171–180 of 193 posts
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I care because the stories are spamming up HN. You can't downvote stories, and flagging them would probably be considered inappropriate.
Can't you just... like... not read them? On every visit to HN I click 3-4 links tops, but you don't see me complaining in the comments section of the other 26 :)
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A $5 wrench or a jail cell will deal with your encryption.
You are wrong and overly pessimistic. Look at DPR. The govt confiscated 174k BTC, but he supposedly has another (encrypted) ~500k BTC wallet, and he is NOT/will NOT be tortured to reveal the key.
If he does I'd be very surprised if he can ever spend it, even if he does somehow get to a copy. Torture is not the only or most effective avenue to thwart encryption or your plans to keep money from them, they could claim enough back-taxes to bankrupt you, repossess anything you buy etc, etc.
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Serious question, not trying to be rude. If banks are full of competent programmers, why are their customer-facing online banking websites so utterly, utterly terrible?
I suspect this because, every time there is competition between innovative features that are nice for users, and ensuring security/limiting exposure and attack surface, the latter concern wins with little discussion. What I mean is, if they implement a new whiz-bang feature, the best case is that people complain a bit less. But if their new feature opens up an attack vector or social engineering opportunity, they may…
Heck, First Direct is one of the better banks in this country, but their website popups deliberately hide browser chrome including the address bar, which is just obviously terrible for security. But that's something that must have been deliberately added.
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Except bitcoins are completely fungible. Once the bitcoin is transferred in the wallet, you can no longer make any difference with the other bitcoins in the wallet ; it has no distinct identity anymore. Think transaction into a bank account : you cannot separate the money that was transfered in from what was already there. We can taint accounts, but not individual coins.
You know exactly what input transactions contains tainted coins, so you know the amount, and thus how many untainted coins there are.
Say there's a 50 BTC untainted wallet, and tainted 1 BTC is transferred in, then 1 BTC is transferred out. How do you decide whether that outgoing 1 BTC was drawn on the tainted portion or the untainted portion of the account?
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> I'm really, really, REALLY not suggesting that "Since banks are equally insecure That's just as well, because otherwise I'd have to mock you. Banks are not equally insecure. I work for one, and we typically spend 10-20% of the cost of development for apps on security reviews and testing, and not from numptys from accounting firms, but actual, well-known, well-respected white hats who review our designs and run hack…
Serious question, not trying to be rude. If banks are full of competent programmers, why are their customer-facing online banking websites so utterly, utterly terrible?
4100 BTC = 1.1 mil USD at current prices. These Bitcoins were stolen from website's "hot wallet" (every shared wallet has to operate one to process current withdrawals). This hot wallet was probably too hot though, as it seems that they had most of their coins online, and only about one third offline (other services claim to store 80-90% offline). According to postings on Bitcointalk.org forums people are getting bac…
[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=248803.msg3509247#ms...
Do bit coins have identity and hence be flagged as stolen somewhere ?.
Blockchain.info has tagged it as inputs.io hack. And a couple users have tagged it as well with public messages. But besides that, as far as I know, all anyone can do is watch it get drained.
[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=248803.msg3509247#ms...
I don't know what you expected, Bitcoin enthusiasts. You bought into a system where coins could be permanently lost because you forgot a password. You bought into a system where the government cheerfully gained control of a large share of the market by simple confiscation. You have recreated money . But you aren't even good at it! You still think that simple cryptography will excuse you from the fact that you're gree…
I'm not an enthusiast, I don't own and have never owned any Bitcoin. However I think your dismissal of Bitcoin is wrong. Not because it doesn't have flaws, and not even because it's guaranteed to succeed—there's no telling when a crypto breakthrough could cause Bitcoin to crash and burn faster than tulip bulbs—but rather because Bitcoin is the most interesting development in currency of the past millennium. There's s…
Imho it represents and inflection point in human history, by virtue of solving a previously unsolvable algorithmic problem (distributed consensus), at least in the context of digital currency.
BTC's solution wasn't even technically possible until two other major innovations - the construction of the internet, and the invention of the Bittorrent protocol. And 'Satoshi's' insight that a simple time delay via proof-of-work finally tied it all together and made possible the first (technically) viable distributed currency.
All the remaining problems are minor by comparison and will eventually get solved, in the same way the modern banking system eventually solved problems of bank robberies and fraud - not so much completely solving them, but by making them extremely difficult to pull off and/or get away with, reducing the odds and risk to levels acceptable for the general public. Same will happen with BTC and its infrastructure over time as well.
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I don't think the US is at the point where they torture citizens for private keys. And they'd only be able to use jail as leverage by offering a reduced sentence. Even then, you might refuse if, for example, you'd rather stay in prison and leave the money to your family.
Even then, you might refuse if, for example, you'd rather stay in prison and leave the money to your family. Somehow, I don't think the government will leave you that option ;) You'll stay in prison and have the means to use the bitcoins confiscated or outlawed. They can also confiscate all your other assets, like the house your family lives in. There are many options available to a sovereign government which mean th…
Implemented correctly, it's much much more difficult to steal or seize than cash while at the same time being much much easier to smuggle to places with no extradition where money trumps the rule of law.
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You are wrong and overly pessimistic. Look at DPR. The govt confiscated 174k BTC, but he supposedly has another (encrypted) ~500k BTC wallet, and he is NOT/will NOT be tortured to reveal the key.
The govt confiscated 174k BTC, but he supposedly has another (encrypted) ~500k BTC wallet If he does I'd be very surprised if he can ever spend it, even if he does somehow get to a copy. Torture is not the only or most effective avenue to thwart encryption or your plans to keep money from them, they could claim enough back-taxes to bankrupt you, repossess anything you buy etc, etc.
You also have scenarios that are not as drastic, where the adversary is not a government but, for example, a powerful (ex-)spouse trying to seize some of the assets in illegal ways during a divorce going wrong. Etc.
Your refusal to acknowledge this usefulness of Bitcoin makes your criticism look weak and one-sided.