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Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

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Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#241

Post by snakeyjake »

vmoore wrote: post #156

The operational security measures one has to take these days to secure crypto is insane. You have to build your own mini intelligence agency just to protect your digital crypto assets. You have to do: - Principle of least privilege. - Zero Trust. - Compartmentation. - Hardened Operating Systems with no malware and strong endpoint defense. - Firewalls that whitelist only your IP and disavow everything else. - 2FA/MFA/…

The best part about crypto is that it is always your fault.

Set up your own wallet and lose access? YOUR FAULT, DUMMY

Use an exchange and get hacked? YOUR FAULT, DUMMY

Use an exchange and they scam you? YOUR FAULT, DUMMY

Fall for a spearphishing email? YOUR FAULT, DUMMY

A flaw in the implementation that leads to an exploit? YOUR FAULT, DUMMY

Fail to maintain an EAL7-certified computing environment using only FIPS 140-3 level V cryptographic products in an ISO 27001:2022 Annex A.11.1-secured facility and something goes wrong? YOUR FAULT DUMMY-DUM-DUM!

It's never, ever, a flaw with entire concept-- it's always you.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#242

Post by npoc »

sjducb wrote: post #239
npoc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't really need to trust. For significant amounts of value, a multi-sig setup using a number of different devices means that _all_ the devices could be compromised, but providing they are not compromised by the same attacker your bitcoin is still safe.

What if the multi sig software is compromised?

When I said "different devices" I meant different types of devices (i.e. all running different SW) - sorry for not being clearer.

For example you might create and sign the transaction with Sparrow on your PC and then pass it to/from BlueWallet on a mobile to co-sign it via QR code.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#243

Post by mattdesl »

acdha wrote: post #199
mattdesl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, nobody doubted that neural networks were capable of very interesting things - the holdup was the level of processing power needed to run them. As soon as that changes, useful applications abounded. This is incorrect. AI has gone through multiple ‘winters’ where there were serious doubts and pessimistic attitudes toward its capabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter

Yes, I’m aware of AI winters but that doesn’t affect the point I was making: people knew neural networks were capable of the task since neuroscientists were studying how our own brains used them, but they were computationally daunting. “AI winter” didn’t mean that everyone gave up and assumed the theists were right that some supernatural power was the key part, it meant that developing commercially-viable technologie…

the whole idea of an “AI winter” is that people did not feel that AI was capable and worth pursuing, the Wikipedia link makes that sentiment clear. The remaining computer scientists still working in AI space obviously continued developing the technology despite the lack of public interest and major funding, but the same happens in crypto: engineers are still developing new ideas and technologies within blockchain space (ZK proofs, verkle trees, etc). Bitcoin has stagnated but other technologies have not.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#244

Post by brendoelfrendo »

tainted_blood wrote: post #201
y42 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Boot Tails from USB and that's an attack vector/point of doubt that you bring in into the equation. You need a trustful source for Tails, the USB drive and the surrounding OS. One can turn it as one wants: "cryptos" are not safe. And I am saying this as someone who's holding a handful of values on different crypto currencies. And I know it is insane.

forget tails and ledger and use the Bitbox2. Its not that hard.

Ok, but why should I trust Bitbox2?

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#245

Post by whimsicalism »

nntwozz wrote: post #138
whimsicalism wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he has children you should try to get them involved.

The sad thing is his wife was wondering where all the money has gone, I was the first one he told about this. He was saving it for his grandchildren and he basically had a meltdown when I told him he's probably been scammed. I felt really bad and also uncomfortable with the whole situation, I gave him a hug and told him to get in touch with his bank and tell them everything he told me. Not likely that they'll help hi…

That is so sad. My partner’s father recently had a few $k’s scammed from them. She actually caught it before he had given the money but could not convince him over the phone to not go through with it.

Feel like there should be more extensive monitoring mechanisms for the elderly.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#246

Post by danbruc »

npoc wrote: post #238
danbruc wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds potentially problematic in the long run. If Bitcoin is primarily used for long term storage, then you need some [at least] constant flux of people moving money in and out of long term storage, otherwise your stored Bitcoins will depreciate in value. Therefore this is a kind of bet that Bitcoin will remain popular as a long term store or that some other use case emerges and maintains the price. Another fac…

> you need some [at least] constant flux of people moving money in and out of long term storage This isn't necessary to maintain value (think of a rare painting), but it is important to provide liquidity when you come to sell, so that you don't have to wait weeks for someone to buy your bitcoin. Bitcoin has plenty of liquidity - no shortage of buyer and sellers. Coinbase alone trades ~$1 billion of bitcoin per day. Y…

So currently there are a quarter or half a million transactions per day for 100 $ each. If Bitcoin was primarily used for long term storage, that would probably no longer be true. The current market capitalization of 1T $ is a million people holding a million dollar, everyone would have to do one transaction every two, three days to maintain that transaction rate, something I would not call long term storage.

In the end the details don't really matter, currently running Bitcoin seems to cost about 1B $ per month and the users have to pay for that one way or another. Whether there are 1M users with 1M $ each paying 1k $ per month or 1B users with 1k $ and paying 1 $ in fees per month or no one paying any fees and the newly mined coins just diluting the value, that are all details.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#247

Post by troupo »

jakupovic wrote: post #237
troupo wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "crypto bad boo" is precisely because the HN crowd doesn't ignore the history of anything that crypto pretends it's disrupting. Instead all the clueless crypto bros in the crypto space end up slowly, and often painfully, re-discovering all this history and the reasons why things are the way they are.

