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Visa confirms Coinbase wasn’t at fault for overcharging users
- omarforgotpwd 9y agoWhat terrible press for Coinbase. I'd be furious at Visa if I was working there. A suspicious person might even suspect sabotage?
- iovrthoughtthis 9y agoHanlons razor. It was probably just stupidity.
- bitL 9y agoHanlon's/Occam's/etc. razors are just heuristics.
- travmatt 9y agoAnd accusations of sabotage without proof of any sort is baseless conjecture.
- bitL 9y agoHeinlein's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice." More on common razor heuristics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_%28philosophy%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_%28philosophy%29 https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_razor https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_razor
- zaroth 9y agoA better way to state it, IMO; Stupidity should be assumed. Malice demands evidence. But it comes down to intent. Impute intent only when indicated. Which when you think about it is only fair. It’s self-evident Visa fucked up, but a claim it was malicious must be substantiated or it’s just trolling.
- bitL 9y agoI am not saying somebody at VISA did it intentionally, I just don't understand why am I supposed to assume they didn't given whatever popular logical razor that can't be a tautology on its own.
- zaroth 9y agoBecause supposing malicious intent without any evidence to support the conclusion is uncharitable at best, and libelous at worst. It’s a philosophy which many people find beneficial, to try to shape your thinking in a way that you set a higher bar before believing something negative was done intentionally rather than unintentionally. The inverse (converse?) is also be true — when lacking conclusive evidence either way, assuming positive things are done intentionally and not unintentionally. Another way to think about it is; what’s the cost of being wrong? It’s as simple as giving the benefit of the doubt.
- bitL 9y ago> uncharitable at best I am fine with that. I am not going to assume "good intentions" by default, but case by case as I see fit. Even if my biases get in the way (like with any untrained human). If there is a non-zero probability of somebody intentionally causing something, i.e. it cannot be counter-factually refuted, then it has to be handled as one possible explanation, however unlikely it is. Haven't you ever seen how people cook the books for businesses to appear flawless? Ohh, that small mistake? Just an error, don't look too much into that! Let's have a drink and here is your ticket to a strip club to entertain you! Have fun!
- ZephyrP 9y ago> i.e it cannot be counter-factually refuted, then it has to be handled as one possible explanation, however unlikely it is. ergo, we must accuse all others of whichever crimes are not literally logical impossibilities.
- 9y ago
- sevenfive 9y agoThis is why I hate Hanlon's razor. It's a totally generic catchphrase that people on HN just keep repeating. It's not an argument.
- rvern 9y agoNot Occam’s razor. http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/6/1076 http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/6/1076
- bitL 9y agoFrom wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor: "In science, Occam's razor is used as a heuristic guide in the development of theoretical models, rather than as a rigorous arbiter between candidate models." Looking at Universal Induction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_inductive_inference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_induc... Isn't Universal Induction non-computable? What logics does it work in and which ones are beyond its reach? Is it applied purely to countable set of all programs or could it extend to real-world as well? One would expect it holds in precisely structured logics like first-order predicate logic, so that's not a surprise.
- ComputerGuru 9y agoAs opposed to a working theory of malfeasance and corruption which is what?
- bitL 9y agoI am simply pointing out that throwing around some popular heuristics isn't something a rational person should default to, and that these have their limits as well. What's wrong with that? If I were to run a criminal syndicate, I would take the least probable explanations and make them core of my enterprise due to blindness caused by popularity of applying razors everywhere. "Assume positive intent" is not going to help you when your money is gone.
- sevenfive 9y agoYes, everyone here has heard of Hanlon's razor.
- cakemuncher 9y agoI haven't. This is my first time actually. It's pretty cool, didn't know about it. Thanks OP.
- codefined 9y agoThis comment assumes you're being sarcastic. "Halon's Razor" as a concept is pretty popular, it's not that out of the ordinary to expect for you to know (especially if your peruse this site). Add to this with the fact that you're on a computer, you can select the text, right click --> search on <engine> in probably under 3 seconds to find out what it is means that it's fair just to type the phrase and not have to add on the adage that it represents.
- sevenfive 9y agoIt's just a 100% empty comment. Literally every time something like this comes up, someone has to pipe up, "Hanlon's razor!" without any reference to actual details of the situation. Like, you are not smarter for knowing the phrase "Hanlon's razor," Hanlon's razor is not some deep piece of wisdom about the world, its literally just a catchphrase that takes 0 brainpower to repeat. Sorry, kind of a pet peeve of mine.
- hinkley 9y agoOutside of the theater of war, laziness is at least as likely as stupidity.
- duxup 9y agoI'm proof of that!
- thathappened 9y agoA network engineer would just sigh and get to working with the partner or 3rd party to confirm this isn't a network related issue.
- aussie12345 9y agoIs there somewhere a link to a Visa statement? The one referenced seems from the Coinbase blog. I couldn't find any information from Visa, besides the one public post they made saying they aren't at fault. Its quite the tragedy for some people apparently.
