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Because Bitcoin-related businesses have such a stellar security record...

by dubfan 13y ago

rasengan 13y ago
I never mentioned Businesses. I said Bitcoin as in the protocol/blockchain. edit: To further clarify, if you use your CC, you have to give the merchant or processor all the data required to make a purchase. The protocol/idea itself is broken, just like automated ACH by an external third party. edit 2: To go further, think about when the social network sites used to ask for thr username and password you used in order to login to third part services to 'invite your friends'. That was clearly a security mistake at the idea level. Now most services hardened up a little and offer revokable API access so that your account credentials are not required by a third party and usually even access limits can be set on a per API key level basis.
- FireBeyond 13y ago
  So you accept Bitcoin. Now you have to stand at the counter until the network gets enough confirmations… which can be upwards of 20 minutes. Doesn’t sound at all problematic...
  - olefoo 13y ago
    That's an implementation detail; particularly if there is some legal backing (government regulation of the good kind) for the transfer mechanism. Think something using the Ripple protocol backed by a bank fund that holds 1 dollar for every "coin" represented in the system. If transaction confirmations took less than 500 milliseconds and had at least two confirmations from a network that had some form of insurance against double spend (rare and very noticeable) and identity theft (more common, but also noticeable) and auth token theft (relatively common). You could have something that looked like a general purpose internet mediated payment mechanism of sufficient (but not perfect) security; that would be relatively backwards compatible with existing infrastructure and resistant to attacks that merely depend on access to stored data rather than controlling a distributed ledger.

Because Bitcoin-related businesses have such a stellar security record...

by dubfan 13y ago

Because Bitcoin-related businesses have such a stellar security record...

I never mentioned Businesses. I said Bitcoin as in the protocol/blockchain. edit: To further clarify, if you use your CC, you have to give the merchant or processor all the data required to make a purchase. The protocol/idea itself is broken, just like automated ACH by an external third party. edit 2: To go further, think about when the social network sites used to ask for thr username and password you used in order to login to third part services to 'invite your friends'. That was clearly a security mistake at the idea level. Now most services hardened up a little and offer revokable API access so that your account credentials are not required by a third party and usually even access limits can be set on a per API key level basis.

FireBeyond 13y ago
So you accept Bitcoin. Now you have to stand at the counter until the network gets enough confirmations… which can be upwards of 20 minutes. Doesn’t sound at all problematic...
- olefoo 13y ago
  That's an implementation detail; particularly if there is some legal backing (government regulation of the good kind) for the transfer mechanism. Think something using the Ripple protocol backed by a bank fund that holds 1 dollar for every "coin" represented in the system. If transaction confirmations took less than 500 milliseconds and had at least two confirmations from a network that had some form of insurance against double spend (rare and very noticeable) and identity theft (more common, but also noticeable) and auth token theft (relatively common). You could have something that looked like a general purpose internet mediated payment mechanism of sufficient (but not perfect) security; that would be relatively backwards compatible with existing infrastructure and resistant to attacks that merely depend on access to stored data rather than controlling a distributed ledger.