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>You do not need to trust them, because you can verify their correctness yourself. I certainly cannot verify their correctness myself, and I'm a professional p
by afgkonionio 8y ago
>You do not need to trust them, because you can verify their correctness yourself.
I certainly cannot verify their correctness myself, and I'm a professional programmer! I don't touch cryptography with a thirteen-and-a-half foot pole. Most people wouldn't even know where to start. Only a tiny minority has the skills to singlehandedly verify the economic theory, cryptography, and implementation of a cryptocurrency.
Pretty much all the time, you're trusting other people to have caught bugs and malicious code for you. Many independent reviewers are far more trustworthy than a normal company (which is why I avoid proprietary software), but that doesn't mean you aren't taking someone else's word that the software works as advertised.
- darawk 8y agoSure, but nobody uses that argument to say that you can't trust AES, RSA or SSL, despite the fact that it applies equally well to them.
- amanaplanacanal 8y agoPiling on to your comment: even the experts get it wrong. Even if you are the most knowledgeable person in the world, you are going to miss things. Nobody can "verify the correctness", it's not technically possible.
- darawk 8y agoOf course, but that's not the point. The point is that you have the opportunity to check it yourself, even if you choose not to avail yourself of that opportunity. And just by that opportunity being available to people, it keeps people honest.