- Ninn 9y agoThe techcrunch articles states that they have confirmed the statement with Visa. Please consider reading it?
- aussie12345 9y agoWhy can't they reference a source?
- richardwhiuk 9y agoProbably cause Visa and Worldplay don't really want to issue the statement
- kss238 9y agoIf you were Visa would you really want to put out an obviously negative statement like this anymore than you have to?
- Trundle 9y agoThey did reference a source. Visa.
- ghusbands 9y agoThe article clearly states: "The following is a joint statement from Visa and Worldpay, which is Coinbase’s payment processor partner. While Coinbase initially distributed the statement on its own blog, we’ve also received the statement directly from Visa." In that statement: "This issue was not caused by Coinbase."
- 9y ago
- swang 9y agoHave the solved the issue of people never seeing their money they've sent via wire transfer?
- ivoflipse 9y agoReport the issue with CFPB (https://www.consumerfinance.gov https://www.consumerfinance.gov). I waited for ~3 months with barely any info from Coinbase's side. After reporting it, the issue got resolved in a timely fashion.
- stefano 9y agoI find it hilarious that people "investing" in decentralization have to turn to a central authority to be protected.
- ddorian43 9y agoGotta decentralize CFPB too.
- kylell 9y agothe central authority is the gatekeeper in this cause, things happening at the border have nothing to do with either concepts.
- kss238 9y agoIt's only because they are having an issue with centralized money. Where else but the regulatory agencies to go when you have an issue with fiat? There wouldn't be a problem like this when dealing in Bitcoin.
- nukeop 9y agoVisa has vested interest in cryptocurrencies never getting anywhere. They have a motive to make them seem like a dangerous investment. I'm not saying that a purposeful action happened here, but it is a possibility.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- criddell 9y agoDoes anybody know what happened with the people on Reddit trying to organize and armed group to head to Coinbase to confront the CEO?
- matt4077 9y agoThey couldn’t find an adult to drive them.
- tonetheman 9y agoThis. This is the best comment I have seen in a long time.
- Bitcoin_McPonzi 9y agoI would hope that Coinbase would contact the FBI about this, and that the FBI would take it seriously.
- gruez 9y agoLink to Reddit thread?
- criddell 9y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7y0teq/anyone_want_to_show_up_at_the_coinbase/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7y0teq/anyone_wan...
- jxub 9y agoSounds like good material for a movie.
- maximexx 9y agoAnd this is one of the major points of cryptocurrency as a replacement for the current payment systems. In the end we don't want Banks, Visa, Coinbase, etc.. because they F* with our money.
- ebbv 9y agoAre you for real? There’s major headlines about screw ups with crypto codebases and exchanges constantly.
- notgoingaway 9y agoI think you misread the comment you're replying to.
- eberkund 9y agoWhat a fallacy of equivocation, cryptocurrency codebases and the exchanges they trade on are not the same thing. It would be like saying: marijuana and the cartels and killing any people every year!
- ebbv 9y agoI didn't equivocate them, I listed them both individually. Didn't seem like a hard sentence to parse to me?
- AgentME 9y agoThe headlines are practically always either about centralized bank-like exchanges that hold crypto on behalf of others losing it, or about people losing money they put into a badly-written Ethereum contract. The number of situations that people lost properly-handled cryptocurrency (they didn't send it to the wrong address, they had a backup, and they used a hardware wallet or malware-free computer) with a mainstream client have been practically non-existent.
- ebbv 9y agoYou realize the user hostile nature of basically all crypto currencies is not a feature right?
- justherefortart 9y agoHaving many friends that worked out at Visa, that place is a fucking train wreck in IT (mostly due to the politics, well that and the attempted outsourcing). Not surprised in the least.
- ehPReth 9y agoTheir PKI is apparently none too good as well: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/NNV3zvX43vE/rae9kNkWAgAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/...
- nukeop 9y agoVisa confirmed this... on Coinbase's blog. Why didn't they post it on their own website?
- runeks 9y agoBecause it’s really bad press.
- Animats 9y agoWhere's the statement directly from Visa or Worldpay? All we have is a blog entry in Coinbase's blog. "Joint statements" that only come from the beneficiary of the statement are always suspicious. Visa has both a press release site and a number of blogs. None seem to mention Coinbase.
- emh68 9y agoIf you look at what actually happened, it’s pretty obvious that it was Visa... they were trying to retroactively change how they applied cash advance fees for the past month, and something went wrong.
- iamleppert 9y agoMaybe people jumped to conclusions in blaming Coinbase because of all the horror stories about them? It seems like every other day someone is posting up a blog post or story about them locking an account or disappearing transactions, inconsistent ledgers, and months without adequate resolution. It seems in many cases people have been forced to publicly shame them in order to get help. This one maybe wasn’t there fault but they certainly have a checkered past.