7 ms·

I know this will not be a popular thing to hear, but the scope of the problem has convinced me that this won't end until everything is open. The only trustable

I know this will not be a popular thing to hear, but the scope of the problem has convinced me that this won't end until everything is open. The only trustable stack is one that begins with open hardware and ends with creative commons content in ogg in VLC on linux. I love open source, but.... it's going to be damn hard to turn a buck. So, which do we want more: the ability to make money and the right to be paid for our work, or liberty and privacy? That is one hell of a would-you-rather. Thanks, NSA, for forcing a disgusting thought experiment into the real world.

kordless 13y ago
> it's going to be damn hard to turn a buck How about turning a micro Bitcoin with it?
kansface 13y ago
An open stack is not enough because you can't trust any compiled software. In practice, even if we had a completely open stack and no binaries, we can't even begin to write error free code. Defeating the NSA [via software], a billion dollar agency with the power to ruin your life is completely unrealistic. Any real change must come through political action.
- badinker 13y ago
  Political action? How has voting worked for you? My hope is as the dollar starts to inflate away (like every other fiat currency that has ever existed) we all instead turn to a block chain currency. Something that can't be manipulated. Something that can't be stolen from us and used to fund three letter agencies.
  - Steko 13y ago
    How are those hyperinflation calls working out for you?
    - dmix 13y ago
      idk about American inflation, but as a Canadian getting paid in USD, the value of USD has decline significantly since last year. Lowest since 2009: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=10Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=10Y I got a nearly 10% raise thanks to a strong Canadian economy and weak American one. Keep it up guys.
      - Steko 13y ago
        > the value of USD has decline significantly since last year According to your chart a year ago 1 CAD got you around 1 USD and today it gets you 0.90 USD. Normally that's not interpreted as a decline in the strength of the dollar.
      - seandhi 13y ago
        Unless I've had a stroke this morning, according to this chart, the value of the USD has strengthened compared to the CAD over the last few years.
  - deong 13y ago
    It doesn't appear that random guys on the internet are having much trouble stealing blockchain-based currency. I'm not sure why you think the NSA couldn't do it too.
    - tmzt 13y ago
      When you store your private keys in a centralized repository, where they can be taken by asking nicely (as in SQL injection), you are either not using a blockchain-based currency, or you are using it badly. The same is true if you generate a private key with a lower entropy source to simplify encoding (called a brain wallet for some reason.) Yes there a longer passphrases that do have more entropy, but you are still limiting the alphabet and the complexity for dictionary attacks.
  - vacri 13y ago
    used to fund three letter agencies. I mean apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the [government] ever done for us? If you really want no tax, go move to Vanuatu. It's a lovely, sunny place, the people are happy, the army and the police are the same thing and only 800 strong, the government is small, it's off the political radar so draws little interest from TLAs, English is an official language... and there is no income tax (with the exception of landlords), nor are there several other taxes on businesses (as it's a tax haven). You don't want money 'stolen' from you? Then here is a realistic option available to you, one that is entirely achievable rather than pretending that it's possible to turn a country with a major economy into a tax-free zone, and wringing your hands that it obviously can't be done.
    - dmix 13y ago
      Property tax could be enough to fund most of the essential things you listed and is still enforceable even if a cryptocurrency is a primary currency. While your currency and income might be hidden, you still need to live in a house on land. ala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism Despite the extremely common misinterpretation by the public, ~90% of libertarians are not anarchists who completely oppose taxation. They are "small government" (aka minarchist), not "no government".
- undoware 13y ago
  You're right, kansface. But I'm not a U.S. citizen, so political action isn't really a practical option. Also, it is arguably wrong to interfere in the political machinations of a foreign democratic country, no matter how irrationally that other country is careening. While you're right about binaries, there is nothing impractical about compiling things (cf ports tree). Open Source is something that works now, today, here. It's not a great solution -- see above -- but like democracy, it might be the best we've got. (Or in this case, got left.)
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  Trusting compiled software isn't a big deal with digitally signed deterministic builds like Bitcoin and Tor are starting to do (http://gitian.org/ http://gitian.org/) Unfortunately it's a huge pain to do with existing toolchains.
  - kansface 13y ago
    How do deterministic builds address exploits compiled into the compiler itself?
    - tlrobinson 13y ago
      Ah yes, the Ken Thompson hack. It's possible in theory, but I don't think anyone is seriously worried about it. One way to mitigate the attack: if your compiler is open source you could compile the compiler with multiple (open source and proprietary) compilers, then compile your application code using the resulting compiler binaries in the deterministic build process. If the resulting application binaries match, then either none of the compilers are compromised, or all of them are. The latter seems highly unlikely. Also, open source software compiled by the user would be just as vulnerable.
Steko 13y ago
Open is more trustworthy than closed but that doesn't imply open is truly trustable. Ultimately do we need to trust the hardware at all? Can't we eventually just trump everything with encryption?
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  I think you'd have to analyze all of the hardware you use, which seems impossible given the sheer quantity of hardware in use.
- andor 13y ago
  To actually use your data you have to decrypt it somewhere...
quadrangle 13y ago
It's hard to profit because of competition from proprietary stuff. If we could stop people using and paying for proprietary, there'd be enough funding for Open Source everything.
rando289 13y ago
It is a false assumption to think that software/hardware would not get made and paid for if it had a different economic model. Like if everyone was used to toll roads, it would be pretty common for people to say things like, "our road system could never be any good without tolls." Society has undergone massive economic and cultural changes that most people thought were impossible. I bet 100 years ago that 98% of people would say "impossible" to the prospect that hospitals would exist that would treat anyone without requiring them to pay.
- undoware 13y ago
  You're right, I did make that false assumption. Thanks for pointing it out.
- irremediable 13y ago
  Thank you for that example. It's very illustrative. Everything is impossible until it happens, at which point it often becomes everyday.

