Hacker News Reader

lurker456on How Calls for Privacy May Upend Business for Facebook and Google

Only when the regulatory environment demands it. Normal engineers also cut corners in third world countries with weaker protections.

lurker456on Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

That's not proof it doesn't work. If you ran the GCHQ and you had a way to track everyone, would you let it be used to solve petty crime ? Much safer to use it sparingly.

lurker456on German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

The US has software patents. The EU has GDPR. China has rampant IP theft. Russia has corruption. Every large market has peculiarities, it's the cost of doing business.

lurker456on U.S. consumer protection official puts Equifax probe on ice

I'm not convinced they're worse than an Italian version of Equifax.

lurker456on U.S. consumer protection official puts Equifax probe on ice

  1. there is less reliance on credit for day to day spending.
  2. banks are liable, so they're more careful. I don't get offers by mail for credit cards, 
     and the card I do have has stricter limits.
  3. a national ID system
  4. specifically for real estate, separate regulation exists. 
     You cant buy or sell real estate nor take out a mortgage without going through a notary 
     (heavily protected profession), who ensure that the real estate and the loan to pay for it remain linked.

lurker456on Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

banks are regulated to ensure they don't over-commit and are backed by a central bank to bail them out. That system isn't perfect, but it's a lot better then no regulation.

An unregulated system that allows fractional reserve banking can only end badly. Competition will cause private entities to take increasingly risky positions (if they don't play along, they get crowded out by those who do), and the systemic risk is unchecked. At its extreme, it becomes a ponzi scheme.

lurker456on U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

Allegedly, some exchanges commingle USD and USDT without informing their users. For exchanges that don't do that, the question "Why would exchanges even touch it ?" is less applicable.

As to why end users would touch it, that's obvious - a (potentially misguided) belief that things will work out fine.

lurker456on U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

That's where I also get confused. So far the reasons I could come up with are:

  - the exchange got bought out silently and is now owned/controlled by the people behind tether
  - the exchange got paid to use tether (for example 0.5% of the volume as incentive)
  - the exchange holds a part of tether's fiat as guarantee
  - the exchange is run by people who are inexperienced in appraising counterparty risk 
  - the exchange is run by people who like to take risks 
  - the exchange expects to cover any potential losses with the profits they made so far
  - the exchange has been offered proof that the 1:1 peg is genuine (backed by the Chinese govt using US bonds)

other ideas are welcome

lurker456on Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exploits

But it is a bug in Intel products. Whether similarly designed products are also affected is orthogonal.

lurker456on Why things might have taken so long

Taking population into account, that's not that unusual - the vast bulk of people ever alive also fall in the last 200 years.

lurker456on South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

their direct possessions (money, real estate, license, ...) are much smaller then their total value. fractional reserve banking and all that. A significant fraction of their value comes from their reputation (to have an incorruptible ledger), ability to transact and Branding. bitcoin has those as well.

lurker456on $17B Modernization Plan for Puerto Rico's Grid

They have almost no say in what laws and regulations apply there - the US federal govt decides. It's part of the reason why they're in this mess.

lurker456on Maloney Introduces Legislation to Block FCC Rollback of Net Neutrality

makes it more clear who is responsible. it's not the bureaucrats.

lurker456on Student Loan Debt Is Now as Big as the U.S. Junk Bond Market

How would you define whether it makes sense ? Free market or some other metric ? From society's point of view, having an educated population arguably has more benefits besides the immediate economic one, much like having an universal health service, having a police force or permitting LLC's to exist. If it's spiraling out of control in the US, reducing costs per head would be far better than reducing the overall headcount.

lurker456on CBOE Will Start Bitcoin Futures Trading on December 10

no, it is cash settled only

lurker456on The Supply of Tethers at 27 November 2017 is $675M

Can you explain the math behind the "Reserve Deficit Sell Penalty" example ?

If 1M loses 50k in value (5% loss), then surely someone holding $320 would face a $16 haircut ? The example shows $2.

lurker456on The Supply of Tethers at 27 November 2017 is $675M

words have meaning. "pegged" is a wrong and highly misleading term because it implies a level of safety that is not there. Whether it's fraudulently so is indeed a question for the courts and the SEC.

lurker456on Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

Pretty much everything we produce or consume in the modern world is only possible due to the availability of cheap energy. health care, food, TV shows, pencils, clothes, etc.

lurker456on Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

There are limits to such growth. Arguably, the growth of last few centuries has been achieved by burning up finite resources [1]. And even if we'd somehow get an infinite source of energy, at some point we'd run into the heat dissipation limit of the earth. [2]

[1] http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Physics_of_the... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_heat

lurker456on FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

regardless, releasing it at that time will reduce the news coverage.

lurker456on Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

Isn't lower class work interchangeable to some extent ? Less illegals to do construction means a larger portion of construction it will be done by legal employees, which reduces the available pool for manufacturing.

lurker456on UK parliament to get binding vote on final Brexit deal

But it's not reversible. Triggering article 50 means leaving in 2 years or less, it has no provisions to pause or revert the process. The only way to rejoin is with the agreement of all other member states, on new and very likely less favorable terms.

lurker456on America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

The ones who organize these deals have already taken the money and are long gone. The ones holding the bag after it collapses are the employees, suppliers and institutional investors.

lurker456on Parity Wallet security alert

until the next hard fork

lurker456on Parity Wallet security alert

I wondered why you didn't mention the maximum, and after checking their website found no other figures besides the $100 minimum.

They do state "Rewards over the minimum are at our discretion, but we will pay significantly more for particularly serious issues, i.e. that the identified issue could put a significant number of users at risk of severe damage, monetary or otherwise."

What they consider significant is anyone's guess. Given the stakes, even a 10000% increase would still be underwhelming for a high impact bug.

lurker456on Investing in ICOs May Be Even Riskier Than You Realize

Some might go under 0 - being a defendant even when innocent has costs too.

lurker456on Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill

It's the package deal that is objectionable

lurker456on Indiana Purging Voters Using Software That’s 99% Inaccurate

There are some (poor, outdated, ineffective) checks and balances on the use of traditional media for political advertising. The new media successfully lobbied to be even excluded from those. Additionally, a lot of people who are not in this business were surprised about the extent.

lurker456on Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

The majority in Spain doesn't want them to become independent. Democracy has this problem, it's called "the tyranny of the masses". There is no easy solution.

lurker456on Equifax C.E.O. Richard Smith Retires After Huge Data Breach

Selective enforcement of a shitty law is arguably worse for society then across the bar even enforcement of that law. In the latter case, there are less groups that will prevent change.