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Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

concerned.tech

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Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#91

Post by politician »

DonHopkins wrote: post #19
politician wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The claims that the blockchain advocates make are not true," said Bruce Schneier. "It's not secure, it's not decentralised. Any system where you forget your password and you lose your life savings is not a safe system," he added. His tweet. He clearly identifies the problem as “lost password” implies disaster. This line of thinking is what the government uses to argue for back doors in cryptography software. The p…

Have you considered the possibility that maybe he's simply advocating for a customer service representative who can reset your password in the sql database after verifying your identity, instead of going back on everything he's ever said and repudiating his life's work as a well respected security professional, and that perhaps Bruce Schneier is not just an unethical hack like the crypto bros he's criticizing? https:…

Just read your latest edit: Thank you for reaching out and getting a definitive answer. For the record, I don't object to the argument that "blockchain is useless" - I don't think it's useless, but I can understand why many people do believe that. What was off-putting about his tweet was the notion that its an unsafe system that arises from unrecoverable private keys, or, in other words, systems whose security depends on the privacy of private keys are unsafe.

I am relieved that that is not his position.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#92

Post by puranjay »

bitcoin_anon wrote: post #34

Serious question for those of you who want to regulate Bitcoin out of existence: What do you propose to do with those of us who, despite your attestations of its uselessness, have deemed it useful and purchased it with our hard earned money? For example, MSTR has ~$4 billion in Bitcoin on its balance sheet. It purchased it on the free market for reasons that were valid to it. However, you disagree and want to step in…

To be fair, you're not meant to denominate the value of your Bitcoin in dollar terms.

1 BTC is always equal to 1 BTC.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#93

Post by throwaway15492 »

faddypaddy34 wrote: post #80
tatertots1234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is so perfectly in line with the blanket dismissal and absolutist attitude of the letter that you could pass as one of the authors. Crypto has its uses. Crypto also has lots of scams. Crypto bubble popping will not destroy the scams; these are endemic to any semi decentralized system, see email spam and robocalls. We can do much more to regulate, moderate, and improve the tech for better consumer protection…

I see a lot that crypto has it's uses. Please explain like I am 5 what some of the best ones are.

[dead]

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#94

Post by TimPC »

politician wrote: post #86
TimPC wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only your weird interpretation of what he’s saying that undermines this though. He’s saying systems where you could lose your life savings to a forgotten password are unsafe. This is clearly true. He hasn’t proposed a specific solution but I think it’s far more likely he believes in “use other systems” than inserting a back door into the system he’s identified as fatally flawed.

Why is this a weird interpretation? 1) Bruce says systems that result in catastrophic loss from loss of a password are unsafe. 2) Reading at face value, Bruce's idea of a safe system is one where your passwords are recoverable. 3) Bruce knows that wallets are secured by asymmetric cryptography, not "passwords". Therefore, he must be simplifying for a general audience. 4) Reconciling the previous two points results in…

Because it’s extremely consistent he’s arguing the system in question is fatally flawed and that he opposes it entirely. He doesn’t need to be advocating for some back door in crypto when “don’t use crypto” is a better simpler explanation of his position. I think his signing a letter that may argue for a ban of crypto is fairly consistent with this.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#95

Post by bitcoin_anon »

criddell wrote: post #50
bitcoin_anon wrote: post #34

Serious question for those of you who want to regulate Bitcoin out of existence: What do you propose to do with those of us who, despite your attestations of its uselessness, have deemed it useful and purchased it with our hard earned money? For example, MSTR has ~$4 billion in Bitcoin on its balance sheet. It purchased it on the free market for reasons that were valid to it. However, you disagree and want to step in…

What was done for those who held vast stores of tulips and tulip bulbs at the end of the tulip craze? As far as I know, very little. Today companies at least have bankruptcy protection and corporate structures that should shield individuals. That said, I think Bitcoin should face most of the same regulations that other securities face and in the end I think this will help Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. I don't t…

> What was done for those who held vast stores of tulips and tulip bulbs at the end of the tulip craze? As far as I know, very little.

The difference is that the tulip craze died of its own accord. This question was posed to those who would like to regulate Bitcoin out of existence.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#96

Post by politician »

FabHK wrote: post #17
politician wrote: post #8

Disappointing and misguided. It’s especially sad to see Bruce Schneier indirectly advocate for back doors.