kordless 13y ago

> it's going to be damn hard to turn a buck How about turning a micro Bitcoin with it?

kansface 13y ago

An open stack is not enough because you can't trust any compiled software. In practice, even if we had a completely open stack and no binaries, we can't even begin to write error free code. Defeating the NSA [via software], a billion dollar agency with the power to ruin your life is completely unrealistic. Any real change must come through political action.

badinker 13y ago
Political action? How has voting worked for you? My hope is as the dollar starts to inflate away (like every other fiat currency that has ever existed) we all instead turn to a block chain currency. Something that can't be manipulated. Something that can't be stolen from us and used to fund three letter agencies.
- Steko 13y ago
  How are those hyperinflation calls working out for you?
  - dmix 13y ago
    idk about American inflation, but as a Canadian getting paid in USD, the value of USD has decline significantly since last year. Lowest since 2009: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=10Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=10Y I got a nearly 10% raise thanks to a strong Canadian economy and weak American one. Keep it up guys.
    - Steko 13y ago
      > the value of USD has decline significantly since last year According to your chart a year ago 1 CAD got you around 1 USD and today it gets you 0.90 USD. Normally that's not interpreted as a decline in the strength of the dollar.
    - seandhi 13y ago
      Unless I've had a stroke this morning, according to this chart, the value of the USD has strengthened compared to the CAD over the last few years.
- deong 13y ago
  It doesn't appear that random guys on the internet are having much trouble stealing blockchain-based currency. I'm not sure why you think the NSA couldn't do it too.
  - tmzt 13y ago
    When you store your private keys in a centralized repository, where they can be taken by asking nicely (as in SQL injection), you are either not using a blockchain-based currency, or you are using it badly. The same is true if you generate a private key with a lower entropy source to simplify encoding (called a brain wallet for some reason.) Yes there a longer passphrases that do have more entropy, but you are still limiting the alphabet and the complexity for dictionary attacks.
- vacri 13y ago
  used to fund three letter agencies. I mean apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the [government] ever done for us? If you really want no tax, go move to Vanuatu. It's a lovely, sunny place, the people are happy, the army and the police are the same thing and only 800 strong, the government is small, it's off the political radar so draws little interest from TLAs, English is an official language... and there is no income tax (with the exception of landlords), nor are there several other taxes on businesses (as it's a tax haven). You don't want money 'stolen' from you? Then here is a realistic option available to you, one that is entirely achievable rather than pretending that it's possible to turn a country with a major economy into a tax-free zone, and wringing your hands that it obviously can't be done.
  - dmix 13y ago
    Property tax could be enough to fund most of the essential things you listed and is still enforceable even if a cryptocurrency is a primary currency. While your currency and income might be hidden, you still need to live in a house on land. ala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism Despite the extremely common misinterpretation by the public, ~90% of libertarians are not anarchists who completely oppose taxation. They are "small government" (aka minarchist), not "no government".
undoware 13y ago
You're right, kansface. But I'm not a U.S. citizen, so political action isn't really a practical option. Also, it is arguably wrong to interfere in the political machinations of a foreign democratic country, no matter how irrationally that other country is careening. While you're right about binaries, there is nothing impractical about compiling things (cf ports tree). Open Source is something that works now, today, here. It's not a great solution -- see above -- but like democracy, it might be the best we've got. (Or in this case, got left.)
tlrobinson 13y ago
Trusting compiled software isn't a big deal with digitally signed deterministic builds like Bitcoin and Tor are starting to do (http://gitian.org/ http://gitian.org/) Unfortunately it's a huge pain to do with existing toolchains.
- kansface 13y ago
  How do deterministic builds address exploits compiled into the compiler itself?
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    Ah yes, the Ken Thompson hack. It's possible in theory, but I don't think anyone is seriously worried about it. One way to mitigate the attack: if your compiler is open source you could compile the compiler with multiple (open source and proprietary) compilers, then compile your application code using the resulting compiler binaries in the deterministic build process. If the resulting application binaries match, then either none of the compilers are compromised, or all of them are. The latter seems highly unlikely. Also, open source software compiled by the user would be just as vulnerable.

Steko 13y ago

Open is more trustworthy than closed but that doesn't imply open is truly trustable. Ultimately do we need to trust the hardware at all? Can't we eventually just trump everything with encryption?

sillysaurus3 13y ago
I think you'd have to analyze all of the hardware you use, which seems impossible given the sheer quantity of hardware in use.
andor 13y ago
To actually use your data you have to decrypt it somewhere...

quadrangle 13y ago

It's hard to profit because of competition from proprietary stuff. If we could stop people using and paying for proprietary, there'd be enough funding for Open Source everything.

rando289 13y ago

It is a false assumption to think that software/hardware would not get made and paid for if it had a different economic model. Like if everyone was used to toll roads, it would be pretty common for people to say things like, "our road system could never be any good without tolls." Society has undergone massive economic and cultural changes that most people thought were impossible. I bet 100 years ago that 98% of people would say "impossible" to the prospect that hospitals would exist that would treat anyone without requiring them to pay.

undoware 13y ago
You're right, I did make that false assumption. Thanks for pointing it out.
irremediable 13y ago
Thank you for that example. It's very illustrative. Everything is impossible until it happens, at which point it often becomes everyday.