Let me call you clueless my friend and maybe even other names as you seem to like to. Things are the way they are because of interests, some people are making money on it. "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything and you seem clueless as to what they want and are repeating old ass tropes you probably learned from others. I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S, you probably don't, being o…

> "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything

Yes, most don't discover anything, they just run scams. The tiny percentage who doesn't are busy re-discovering and te-inventing all the institutions and processes the world has.

> I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S

Ah yes. Yet another comparison pulled out of thin air.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#248

Post by acdha »

mattdesl wrote: post #243
acdha wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I’m aware of AI winters but that doesn’t affect the point I was making: people knew neural networks were capable of the task since neuroscientists were studying how our own brains used them, but they were computationally daunting. “AI winter” didn’t mean that everyone gave up and assumed the theists were right that some supernatural power was the key part, it meant that developing commercially-viable technologie…

the whole idea of an “AI winter” is that people did not feel that AI was capable and worth pursuing, the Wikipedia link makes that sentiment clear. The remaining computer scientists still working in AI space obviously continued developing the technology despite the lack of public interest and major funding, but the same happens in crypto: engineers are still developing new ideas and technologies within blockchain spa…

> the whole idea of an “AI winter” is that people did not feel that AI was capable and worth pursuing, the Wikipedia link makes that sentiment clear.

Try counting the number of times people mention phrases like “combinatorial explosion” or other limitations like the single/multi-layer perceptron argument, which are the kinds of problems we’re talking about where the issue was feasibility on the hardware available, or things like “expert systems” which were dead ends unrelated to neural networks.

Now, you can try to change the topic again to hypothesize that some non-blockchain technology will become popular but that’s no more relevant to this thread than the 80s expert systems people were to modern machine learning systems. Different technology and implementations having different results isn’t exactly disproving criticism.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#249

Post by npoc »

danbruc wrote: post #246
npoc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need some [at least] constant flux of people moving money in and out of long term storage This isn't necessary to maintain value (think of a rare painting), but it is important to provide liquidity when you come to sell, so that you don't have to wait weeks for someone to buy your bitcoin. Bitcoin has plenty of liquidity - no shortage of buyer and sellers. Coinbase alone trades ~$1 billion of bitcoin per day. Y…

So currently there are a quarter or half a million transactions per day for 100 $ each. If Bitcoin was primarily used for long term storage, that would probably no longer be true. The current market capitalization of 1T $ is a million people holding a million dollar, everyone would have to do one transaction every two, three days to maintain that transaction rate, something I would not call long term storage. In the…

Bitcoin fees are cheapest when used with large values (because the fee doesn't increase with transaction size) and for long periods (because there is no fee related to time held), but that doesn't mean it's only useful for that, and it's a wide spectrum on both scales.

It's extremely important to remember that when the fees make up the vast majority of the miner's income, there will be far more people using bitcoin. Ultimately, if bitcoin fulfils it's promise as the best store of value mankind has ever seen, everyone in the world will want some. In this situation, the demand for the 7 tn/sec will be enormous. As humans we're just not used to seeing hard limits on supply of a liquid asset, and it's easy to overlook it's effects. Just as the hard limit on the bitcoin supply issuance is fundamental to it holding its value against essentially anything else (even the gold supply doubles every 30-50 years) and will lead to enormous growth in demand against a falling supply, the fixed supply of transactions will lead to similar increases in the price of transactions due to fixed transaction supply and increasing overall demand.

Once hundred's of millions to billions of people are fighting over transaction space that can only service 150 million transactions a year, the supply/demand ratio will be plenty to support a high price. By that point people would _ideally_ be using it every day/week, and so the potential demand would be enormous, and the transaction price will increase until only their larger transactions are economical.

The real question is: how much hash-rate is really needed?

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#250

Post by mattdesl »

acdha wrote: post #248
mattdesl wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the whole idea of an “AI winter” is that people did not feel that AI was capable and worth pursuing, the Wikipedia link makes that sentiment clear. The remaining computer scientists still working in AI space obviously continued developing the technology despite the lack of public interest and major funding, but the same happens in crypto: engineers are still developing new ideas and technologies within blockchain spa…

> the whole idea of an “AI winter” is that people did not feel that AI was capable and worth pursuing, the Wikipedia link makes that sentiment clear. Try counting the number of times people mention phrases like “combinatorial explosion” or other limitations like the single/multi-layer perceptron argument, which are the kinds of problems we’re talking about where the issue was feasibility on the hardware available, or…

If “nobody doubted” AI, there would not have been an AI winter in the first place.

> Now, you can try to change the topic again to hypothesize that some non-blockchain technology will become popular but that’s no more relevant to this thread than the 80s expert systems people were to modern machine learning systems.

Practical ZKP and accessible circuit programming is definitely relevant to blockchains; it is one example of technological advancement in crypto that has led to significant advancements. If the only technology you look at is Bitcoin, which is stagnant and hasn’t progressed in many years, of course it will look like nothing in blockchain technology has progressed.

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