261–270 of 369 posts
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You do have to trust yourself to have 100% flawless security because one slip and you lose that $1B to a Chinese hacker with no hope of ever getting it back.
Why do you have to add “Chinese”?
Unpopular opinion: why do we care so much about making it cheaper for rich people to move money around? Do we think somehow that will “trickle down” to us mere mortals and put western union and their ilk out of business?
If we both join the bitcoin network, we can exchange $1B for $0.48. If we both join set up accounts at a regular bank like RBC, we can exchange $1B for free. The point I'm making is that fees are not bitcoin's strong point. Any financial network can undercut it. What is unique about bitcoin is that not everyone can get an account at RBC, but anyone can join the more expensive bitcoin network.
Well the point is with Bitcoin you don't have to trust RBC to not freeze and/or abscond with your $1B.
If somebody breaches your Canadian bank account you get your money back. If somebody steals your money from your bitcoin wallet you start all over again.
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Why do you have to add “Chinese”?
Anecdote, but I once ran a blog for many years. Country breakdown for traffic was roughly 30% China, 30% Russia, and 30% US. Almost 100% of requests out of China and Russia were hacking attempts, I assume mostly by bots. They've earned a reputation and there's nothing wrong pointing it out. If you operate a website, unless China and Russia are part of your market/audience, I'd suggest blocking them altogether.
They just compromised a bunch of random computers in China and Russia, running an old copy of Windows XP, and built themselves a botnet.
What further evidence do you have, other than an IP address?
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I think it's serving as shorthand for "in a country halfway around the world, with a government that isn't going to intervene on your behalf as a foreigner even if you figure out who did it and hand them the evidence on a silver platter".
Right, it wasn't necessarily hateful on purpose, but as another poster pointed out, what does it mean that we default to using one specific group of people for that example? If they'd said "PRC hacker" it'd be a different story, but the word "Chinese" conflates a nationality and heritage. It does this, by the way, in written Chinese as well, hence a lot of arguments I've had in the past with PRC-citizen exchange stud…
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Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. The traditional financial system is far more suitable to people’s needs than Bitcoin is.
The most interesting bitcoin story I read somewhere was about a Ukrainian living in the Russian controlled portion of the country getting out with his wealth intact. The border was controlled by corrupt Russian guards that would steal things of value. You could pass the border occasionally to visit family on the other side, but it was risky to take anything. He put all his wealth into bitcoin, memorized his wallet se…
Now if they can hammer out the volatility, figure out a simple UX, encourage adoption at most places of business, and increase trust in exchanges for USD conversions, I'm on board.
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Well the point is with Bitcoin you don't have to trust RBC to not freeze and/or abscond with your $1B.
You don't have to trust RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) to not run off with your money because they are regulated by the Canadian government. Canada has one of the most respected and stable banking industries in the world with a proven track record. If somebody breaches your Canadian bank account you get your money back. If somebody steals your money from your bitcoin wallet you start all over again.
Canada’s banking industry avoided the Great Recession only because Canada did not have a housing market reset. Prices continued upward unabated, along with household debt which is now among the highest in the world. They kicked the can down the road, but didn’t avoid the issue permanently.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to trust RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) to not run off with your money because they are regulated by the Canadian government. Canada has one of the most respected and stable banking industries in the world with a proven track record. If somebody breaches your Canadian bank account you get your money back. If somebody steals your money from your bitcoin wallet you start all over again.
You get your money back up to the CDIC insured limit which is $100k right? Canada’s banking industry avoided the Great Recession only because Canada did not have a housing market reset. Prices continued upward unabated, along with household debt which is now among the highest in the world. They kicked the can down the road, but didn’t avoid the issue permanently.
If a Canadian bank runs off with your money you have an actual entity to pursue in court. With Bitcoin you're pretty much SOL.
The CDIC insured limit is not money to be reimbursed by the bank, it's by the CDIC in case of bank failure. There are other avenues to take first to recover your funds.
Canadian banks are stable because our regulators do not allow them to assume as much risk as banks in other jurisdictions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdote, but I once ran a blog for many years. Country breakdown for traffic was roughly 30% China, 30% Russia, and 30% US. Almost 100% of requests out of China and Russia were hacking attempts, I assume mostly by bots. They've earned a reputation and there's nothing wrong pointing it out. If you operate a website, unless China and Russia are part of your market/audience, I'd suggest blocking them altogether.
Just wanted to second this. I ran several public Linux servers at a major university. China and Russia based IPs we’re constantly trying to brute force all of our servers. It got the point where we would just apply a geoblock just in case one finally managed to get through. I’m all for avoiding nationalistic dog whistles when discussing things, but both China and Russia have rightfully earned their places as bad acto…
Add that to the fact that there are of course bad actors in countries including the US who happen to have proxies in other countries. Geolocating the IP address tells us nothing.
The largest botnets came from a variety of nationalities and are rarely Chinese. Conficker was allegedly from the Ukraine, and a Swede plead guilty. Alureon came from Estonia. Mariposa from spain.
Stop with the emotionally-charged flame baiting based on shallow data and anecdotal information.