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Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

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Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#151

Post by sneak »

wglb wrote: post #143
sneak wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to remember that these people are also the kind of industry personalities that would speak at and participate in a conference run by an organization in 2004 that backdoored their crypto products for government bribes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG I'm of the belief now that those associated with the RSA conference are more interested in the publicity/reach of the conference than anything t…

Well, the conference essentially just borrows the name, in effect. The conference is highly vendor oriented, unlike Blackhat or Defcon. The speakers, however are RSA themselves. Keep in mind that they are no longer associated with the company. And the theme "crypto means cryptography" is a losing battle, I think.

The eponymous RSA conference is run by RSA Security LLC, the same people who backdoored their products for the NSA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_Security

κρυπτός means hidden or concealed, and I intend to die on this hill.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#152

Post by ASalazarMX »

wearywanderer wrote: post #59
bitcurious wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Imagine if cryptocurrency started doing that? Isn't this essentially what proof of steak is? A tax on all transactions proportional to how much you already own, but disproportionately applied to smaller users. That last bit is key. Speaking of Ethereum for a second - the largest asset owners will be institutions which can transact off-chain, which means that fees are being payed more often by folks that don't have t…

I've always felt that the best way to prove steaks is with forks.

It's a shame that ecoins with proof-of-steak can't be ecofriendly. Maybe that's for the best, since you could accidentally eat your steaks and lose your money.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#153

Post by sschueller »

wglb wrote: post #143
sneak wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to remember that these people are also the kind of industry personalities that would speak at and participate in a conference run by an organization in 2004 that backdoored their crypto products for government bribes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG I'm of the belief now that those associated with the RSA conference are more interested in the publicity/reach of the conference than anything t…

Well, the conference essentially just borrows the name, in effect. The conference is highly vendor oriented, unlike Blackhat or Defcon. The speakers, however are RSA themselves. Keep in mind that they are no longer associated with the company. And the theme "crypto means cryptography" is a losing battle, I think.

Either defcon or blackhat had as their keynote speaker the head of the NSA. Wtf.

Try that at the CCC conference . Never going to happen.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#154

Post by herodotus »

I still don't get it. Sure art work is artificially priced. But if I buy a Picasso original, I can hang it on the wall, show it to my friends, look at it closely, burn it, even. Yes, "bragging rights" might be part of it, but I own something physical and (probably) scarce or unique. What do I actually get when I buy an NFT?

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#155

Post by sneak »

supernova87a wrote: post #28

I don't mean to distract from the main conversation, but I want to talk about how insidiously evil it is that NFTs can be coded to send the original creator a percentage $ cut off of every subsequent transaction for all time. If that's not hard coding wealth inequality and a new class of asset owners, I don't know what is. This is disturbing, along with the whole thing itself anyway. Imagine if cryptocurrency started…

> but I want to talk about how insidiously evil it is that NFTs can be coded to send the original creator a percentage $ cut off of every subsequent transaction for all time

This is not accurate.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#156

Post by fl0wenol »

Animats wrote: post #149
driverdan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already have five cryptocurrencies of their own, plus an NFT system. Pretty clear what their priority is. It's not building a good game, it's making money off of suckers.

Pretty clear what their priority is. It's not building a good game, it's making money off of suckers. Yes, I get that feeling. They have a long, detailed story, but it gets vague around how things actually work. There are useful metaverse design problems cryptosystems might address. You'd like to be able to move your avatar/furniture/vehicles/house from Roblox to Minecraft to Second Life to Facebook Horizon to Dual U…

I think there are other ways to solve some of these problems of virtual ownership in walled gardens, federation, etc. but they're all forms of PR/diplomacy (relations and protocols between virtual worlds, between creators and platforms, and platforms and customers)

Pretending like a technical solution requiring no central authority is the way forward will never fly because no walled-garden owner will adopt such a scheme that cedes so much control; that doesn't let them enforce tariffs, community restrictions, bans, etc. on its own customer base.

It's the digital world and tools it comes with, and a creative player base, that draws people to the walled garden. Not technical capabilities or experiments in federation or an ICO. That's all promises with no substance. People get attracted and want to experience ... stuff. Stuff they can play with and tweak and build. But it can't be all up to them, there has to be something already there to experience and as a point of reference.

I.e. ... Little Big Planet. It's why it was successful. Powerful creative tool and community technology, but it's also an engaging all-ages experience made in said tools.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#157

Post by robert_foss »

midev wrote: post #27
robert_foss wrote: post #10

I'm not sure if RSA is a trustworthy authority on anything, considering the intentionally backdoored crypto they've produced.

Are you confusing RSA the company with independent speakers at a conference sponsored by RSA? They're not the same thing....

Anything the RSA touches is tainted by their depleted credibility.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#158

Post by sashimi-houdini »

echelon wrote: post #63
dschnurr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator is almost always the artist. Provenance is what gives NFTs their value. The value of a Beeple NFT minted by a random user is $0.

The value of a Beeple NFT minted by Beeple is $0. The market just hasn't discovered that yet. An NFT has no more value than a JPG. I'll longbets anyone that says otherwise.

This seems like a dangerous bet to make... my take on the NFT "market" is that it's money laundering, wash trading (inflating prices to attract suckers to the market) and perhaps in a small part conspicuous consumption. Mostly fraudulent... but would you bet against a fraud?

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#159

Post by th0ma5 »

intotheabyss wrote: post #148
th0ma5 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean for money laundering? No I guess not?

Oh ok. So NFTs aren't useless then?

If you can already launder the cryptocurrency you probably don't need the NFTs, so yeah you're probably right they're not worth much.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#160

Post by bawolff »

pmulard wrote: post #68

I was really hoping they were going to dunk on the technology itself, like how the media of the NFT is lost if the platform hosting it is ever compromised - only the meta data is stored on the blockchain. Instead, they just attacked the contents of the NFTs, akin to my mom telling me my pokemon cards are a waste of money all those years ago. Value is only whatever someone is willing to pay.

The contents seem much more stupid than the metadata issue. If you're going to claim "ownership" over an arbitrary "thing" pointing to it with metadata is a reasonable method. Its the claiming "ownership" over arbitrary crap that's stupid.
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