Presumably you meant Bruce Schneier. I don't think he is advocating for backdoors, what makes you think so? He is just advocating against cryptocurrencies, as he laid out in his article linked from the open letter: "Cryptocurrencies are useless. Blockchain solutions are frequently much worse than the systems they replace." https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-b...

From Bruce via Don (see below), he did not intend to imply that recoverable credentials are a critical component of "safe" systems and he has other reasons for not supporting cryptocurrencies as evidenced by the writings you and Don linked.

Other than that, I just want to point out that I didn't say he was advocating for backdoors; I said he was indirectly doing that by way of the argument he had offered in the tweet supporting his post. Perhaps a better way of raising this concern would have been to ask the question, "Does Bruce believe that unrecoverable credentials prohibit the creation of 'safe' systems?"

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#97

Post by tatertots1234 »

hnthrow1010 wrote: post #89
tatertots1234 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: censorship, prove to us how you would go about censoring an Ethereum transaction please? re: timestamp, prove to us how easy it is to build a distributed and tamper-proof append-only ledger without a BFT consensus mechanism? The technology is absolutely the focus of this discussion here.

>censorship, prove to us how you would go about censoring an Ethereum transaction please? Very simple, throw the wallet holder in jail. I don't know why you're asking this question, you should be able to answer the same question about Tor or Freenet and extrapolate from there. >re: timestamp, prove to us how easy it is to build a distributed and tamper-proof append-only ledger without a BFT consensus mechanism? I als…

> Very simple, throw the wallet holder in jail.

This has no effect on the on-chain transaction, message, or application, which remains widely distributed across all nodes in the network. Tor is great but has different design goals, such as consensus of the entire network secured by about 10 nodes.

> There are BFT consensus mechanisms that don't require the use of speculative tokens.

What BFT mechanism do you propose to secure consensus of this "easy to build" tamper-proof ledger for a widely distributed network of untrusted nodes? Common choices are PoW or PoS, or PoA with a small number of trusted authorities as it is used in Tor.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#98

Post by hnthrow1010 »

searchableguy wrote: post #65
generationP wrote: post #58

> Finally, blockchain technologies facilitate few, if any, real-economy uses. On the other hand, the underlying crypto-assets have been the vehicle for unsound and highly volatile speculative investment schemes that are being actively promoted to retail investors who may be unable to understand their nature and risk. Other significant externalities include threats to national security through money laundering and ran…

Financial inclusion tech letter: https://www.financialinclusion.tech/ Support from activists and people in corrupt, poor, and developing countries.

I find these type of things to be deeply unconvincing, not in the sense that these people aren't getting something out of it, but again because it is happening in spite of the fact that it's cryptocurrency. They aren't using this because of some technical blockchain reasons, they're using this because it's a group of powerful foreigners coming along allowing them to do illegal forex. I guess you can't as easily push the "financial inclusion" angle if you're illegally selling them USD on black markets as a way to evade taxes? Then it becomes a lot more obvious what the game is.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

#99

Post by bitcoin_anon »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #75
bitcoin_anon wrote: post #34

Serious question for those of you who want to regulate Bitcoin out of existence: What do you propose to do with those of us who, despite your attestations of its uselessness, have deemed it useful and purchased it with our hard earned money? For example, MSTR has ~$4 billion in Bitcoin on its balance sheet. It purchased it on the free market for reasons that were valid to it. However, you disagree and want to step in…

Serious answer: nothing. Absolutely utterly nothing. Why should we? Why is there an expectation that we should? Where does this sense of entitlement come in from those who gambled, that others are responsible for rescuing you out of it? I assume you understood the landscape, and the risks, and took the gamble as an informed, consenting adult, and are willing to stand by it as an adult if gamble doesn't work out. If N…

> If it helps understand my seemingly heartless position: I have exactly as much sympathy and empathy for somebody spending $4bil on crypto, as for investing $4bil in Phillip Morris or another tobacco company a couple of decades ago.

This did help, thank you.

Your gambling metaphor is useful, but incomplete. Consider this instead: You come across your fellow citizens gambling in a casino. You decide they must stop what they are doing for reasons. My original question was basically how do you shutdown the casino in a fair and orderly way?

You seem to be saying that when people lose money playing casino games, that is their problem, they signed up for it when they entered the casino. I agree.

However, suppose gambling were made illegal today. Do you think everyone currently seated at a table, people who entered the casino legally, should lose the money they brought into the casino with them?

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