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The worst problem in my opinion is not even this. With crypto currencies you can NEVER be sure that you are the owner of what you think you own. The only thing

The worst problem in my opinion is not even this. With crypto currencies you can NEVER be sure that you are the owner of what you think you own. The only thing that guarantees your property of crypto currency is the EXCLUSIVE ownership of a private key. But what guarantees that other people don't already have access to the key you think is private, through any of the millions of forms of hacking that are available? Even if you have your private key secured nowadays, there is always the possibility that someone else in the past hacked and had access to that same private key and can use it at any time. So, even the notion private property cannot be guaranteed with crypto currencies.

hanniabu 8y ago
This will all be abstracted in time. One way I can think of is to have the funds periodically moved to different addresses, and obviously don't keep all your funds in a single address. This can all be automated and abstracted.
sametmax 8y ago
That's why we have the ledger.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  How does that stop others from gaining access to your private keys?
  - sametmax 8y ago
    It's a hardware wallet, pretty hard to hack: https://www.ledger.com/ https://www.ledger.com/
theli0nheart 8y ago
The same could be said for any number of things we consider to be private property. Unless you physically can see with your own eyes everything that you "own", how do you know some bad actor hasn't run off with it? Well, our society gives us a whole bunch of protections in place which give us some peace of mind (security systems, laws, etc.), but you can't know for sure without some verification. So if you have the private key in your hand, and the address with your Bitcoin still has Bitcoin, while someone else could have your private key, why wouldn't they just transfer the money out?
- jjnoakes 8y ago
  > The same could be said for any number of things we consider to be private property. Except if we are wrong in those other cases, we can usually use the legal system to help us recover our stolen property. > So if you have the private key in your hand, and the address with your Bitcoin still has Bitcoin, while someone else could have your private key, why wouldn't they just transfer the money out? Maybe they are waiting for you to deposit more bitcoin into that address, or maybe they are waiting to collect more private keys before exploiting them all at the same time, or maybe they... why speculate? The idea that money can disappear without recourse because of one mistake in security or one highly motivated targeted attack is not, in my opinion, a desirable property of a currency.
  - theli0nheart 8y ago
    > Maybe they are waiting for you to deposit more bitcoin into that address, or maybe they are waiting to collect more private keys before exploiting them all at the same time, or maybe they... why speculate? Well, from a criminal's point of view, I don't see the upside in waiting. The owner of the coins could move them at any time, and then your loot is gone for good. I think it's safe to assume that if someone else has possession of your private keys, your addresses will be drained immediately.
    - jjnoakes 8y ago
      Sure, maybe for a random target. Maybe for a targeted attack the criminal knows more money is coming in and doesn't want to tip his hand yet. Who knows... that's the point of not speculating.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
theli0nheart has addressed that we're not dealing in absolutes. To complement, I can be pretty sure that if someone unscrupulous had hacked my private key away, they would have been very incentivised to empty the account immediately, before I or another thief did it. If it was just me, sure, they could take a risk and wait for bigger deposits. But tragedy of the commons also happens to criminals.
hombre_fatal 8y ago
On the other hand, after being the victim of social engineering attacks on AWS and Gandi, I often feel like I don't really own anything when anyone with mere persistence can attack a customer support vector. Or the fact that in pull based financial systems like the US, someone who got your debit card number when buying a coffee can charge you again in the future, so you need to be eternally vigilant with your statements. To me, cryptocurrency is a breath of fresh air in these regards. It's a predictable system to plan around.
- vkou 8y ago
  > Or the fact that in pull based financial systems like the US, someone who got your debit card number when buying a coffee can charge you again in the future, so you need to be eternally vigilant with your statements. Which is why banks analyze your transaction history, and call you when they observe suspicious patterns of use of your credit card.
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    And it's full of false positives, false negatives, only works in some conditions, and it's not a service I want to pay for on every single transaction. That's basically a bandage on top of a shitty system. I'm not so naive to say that one thing is the best, but I'm willing to speak up for trade-offs in these absolutist arguments.
    - vkou 8y ago
      > And it's full of false positives, false negatives, only works in some conditions, and it's not a service I want to pay for on every single transaction. That's basically a bandage on top of a shitty system. The per-transaction costs of this fraud-prevention are miniscule, the false positives don't affect me (I get a phone call, and I tell them everything's fine), and I have recourse, both procedural, and legal against false negatives. Just because you sprinkle a bunch of crypto powder on a transaction doesn't mean that all possibility for fraud goes away. The median per-transaction cost in crypto for this sort of thing is zero, while the worst-case cost is 'you lose the entire transaction/all your money'. And that latter one happens far too frequently for me to bank my life on it.
tim333 8y ago
>... there is always the possibility that someone else in the past hacked and had access to that same private key That one's not too hard - if in any doubt transfer to a new wallet with a new private key. Nothing is 100% secure - you can but do a reasonable job. My biggest worry when I have my own keys is losing the keys rather than being hacked.

