5 ms·

You could make this same criticism of cash, though. It's not a usability regression, they just both have the same flaw. People pass off counterfeit currency as

by darawk 7y ago

You could make this same criticism of cash, though. It's not a usability regression, they just both have the same flaw. People pass off counterfeit currency as real all the time.

arcticbull 7y ago
Sure but cash isn’t affected by water, freezing, bending, pressure, moderate temperatures above whatever the 70C limit is on these ICs, static electricity, ionizing radiation and microwaves. People don’t pass off counterfeit currency as real all the time either, that’s a false lead. Currently 0.01% of currency is fake and it’s actively sought out and removed from circulation [1]. That’s almost guaranteed way less than Kong bills that will become damaged and destroyed in the most ordinary of ways. We’re extending SFYL to IRL. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.frbsf.org/education/publications/doctor-econ/2004/april/money-supply-currency-counterfeit/%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.frbsf.org/education/publica...
- darawk 7y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. The comment I was responding to claimed that verification represented a regression in usability in relation to cash. This is not true, because cash also requires verification. I'm not claiming Kong is better in this regard, simply that it is equivalent.
  - sooheon 7y ago
    Not all verification is equally costly.
    - darawk 7y ago
      True, but you should be able to verify a Kong note via an app on your phone pretty easily.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Cash doesn't really require verification in most cases, if it looks good its probably good, your possession of the notes is almost certainly enough. You're not really looking for anything other than an obvious counterfeit note. Whereas Kong requires verification because literally anything could have happened to the note that you can't determine through mere visual inspection (all the things I noted). That forces you through the awkward and painful flow of verifying each Kong note via NFC.
    - CryptoPunk 7y ago
      >>You're not really looking for anything other than an obvious counterfeit note. That's not because non-obvious counterfeits are not possible. It's just that not many of them are generated. The same could apply to non-obviously sabotaged Kong: theoretically it's possible to do, but in practice uncommon. Kong would have the added benefit of not financially rewarding the sabateur the way counterfeiting rewards a counterfeiter.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        The risks for a cash bill are just counterfeiting. The risks for a Kong bill are both counterfeiting and failure of the secure element from any of a myriad ways, including thermal, mechanical stress, static, and so on. Those failure modes cannot be detected with the naked eye necessitating much more scrutiny. It's far more likely your Kong bill just break taking its value with it into the aether than you receiving a counterfeit USD bill.
        CryptoPunk 7y ago
        Kong bills are far harder to counterfeit than cash bills. Counterfeits non-obvious to the naked eye only require producing a convincing plastic film and hologram. Compromising the secure element to extract the private key requires advanced mechano-electronic skills.
        arcticbull 7y ago
- m-i-l 7y ago
  > "cash isn’t affected by water, freezing, bending, pressure, moderate temperatures above whatever the 70C limit is on these ICs, static electricity, ionizing radiation and microwaves." And if your physical banknotes do somehow get damaged e.g. by fire or by being chewed by a pet, there is a decent chance you'll still be able to get them exchanged, because there are government-backed institutions there to help you such as the Bank of England[0] or the US Dept of Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing[1]. In the absence of a Central Bank of Kong to perform this function, the Kong people could make their new physical currency more robust by putting their fancy chips and whatnot inside some discs made of a metal that was resistant to corrosion and oxidation and had a very high melting point. Perhaps also using a rare metal with high economic value, preferably with a standardized weight and purity, so it could also better act as a store of value and be more difficult to counterfeit. At that point you could also take out the fancy chips and whatnot in order to improve reliablility, usability etc. [0] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/damaged-and-contaminated-banknotes https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/damaged-and-contam... [1] https://bep.gov/submitaclaim.html https://bep.gov/submitaclaim.html
jakelazaroff 7y ago
That flaw is mostly a non-issue with cash because printing it is difficult. Who prints Kong? I imagine prevalence of counterfeiting is more or less directly proportional to the ease of printing.
- darawk 7y ago
  > That flaw is mostly a non-issue with cash because printing it is difficult. That depends entirely on how good your fake is. And it is most certainly not 'mostly a non-issue'. Counterfeiting happens all the time. > Who prints Kong? I imagine prevalence of counterfeiting is more or less directly proportional to the ease of printing. Nobody. Kong is printed algorithmically, like any other cryptocurrency.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    > And it is most certainly not 'mostly a non-issue'. Counterfeiting happens all the time. How often have you had any real-life issues with counterfeit money? How often has anyone you know? How often have you even heard of it happening, relative to how often you see and hear of cash being used? A sibling comment provided a source that said that only 1% of 1% of cash is counterfeit. > Nobody. Kong is printed algorithmically, like any other cryptocurrency. What? Notes and coins are a human-made physical items. They’re manufactured by someone.
    - darawk 7y ago
      > How often have you had any real-life issues with counterfeit money? How often has anyone you know? How often have you even heard of it happening, relative to how often you see and hear of cash being used? A sibling comment provided a source that said that only 1% of 1% of cash is counterfeit. Stores have issues with it all the time. That's why they don't often take large bills. I and my personal acquaintances don't accept a lot of cash in exchange for goods and services. You think 1% of cash being counterfeit is not a problem? That sounds like a huge problem to me. > What? Notes and coins are a human-made physical items. They’re manufactured by someone. Sure, the physical objects are made by someone. But the digital tokens to which they refer are produced algorithmically, and the digital tokens are the source of truth here.

