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Journal by fustakrakich
It's voodoo
Always demand paper
Blockchain is Black Box Money, Worse than Black Box Voting
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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Alimony is the curse of the writing classes.
-- Norman Mailer
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21 2021, @05:24AM (1 child)
I gots yer Bitcoin! Right Ch'er! Of course, only worth anything, if you can exchange it for cashy money. And if they all did that at once? Back to natural value of a nerd fantasy. Sorry, it's not my fault. Janrinok's fault.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 22 2021, @04:34PM
If I am rememberizing correctly, the first real world transaction of bitcoin for real world value, was when a pizza shop accepted 10,000 bitcoins as payment for pizza. [marketwatch.com]
If a minstrel has musical instruments attached to his bicycle, can it be called a minstrel cycle?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 21 2021, @06:01AM (25 children)
Because? Paper has its own voodoo problems too. A big one is that you can't buy stuff over the internet with it. For a recent example, Wikileaks now accepts bitcoin because state actors can't shut that down like they can other internet-based payment options.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 21 2021, @07:33AM (24 children)
The internet is a black box economy, very easy to disrupt at the drop of a hat. I don't recommend that you depend on it for your groceries
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 21 2021, @08:10AM (8 children)
When was the last time that hat dropped? I've lived through one [wikipedia.org] such case where a few thousand infected machines were capable of bringing down the entire internet. That was in 1988. Now, we have coordinated attacks with millions of subordinated computer systems. Disruption is much harder to achieve than you would have us believe.
Further, how would you suggest sending a payment to an international organization? Send cash through the mail? That can be disrupted since the mail is just as much a black box as anything else you've described. Perhaps fly with money in a suit case? Airport security is yet another black box.
Fundamentally, your "black box" argument is useless since that's not the problem. Dependence on state controlled currency and payment processors that can be suborned by that state is the problem. It's not the "black box" of that system that's the problem, but the conflict of interests.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21 2021, @09:12AM (2 children)
"When was the last time that hat dropped?"
Wow, now that is frightening. Usually when idiots like you make such statements the shit hits the fan.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 21 2021, @09:37AM (1 child)
That's "It can't get worse" movie logic where the plot gets kicked along by some annoying character quipping away while things indeed get worse. Protip: in the real world, movie logic doesn't work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21 2021, @09:58AM
I think khallow is referring to "Sweet Tooth" on Netflix, which takes place in Jellystone. All those tourists hot on the blockchains, these days.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 21 2021, @05:32PM
Your anecdotal experience aside, I still have confirmation of the transaction when the lights go out in
GeorgiaTexas, or anywhere else [history.com].And we have just as much control over the state as we do over any commercial operation. More in fact, even the richest man in the US gets only one vote (YMMV). And we just have to vote out the people that take their bribes. Our government is of the people. Commerce is the rich man's domain
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22 2021, @02:18AM (3 children)
> how would you suggest sending a payment to an international organization?
I'm a little late to this party, but I've had no problems with international postal money orders. Sure, it takes awhile for the letter to get there, but I've sent and received money with international organizations that way. Most recently $500 from Japan to USA. You go to the post office and buy it, mail to recipient, they take to their post office and redeem for cash.
Tip for larger amounts: don't go early in the morning to redeem, the clerk at the post office may not have enough cash in their drawer yet...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 22 2021, @07:23AM (2 children)
Consider the international organization that I was using as an example, Wikileaks. They're having ongoing trouble with funding because of state actors like the US government. Now, let's suppose that I go to my local US post office, which happens to be run by an organization beholden to the US government, and cut out a international postal money order to Wikileaks. How is that going to work out?
Seems like we're even worse off than with the co-opted private sector payment processors. At least in that case, there's someone to sue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 23 2021, @02:28AM (1 child)
> cut out a international postal money order to Wikileaks. How is that going to work out?
Let's see, https://www.usps.com/international/money-transfers.htm [usps.com] says:
At the bottom of the page are some notes, but nothing about prohibited payees. While Japan worked for me fairly recently, it seems they have now dropped out of this service.
Looks to me like this should work fine, as long as you write in a payee that has suitable ID to cash the money order at their end.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 23 2021, @02:37AM
Why would there be? I don't see any of the usual fine print on that webpage, indicating to me that it's elsewhere, assuming that a prohibition or worse would even be listed publicly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21 2021, @05:26PM (14 children)
What on earth do you mean by black box anyway?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 21 2021, @05:41PM (13 children)
Anything that requires more electricity than an abacus, ink, and papyrus /s... Your store, bank, whatever, never shut down when the computers went offline? Do they know how to light a candle and use pen and paper in the meantime?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday November 21 2021, @07:25PM (12 children)
Black box is something whose inner workings are hidden from the outside. Not something that has a plug. Paper money doesn't need power but it does have its infrastructure requirements.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 21 2021, @08:07PM (11 children)
:-) Guess you didn't notice the /s tag...
All of paper's infrastructure is plainly visible and understandable.
Exactly, that's why we shouldn't depend on Black Box anything outside the entertainment industry.. A human system has to be human simple to be trustworthy.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 21 2021, @09:15PM (10 children)
Like central bank and law enforcement policy? Pull my other finger.
So what again does that have to do with cryptocurrency? You got access to the code and the block chain. Perhaps, "black box" merely means "fusty doesn't understand it".
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 21 2021, @10:20PM (9 children)
On the contrary, it's because I do understand that I'm against it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 21 2021, @10:58PM (8 children)
If you understood it then you would know that the blockchain ledger is publicly available to everyone in the whole damn world.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 21 2021, @11:22PM (7 children)
I'd rather pry open regular daily printed bank ledgers. It's too easy to fudge the electronic bullshit. In your "quantum" stew, it's all Schrödinger's money
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22 2021, @02:30AM (6 children)
"It's too easy to fudge the electronic bullshit."
No, it isn't. Again, you would know this if you understood anything about blockchain.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday November 22 2021, @03:22AM (5 children)
right, you'll get no lies from BIOS and microcode...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 22 2021, @07:16AM (4 children)
Which are completely irrelevant to cryptocurrency. And weren't you going on about the banks? Seems odd to treat them as the ultimate enemy one day and then the next, put a ridiculous amount of faith on banking processes.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday November 22 2021, @09:06AM (3 children)
It's a computer, it has everything to do with crypto. When did you start shilling for it? I mean, who can blame you? Even I realize there's tons of money to be made. Go for it... Still a most wasteful scam
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 22 2021, @08:24PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday November 22 2021, @08:27PM (1 child)
You need one to prove you own any, they're pretty inseparable. You gonna do this pedantry all day today?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Tuesday November 23 2021, @01:01AM
But we have computers and they're pretty interchangeable. If you're concerned that your computer has conspiracy cooties, you can always get another computer. Burner smart phones, for example, are a thing. Meanwhile, you need that paper or you don't own it. You can't prove it in some alternate way.
Given that you just don't seem to be getting what cryptocurrency or paper currency is, yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22 2021, @05:28AM
And blockchain is used for a lot more than just cryptocurrencies:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2021/02/02/blockchain-50/ [forbes.com]
https://cointelegraph.com/news/supply-chain-and-logistics-projects-dominate-additions-to-forbes-blockchain-50 [cointelegraph.com]
In the late '90s thru early 2000s, when your non-IT friends or relatives asked you "Why do I need an e-mail address??"...
I'm sure they all have one by now.