I agree about C and C++, but is there a language that exists today that you think would be better for writing security-conscious code? Should a language be invented that is specifically for writing security-conscious code?
Although I largely agree with the premise, the author assumes that the only way to solve this problem is with government regulation. I think a better way to solve this problem is with decentralization. The problem Uber solves is one of coordination. This does not require a central intermediary like Uber. It could be solved in a decentralized manner with p2p networks. With a decentralized Uber, only you and the driver would know where you started from and where you went. Privacy would be improved.
Have you tried Circle? They're funded with over $17 million [1], so I don't think they qualify as shady, and I'm pretty sure they let you buy with a credit card.
As best I can tell, it does not do any key management. No reference to terms like "Key" or "HierarchicalKey" at all. My guess is that you have to give it the addresses you own, and it detects if payment has been made to them. Since it does not use "HierarchicalKey", bitcore's term for BIP32 extended keys, it probably requires that you constantly refill the address pool so it doesn't run out. Or it reuses them.
edit: I also just realized it depends on "bitcoin". It may rely on a running bitcoin core full node to handle the private keys.
Not true. Since using more electricity costs more money, bitcoin miners have an incentive to use less electricity. Their incentives are to maximize hashes/s/watt.
No, freshly mined bitcoins are never 'sent' anywhere - they just appear in the mining address. Thus, the public key is not revealed until they are sent.
This is good news, but it's important to remember that the way Coinbase works is for Coinbase to keep the private keys. A Coinbase "wallet" is really more like a Coinbase demand deposit account. That means you are trusting Coinbase to hold on to your bitcoins, thus losing one of the key benefits of bitcoin, which is that you hold your money. A better alternative is the Blockchain.info app, but from my understanding this is not available for un-jailbroken iPhones (please correct me if I'm wrong).
If bitcoin replaces the dollar as the unit of account, currency of international trade, world reserve currency, and so on, it might be better simply to spend the bitcoins than to "sell" them.
Completely agreed. Your comment is a really good advertisement for normal people to learn Bayesian probability theory. Not because it's useful in science or engineering, but because it's useful in life.
It sounds like you've gone all-in with the US government, and now you can't criticise it without risking everything.
It is possible to internationalize yourself and your assets in such a way that no one government can threaten you with taking everything away. I suggest taking a look at these internationalization resources:
This is an excellent suggestion. I imagine a future where when we meet people in real life, rather than ask, "what is your phone number?" we ask, "what is your public key?"
No, I think Schneier is right. Law enforcement and culture may play a role in keeping your home safe, but so does the lock on the door. Certainly when government goes off the rails it's bad for security, but you should still lock the door.
Countries I'm researching: Panama, Chile, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam. All have ups and downs. Read the works of Doug Casey, Andrew Henderson (Nomad Capitalist), and Simon Black (sovereignman.com) for information on how to get offshore corporations and bank accounts so you can do business overseas, and second passports so you can optionally be unaffiliated with the US and don't have to worry about having your passport revoked by the US.
Personally, I'm making plans to leave the US. Since few people will listen to me when I explain how bad things are, I do not believe effecting change is a reasonable course of action. Instead, I will try to internationalize my business and my life so that I can interact with pleasant people and escape tyranny.
That's absolutely true. Although I find myself a agreeing with many normal people that government is riddled with problems in practice, they get hostile when I suggest that maybe there shouldn't be an organization with a monopoly on force that is funded by theft.
Can you give more information on the FCC approval process? What requires approval exactly? If people designed open-source hardware plans, then made the hardware, then shipped it, at what point is FCC approval necessary?