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PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

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Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is my point exactly? I feel like this should be obvious to anyone that doesn't have a bias towards crypto because they are gambling a lot of money on it. Making confirmations faster usually just tends to make them weaker. The security of each confirmation is based on the work down (or cpu hours). By making confirmations take half the amount of time, this only makes confirmations half as secure, because the amoun…

The number of confirmations needed to feel like a tx is secure and the throughput of the network are not related. Regardless of that, you're still wrong about security and confirmations, using your own source. ETH ave. block time: 10s. Time to get to Coinbase confirmations (35): ~350s BTC ave. block time: 10m. Time to get to Coinbase confirmations (3): ~1800s So I can make 5-6 transactions that coinbase thinks is "se…

Um no.

I show you this to prove to you that 1 eth confirmation isn't equal to 1 bitcoin confirmation. If it was anywhere equal in security, there would not be a >10X difference. And also multiplying confirmations by average block time and seeing that it is lower than bitcoin doesn't mean coinbase thinks it is more secure. It can also mean that the value of the average eth transaction on Coinbase is lower.

A 51% attacker will be able to churn out 100x the number of confirmations if confirmations were made 100x smaller. It doesn't matter how fast you make them or how many tricks like GHOST you add.

These are some helpful websites/articles on understanding confirmation security.

https://medium.com/@nic__carter/its-the-settlement-assurance...

https://howmanyconfs.com/

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is my point exactly? I feel like this should be obvious to anyone that doesn't have a bias towards crypto because they are gambling a lot of money on it. Making confirmations faster usually just tends to make them weaker. The security of each confirmation is based on the work down (or cpu hours). By making confirmations take half the amount of time, this only makes confirmations half as secure, because the amoun…

Here's why GHOST supports shorter block times for the same security. In Bitcoin, the chosen block is the one with the most hashpower in the linear chain behind it. Abandoned forks contribute nothing to that. With GHOST, the chosen block is the one with the most hashpower descended from it, in all forks. This way all the forks contribute to a block's security. With a linear chain, propagation time is an issue. If bloc…

As far as I can tell, GHOST is only used to mitigate high hash power loss when confirmation times are lowered to 15 seconds.

Orphaned blocks are very rare in Bitcoin.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/orphaned-blocks?offset=0

Even if you somehow saved all this wasted hash power, you would only maybe increase hash power by less than 1%!!!

Read my comment here for more details.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21550997

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#753

A contributor once wrote on hn about the huge market for a porn friendly payment system. Key feature, must not look suspicious on credit card bill...

The issue here is that it needs to be easy for a person viewing their credit card bill to know that they paid for something... and not be super weird. I had a buddy who nearly did a chargeback against a club that put "E 11 EVN" on his bill... name is Eleven Club.

I work with credit card data, and I'm always astounded at how much ambiguity the banks allow. We see major brands redact what's in the transaction description to the point where it may only say the street intersection of the transaction (Main & 4th), yet the banks have a call center handling questions like, 'I don't recognize this place and it's a $200 charge, so what was it?'. With simple rules to make the transaction descriptions less opaque, I'd think the banks would come out ahead.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This belief that the US is capable of implementing a socialized system in an affordable manner seems kind of fanaticism given the incredible amount of evidence to the contrary.

Keep in mind the United States only fails so spectacularly at socialized system implementation because the power of the socialized service to negotiate is defanged to prop up the excesses of the private sector. Let the government flex its muscles without artificial constraint, and watch how fast the market has to rein itself in to remain competitive. The reason Medicare is loathed, is because Medicare has a mandate t…

Medicare is loathed? That's news to me.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no trust chain. You have no idea how lightning works. Every hop only knows the previous and next one, nothing else, not even the length of the chain. Your computer/phone finds the route and if you’re ok with privacy trade off you can outsource this task to your hub for a fee in single satoshis. People are going to gravitate towards convenient solutions making all sorts of security, privacy and financial risk…

There is a trust chain. If there was 0 trust involved then you could pick random nodes instead of needing to find a specific path. Sure there's cryptographic trickery involved so it is harder to steal the money, but it can still happen. Large centralized lightning nodes will form and they will act like banks and be able to stop payments to arbitrary entities like Paypal, and even make the payment get stuck for days o…

No, you’re flat out wrong. There is no trust and it’s impossible to steal money.

You need to find a path because path needs to have channel capacity required for your transaction, that’s why you can’t pick random nodes, not because you want to trust them.

Stealing somebody’s funds from channel is just as hard as stealing bitcoin - you need to crack encryption or you need a private key.

You have no idea how lightning works, please do some reading before making incorrect claims.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#756
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are alternatives. Even obvious ones like wire transfers (ACH, SEPA) which have less fraud due to enforced two-factor and better online banking cyber security. PayPal, on the other hand, is free game after you infect a Windows PC with any malware. The problem is that your CC number is both username and password. Cardsters are looking ways to convert soft credit card money to something without chargebacks. These…

3D Secure solves part of this problem. But there are two issues with it (1) some companies like PayPal have forced banks to make an exception for them (2) your credit card number can still be used in other contexts but much less conveniently than it used to be able to.

Also, there are a lot of really really bad implementations of 3D Secure (the most common problem being having it hosted on a domain that's not bankname.com but some outsourced company)

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#757
post #135

Financial deplatforming is a monster, long-term trend to watch over the next decades. Deplatforming happens with sex workers. It also happens in the US marijuana industry. It happens with perfectly legal political content. The number of ways in which someone, somewhere will be offended by products or services for sale is growing, driven by a rapidly improving worldwide communication network and delivery system, and b…

Bitcoin is useless for this use case

At a certain point they will start to ask you "where did you get this coins?" because sooner or later you'll have to convert them to real currencies

Cash is still a better option, there are plenty others: rechargeable CC, gift cards, vouchers, etc etc that work better than bitcoin, require no setup, no knowledge and can be used without hassles.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#758
post #737
post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that that is a consequence. But I don't think it's the primary motivation. When I talk to people around me about cash vs cards everyone agrees that paying with card is so much more convenient, especially when you just have to gently tap the reader with your card. I know many people who have the phone case with space for a few cards. They don't even carry a wallet anymore. They have nowhere to put bulky coins…

Oh, individuals who enjoy using credit cards absolutely have convenience as the primary goal. Regimes working on creating cash-free societies, where there are no legal anonymous payment schemes, on the other hand, simply want to use the threat of turning off your access to the economy as a means of control.

There will always be money around, even if it's not cash dollars

You're talking about people on the edge of society, rightfully so or more they already have many ways of making deals

Meanwhile cashless in a country like Italy could expose the 30% of tax evasion that erodes our freedom as honest and "paying for everybody who's not doing it" citizens

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#759
post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal has also deplatformed gun dealers. No firearms, firearm parts, or ammunition. [1] [1] https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/What-is-PayPal%E...

This is relevant to the argument that Paypal is not merely responding to financial risks, but using its platform to impose its worldview. Guns are highly regulated in the US. Someone violating those regulations in the context on an online business is usually guilty of a felony, and has a high probability of being prosecuted. To my knowledge, guns don't have a high rate of chargebacks, as they involve a papertrail wit…

At a gun show, two individuals could use PayPal to conduct a sale (if it was allowed on their platform), without any background check or government-issued ID.
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