially to people who don't know much about bitcoin.