hanniabu 8y ago

This will all be abstracted in time. One way I can think of is to have the funds periodically moved to different addresses, and obviously don't keep all your funds in a single address. This can all be automated and abstracted.

sametmax 8y ago

That's why we have the ledger.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mrguyorama 8y ago
How does that stop others from gaining access to your private keys?
- sametmax 8y ago
  It's a hardware wallet, pretty hard to hack: https://www.ledger.com/ https://www.ledger.com/

theli0nheart 8y ago

The same could be said for any number of things we consider to be private property. Unless you physically can see with your own eyes everything that you "own", how do you know some bad actor hasn't run off with it? Well, our society gives us a whole bunch of protections in place which give us some peace of mind (security systems, laws, etc.), but you can't know for sure without some verification. So if you have the private key in your hand, and the address with your Bitcoin still has Bitcoin, while someone else could have your private key, why wouldn't they just transfer the money out?

jjnoakes 8y ago
> The same could be said for any number of things we consider to be private property. Except if we are wrong in those other cases, we can usually use the legal system to help us recover our stolen property. > So if you have the private key in your hand, and the address with your Bitcoin still has Bitcoin, while someone else could have your private key, why wouldn't they just transfer the money out? Maybe they are waiting for you to deposit more bitcoin into that address, or maybe they are waiting to collect more private keys before exploiting them all at the same time, or maybe they... why speculate? The idea that money can disappear without recourse because of one mistake in security or one highly motivated targeted attack is not, in my opinion, a desirable property of a currency.
- theli0nheart 8y ago
  > Maybe they are waiting for you to deposit more bitcoin into that address, or maybe they are waiting to collect more private keys before exploiting them all at the same time, or maybe they... why speculate? Well, from a criminal's point of view, I don't see the upside in waiting. The owner of the coins could move them at any time, and then your loot is gone for good. I think it's safe to assume that if someone else has possession of your private keys, your addresses will be drained immediately.
  - jjnoakes 8y ago
    Sure, maybe for a random target. Maybe for a targeted attack the criminal knows more money is coming in and doesn't want to tip his hand yet. Who knows... that's the point of not speculating.

emiliobumachar 8y ago

theli0nheart has addressed that we're not dealing in absolutes. To complement, I can be pretty sure that if someone unscrupulous had hacked my private key away, they would have been very incentivised to empty the account immediately, before I or another thief did it. If it was just me, sure, they could take a risk and wait for bigger deposits. But tragedy of the commons also happens to criminals.

hombre_fatal 8y ago

On the other hand, after being the victim of social engineering attacks on AWS and Gandi, I often feel like I don't really own anything when anyone with mere persistence can attack a customer support vector. Or the fact that in pull based financial systems like the US, someone who got your debit card number when buying a coffee can charge you again in the future, so you need to be eternally vigilant with your statements. To me, cryptocurrency is a breath of fresh air in these regards. It's a predictable system to plan around.

vkou 8y ago
> Or the fact that in pull based financial systems like the US, someone who got your debit card number when buying a coffee can charge you again in the future, so you need to be eternally vigilant with your statements. Which is why banks analyze your transaction history, and call you when they observe suspicious patterns of use of your credit card.
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  And it's full of false positives, false negatives, only works in some conditions, and it's not a service I want to pay for on every single transaction. That's basically a bandage on top of a shitty system. I'm not so naive to say that one thing is the best, but I'm willing to speak up for trade-offs in these absolutist arguments.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > And it's full of false positives, false negatives, only works in some conditions, and it's not a service I want to pay for on every single transaction. That's basically a bandage on top of a shitty system. The per-transaction costs of this fraud-prevention are miniscule, the false positives don't affect me (I get a phone call, and I tell them everything's fine), and I have recourse, both procedural, and legal against false negatives. Just because you sprinkle a bunch of crypto powder on a transaction doesn't mean that all possibility for fraud goes away. The median per-transaction cost in crypto for this sort of thing is zero, while the worst-case cost is 'you lose the entire transaction/all your money'. And that latter one happens far too frequently for me to bank my life on it.

tim333 8y ago

>... there is always the possibility that someone else in the past hacked and had access to that same private key That one's not too hard - if in any doubt transfer to a new wallet with a new private key. Nothing is 100% secure - you can but do a reasonable job. My biggest worry when I have my own keys is losing the keys rather than being hacked.