Live data from Hacker News

IOTA: A tangled mess

codesuppository.blogspot.com

171–180 of 253 posts

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#171
post #141

IOTA is the only big cryptocurrency that seems extremely fishy to me. The trick is that even a fairly technical person (like me) cannot easily refute it based on the whitepaper, because the whitepaper is intentionally indecipherable, and does not have enough information to evaluate the project anyway. The average person sees such a whitepaper, and is amazed by the complicated scientific formulas. A good engineer/scie…

I read the first few pages of the IOTA whitepaper, including some of the math parts. I have basic undergrad math ability and although I'm not familiar with many of the concepts, most parts make sense to me and are quite thorough. It sounds like OP is trying to manipulate the market. People who own a lot of crypto like OP generally aren't the kinds of people who would write articles for the public interest. It sounds…

You don't think the concerns he listed about the instability of the network, current centralization of nodes, and the fact that one of the founders offered to buy his silence are legitimate complaints?

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#172
"IOTA is deflationary (has a fixed number of tokens, there will never be any more, and has no inflation at all, no issuance schedule for new tokens). All tokens which will ever exist were created on day one and pre-distributed to people who signed onto the project very early."

Yeah, I'd push that pretty hard, too.

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#173
This guy is blaming the Iota founders because he doesn't understand computer science? Their whitepaper is organized like any other publication in computer science. As for the Java vs C++ comment, he's simply uninformed. Not to mention there are many ports in various languages. I wish he'd done some research before posting bogus rhetoric.

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#174

Bruce Schneier had this to say about IOTA: > In 2017, leaving your crypto algorithm vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis is a rookie mistake. It says that no one of any calibre analyzed their system, and that the odds that their fix makes the system secure is low

How is it vulnerable to differential analysis?

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#175
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. He may well have valid points but, as someone who has written mission critical software systems in Java, this destroys the credibility of the article for me.

He may be biased, but you may be too. Are you a Java developer (or android)? That said, I know some great software can be produced in Java, ElasticSearch been one on top of my mind. If Security is the goal, nor CPP nor Java is great. Proven Haskell or Rust might be more of a valid option.

Cardano is a cryptocurrency written in Haskell with the goal of conforming to "high assurance" standards. Looks pretty promising, but like all 3rd gen cryptocurrencies, it is still early days (seems more functional than IOTA though.. no pun intended)

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#176
post #141

IOTA is the only big cryptocurrency that seems extremely fishy to me. The trick is that even a fairly technical person (like me) cannot easily refute it based on the whitepaper, because the whitepaper is intentionally indecipherable, and does not have enough information to evaluate the project anyway. The average person sees such a whitepaper, and is amazed by the complicated scientific formulas. A good engineer/scie…

I read the first few pages of the IOTA whitepaper, including some of the math parts. I have basic undergrad math ability and although I'm not familiar with many of the concepts, most parts make sense to me and are quite thorough. It sounds like OP is trying to manipulate the market. People who own a lot of crypto like OP generally aren't the kinds of people who would write articles for the public interest. It sounds…

The cult like behavior of crypto adherents is really off putting. You guys are going to be in for a hard fall when the wheels come off.

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#177
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also read that the devs have seized funds from users. Specifically, if you use the same address twice in IOTA (extremely common habit in cryptocurrency), you reveal your secret key, and the devs will take your money. Among many other wallet related issues.

Citation for your claim? The story I've read is that the IOTA Foundation will hold your funds so you can reclaim them.

The system is clearly not decentralized, if one organization can hold your funds for "misbehavior".

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#178

I went to the IOTA meetup in Chicago, which was hosted and presented by the IOTA team. Never before did I see an entire audience be wowed by a women engineer. They ignored the whole Microsoft partnership idea; anyone that asked just was given the answer "it'd be explained in a future PR release." The drama was IOTA lied about microsoft partnership and deemed hosting on azure == partnership with microsoft. In talks wi…

>Never before did I see an entire audience be wowed by a women engineer.

What do you mean?

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#179

>The IOTA source code is written in JAVA instead of C++ like most professional cryptocurrencies are. That did not instill me with confidence. This made me lose any confidence in a person's capabilities in evaluating the coin. If anything, Java is way more (or any language with modern memory management) robust choice than C++ where security is concerned. In any case, I am highly skeptical of the IOTA as well.

You should just evaluate his points instead.

Re: IOTA: A tangled mess

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the first few pages of the IOTA whitepaper, including some of the math parts. I have basic undergrad math ability and although I'm not familiar with many of the concepts, most parts make sense to me and are quite thorough. It sounds like OP is trying to manipulate the market. People who own a lot of crypto like OP generally aren't the kinds of people who would write articles for the public interest. It sounds…

You don't think the concerns he listed about the instability of the network, current centralization of nodes, and the fact that one of the founders offered to buy his silence are legitimate complaints?

About centralization: IOTA is not any more centralised than Bitcoin where a very small number of people control most of the miners and exchanges.

The difference between IOTA and Bitcoin in that respect is that Bitcoin can only get worse whereas IOTA can only get better.

I don't believe that the founder of IOTA would buy OP's silence in such a blatant way. There are tons of people bashing IOTA all the time - The founder would go bankrupt if he tried to pay everyone off to buy their IOTA... And why would the founder want to acquire IOTA if it was in fact such a toxic asset as claimed by OP? It just doesn't add up.

Post reply on HN