4 ms·

Look I'll restate my position in simpler words again: Encryption has good uses, and some bad uses. Cryptocurrencies have only bad uses. See the difference?

by slver 5y ago

shawnz 5y ago
I'll restate my argument in simpler words too: What are the good uses of strong encryption that aren't solved by government controlled encryption?
- slver 5y ago
  Do you even realize most of the crypto research is done by the NSA, a government agency? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_cryptography Yes, AES, SHA and so on, that's all the NSA. If instead by "government controlled" you mean the government has a backdoor, then two things: 1. Most governments already have a backdoor in many major companies' cloud services. 2. The actual algorithm can't have a backdoor because there's no way to design it so it's "government-only". It'd be one key away from becoming every criminal's backdoor. So as you see, everything actually makes sense there.
  - shawnz 5y ago
    So with point 1, you are saying that you do support mandated government backdoors? Or are you just acknowledging that they effectively exist already? Because that is not relevant: Bitcoin exists already, too, it has no "backdoor", and it is usable today. With point 2, I think you will see how the same line of thinking applies to cryptocurrency. The government is just one particular institution and there's no reason to expect them to be better stewards of the ability to sniff our encrypted messages than anyone else. Therefore, nobody should have that ability. I don't see why the same argument doesn't apply to encrypted "value transfers".
    - slver 5y ago
      Honestly if you expect that Joe who keeps his wallet on the desktop right next to some screensaver.exe he has downloaded is as a good steward of his savings as having a regulated bank account with a government backed currency, any conversation between us on the topic I'd consider "reasonable" is pointless.
      - shawnz 5y ago
        This is no different than arguing "encryption is useless because most people don't use it properly".
        slver 5y ago
        Except that's wrong, most people use it properly. Because they can just use trusted applications that implement it. Who do you trust with your wallet? Mt. Gox? Altsbit? Upbit? BinDAX? Bitpoint? GateHub? Bitrue? Binance? DragonEx? Bithumb? CoinBene? Coinbin? Coinmama? Cryptopia? Oh yeah they all got hacked and lost their clients millions.
        shawnz 5y ago
        How many 1000s of people have permanently lost sensitive data because they lost their FDE keys? How many companies had user data compromised because they didn't implement encryption best practices properly? Certainly more than a dozen or whatever. It's a useless comparison because encryption has been around for decades more than cryptocurrencies. The point is about the format of the argument. It doesn't make sense to say it's OK to ban a technology just because many people don't use it properly.
        slver 5y ago
        Don’t compare leaking someone’s email with disappearing their whole life savings.
        deleted 5y ago
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > What are the good uses of strong encryption that aren't solved by government controlled encryption? Protection against bad government(s), or at least bad actors in (good) government: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT
  - shawnz 5y ago
    And doesn't the same justification apply for cryptocurrencies?

Look I'll restate my position in simpler words again: Encryption has good uses, and some bad uses. Cryptocurrencies have only bad uses. See the difference?

by slver 5y ago

Look I'll restate my position in simpler words again: Encryption has good uses, and some bad uses. Cryptocurrencies have only bad uses. See the difference?

shawnz 5y ago

I'll restate my argument in simpler words too: What are the good uses of strong encryption that aren't solved by government controlled encryption?

slver 5y ago
Do you even realize most of the crypto research is done by the NSA, a government agency? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_cryptography Yes, AES, SHA and so on, that's all the NSA. If instead by "government controlled" you mean the government has a backdoor, then two things: 1. Most governments already have a backdoor in many major companies' cloud services. 2. The actual algorithm can't have a backdoor because there's no way to design it so it's "government-only". It'd be one key away from becoming every criminal's backdoor. So as you see, everything actually makes sense there.
- shawnz 5y ago
  So with point 1, you are saying that you do support mandated government backdoors? Or are you just acknowledging that they effectively exist already? Because that is not relevant: Bitcoin exists already, too, it has no "backdoor", and it is usable today. With point 2, I think you will see how the same line of thinking applies to cryptocurrency. The government is just one particular institution and there's no reason to expect them to be better stewards of the ability to sniff our encrypted messages than anyone else. Therefore, nobody should have that ability. I don't see why the same argument doesn't apply to encrypted "value transfers".
  - slver 5y ago
    Honestly if you expect that Joe who keeps his wallet on the desktop right next to some screensaver.exe he has downloaded is as a good steward of his savings as having a regulated bank account with a government backed currency, any conversation between us on the topic I'd consider "reasonable" is pointless.
    - shawnz 5y ago
      This is no different than arguing "encryption is useless because most people don't use it properly".
      - slver 5y ago
        Except that's wrong, most people use it properly. Because they can just use trusted applications that implement it. Who do you trust with your wallet? Mt. Gox? Altsbit? Upbit? BinDAX? Bitpoint? GateHub? Bitrue? Binance? DragonEx? Bithumb? CoinBene? Coinbin? Coinmama? Cryptopia? Oh yeah they all got hacked and lost their clients millions.
        shawnz 5y ago
        How many 1000s of people have permanently lost sensitive data because they lost their FDE keys? How many companies had user data compromised because they didn't implement encryption best practices properly? Certainly more than a dozen or whatever. It's a useless comparison because encryption has been around for decades more than cryptocurrencies. The point is about the format of the argument. It doesn't make sense to say it's OK to ban a technology just because many people don't use it properly.
        slver 5y ago
        Don’t compare leaking someone’s email with disappearing their whole life savings.
        deleted 5y ago
throw0101a 5y ago
> What are the good uses of strong encryption that aren't solved by government controlled encryption? Protection against bad government(s), or at least bad actors in (good) government: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT
- shawnz 5y ago
  And doesn't the same justification apply for cryptocurrencies?