by darawk 7y ago

You could make this same criticism of cash, though. It's not a usability regression, they just both have the same flaw. People pass off counterfeit currency as real all the time.

arcticbull 7y ago

Sure but cash isn’t affected by water, freezing, bending, pressure, moderate temperatures above whatever the 70C limit is on these ICs, static electricity, ionizing radiation and microwaves. People don’t pass off counterfeit currency as real all the time either, that’s a false lead. Currently 0.01% of currency is fake and it’s actively sought out and removed from circulation [1]. That’s almost guaranteed way less than Kong bills that will become damaged and destroyed in the most ordinary of ways. We’re extending SFYL to IRL. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.frbsf.org/education/publications/doctor-econ/2004/april/money-supply-currency-counterfeit/%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.frbsf.org/education/publica...

darawk 7y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. The comment I was responding to claimed that verification represented a regression in usability in relation to cash. This is not true, because cash also requires verification. I'm not claiming Kong is better in this regard, simply that it is equivalent.
- sooheon 7y ago
  Not all verification is equally costly.
  - darawk 7y ago
    True, but you should be able to verify a Kong note via an app on your phone pretty easily.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Cash doesn't really require verification in most cases, if it looks good its probably good, your possession of the notes is almost certainly enough. You're not really looking for anything other than an obvious counterfeit note. Whereas Kong requires verification because literally anything could have happened to the note that you can't determine through mere visual inspection (all the things I noted). That forces you through the awkward and painful flow of verifying each Kong note via NFC.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    >>You're not really looking for anything other than an obvious counterfeit note. That's not because non-obvious counterfeits are not possible. It's just that not many of them are generated. The same could apply to non-obviously sabotaged Kong: theoretically it's possible to do, but in practice uncommon. Kong would have the added benefit of not financially rewarding the sabateur the way counterfeiting rewards a counterfeiter.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      The risks for a cash bill are just counterfeiting. The risks for a Kong bill are both counterfeiting and failure of the secure element from any of a myriad ways, including thermal, mechanical stress, static, and so on. Those failure modes cannot be detected with the naked eye necessitating much more scrutiny. It's far more likely your Kong bill just break taking its value with it into the aether than you receiving a counterfeit USD bill.
      - CryptoPunk 7y ago
        Kong bills are far harder to counterfeit than cash bills. Counterfeits non-obvious to the naked eye only require producing a convincing plastic film and hologram. Compromising the secure element to extract the private key requires advanced mechano-electronic skills.
        arcticbull 7y ago
m-i-l 7y ago
> "cash isn’t affected by water, freezing, bending, pressure, moderate temperatures above whatever the 70C limit is on these ICs, static electricity, ionizing radiation and microwaves." And if your physical banknotes do somehow get damaged e.g. by fire or by being chewed by a pet, there is a decent chance you'll still be able to get them exchanged, because there are government-backed institutions there to help you such as the Bank of England[0] or the US Dept of Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing[1]. In the absence of a Central Bank of Kong to perform this function, the Kong people could make their new physical currency more robust by putting their fancy chips and whatnot inside some discs made of a metal that was resistant to corrosion and oxidation and had a very high melting point. Perhaps also using a rare metal with high economic value, preferably with a standardized weight and purity, so it could also better act as a store of value and be more difficult to counterfeit. At that point you could also take out the fancy chips and whatnot in order to improve reliablility, usability etc. [0] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/damaged-and-contaminated-banknotes https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/damaged-and-contam... [1] https://bep.gov/submitaclaim.html https://bep.gov/submitaclaim.html

jakelazaroff 7y ago

That flaw is mostly a non-issue with cash because printing it is difficult. Who prints Kong? I imagine prevalence of counterfeiting is more or less directly proportional to the ease of printing.

darawk 7y ago
> That flaw is mostly a non-issue with cash because printing it is difficult. That depends entirely on how good your fake is. And it is most certainly not 'mostly a non-issue'. Counterfeiting happens all the time. > Who prints Kong? I imagine prevalence of counterfeiting is more or less directly proportional to the ease of printing. Nobody. Kong is printed algorithmically, like any other cryptocurrency.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  > And it is most certainly not 'mostly a non-issue'. Counterfeiting happens all the time. How often have you had any real-life issues with counterfeit money? How often has anyone you know? How often have you even heard of it happening, relative to how often you see and hear of cash being used? A sibling comment provided a source that said that only 1% of 1% of cash is counterfeit. > Nobody. Kong is printed algorithmically, like any other cryptocurrency. What? Notes and coins are a human-made physical items. They’re manufactured by someone.
  - darawk 7y ago
    > How often have you had any real-life issues with counterfeit money? How often has anyone you know? How often have you even heard of it happening, relative to how often you see and hear of cash being used? A sibling comment provided a source that said that only 1% of 1% of cash is counterfeit. Stores have issues with it all the time. That's why they don't often take large bills. I and my personal acquaintances don't accept a lot of cash in exchange for goods and services. You think 1% of cash being counterfeit is not a problem? That sounds like a huge problem to me. > What? Notes and coins are a human-made physical items. They’re manufactured by someone. Sure, the physical objects are made by someone. But the digital tokens to which they refer are produced algorithmically, and the digital tokens are the source of truth here.