Recurring payments are far from unique to the adult industry and are in fact extremely common with credit cards and bank accounts. Many companies will rely on inertia on the part of consumers, and / or sales pitches in order to keep receiving payments after the customer has lost interest in the product or service. Gyms for example are notorious for this. The main reason that adult is so high risk is not recurring payments but rather that many who purchase adult services online will issue a charge back in order to protect their marriage or relationship when their spouse or partner finds out about the charge for adult services. Now with Bitcoin recurring payments are possible and are in fact being proposed for version 0.9 of the reference client http://thegenesisblock.com/significant-merchant-improvements-planned-for-bitcoin-v0-9/; however unlike the credit card or bank account situation the customer is always able to cancel the payments without contacting the company receiving the payments since Bitcoin is a "push" rather than "pull" payments system. The trouble with recurring payments with a "pull" model as is commonly used with credit cards and bank accounts is that in many cases the company receiving the payments is less than helpful when the time comes to cancel the payments |
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You should read this: http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phoneI suspect what they really compromised is the baseband OS, which sits below the phone OS. It would explain why it would have persistence qualities, stashing some binary where the OS can't even see it. We need open-source hardware verification and open OSes on our phones. Its becoming insane trying to trust any commercial hardware/software company now. Yes the propriety baseband OS is also a risk; however the NSA back door applies to all IOS devices not just iPhones, so an iPad that does not have a cellular internet connection and consequently no baseband OS also has the same NSA back door. This would indicate that, this particular backdoor is IOS specific and that an Android device, particularly one that is rooted and has CyanogenMod http://www.cyanogenmod.org/ or Replicant http://replicant.us/ installed is going to way more resistant to NSA penetration. One free OS and one propriety OS is always going to be safer than two propriety OSs. Edit: Blackberry being a Canadian company may not have an arrangement directly with the NSA, as has being suspected in the case of Apple; however it could have an arrangement with the Communications and Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). The latter agency shares data with the NSA as part of the "Five Eyes" co-operation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Technical_Cooperation_Program |
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... The Linux-powered device can exploit Windows systems from up to eight miles away; ... ... and of course he will also hate GNU/Linux since the NSA Windows only exploit will not work. The concept of storing Bitcoin on a 100% Free Software GNU/Linux distribution such as Trisquel must be truly satanic to the man. |
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Those of us that were around when Bitcoinica was operating and Zhou Tong was running it, will recall that people got Zhou Tonged by being short BTC just as much as, if more more often, than by being long BTC. The biggest bit bear, that went to the slaughter, was of course none other than pirateat40. Pirateat40 actually believed that Bitcoin was some kind of "worthless funny money", until none other than the US Government proved him wrong in a court of law. PS: I am a baby boomer. |
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I see a lot of Krugman "bashing" in threads like these. But please let's not forget that Krugman fulfills an important function:
He is the representative spokesperson of the System. The system which consumes and destroys our future, progress and happiness and which will not stop until life itself is extinct.
As such, we should pay close attention to what Krugman says, since he is the closest line of communication to our most mortal enemy. And it reveals their thinking...
He does not represent "the system" as it is today, he represents a small but growing element within the system that wishes to return to the capital controls of the 1940's-1970's. This is why he also dismissed the Internet, since international trade in goods and particularity services at the retail level is incompatible with capital controls. Ever wonder why PayPal was forced to suspend domestic transactions in Argentina? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19605499 I still remember going through customs in the UK in the 1970's as a teenager and there were signs saying it was illegal to take out more than a certain amount of sterling out of the country. I recall something in the neighbourhood of 10 - 25 GBP. Many young people today do not have any direct experience with this evil which is far worse than most of the "evils" of "the system" today. Paul Krugman has been a strong supporter of foreign exchange controls http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/siren-song-exchange-controls so it is hardly surprising that he would consider Bitcoin evil. Convertible fiat currencies such as the USD, EUR etc have nothing to fear from Bitcoin, but non convertible fiat currencies such as the INR, VEF or ARS have everything to fear from Bitcoin. A convertible hard virtual currency that can be instantly sent across international borders, without the intervention of a bank, is the death knell of any foreign exchange control regime. This is why Bitcoin has so much potential already: it eliminates capital controls. This is a "killer app" for it. Even the EUR is afflicted as capital controls exist in Cyprus. Yes this may well turn out to be the killer application for Bitcoin. Just take a look at the response from China and India. Both of these countries have capital controls. One thing to keep in mind here is that if it is illegal for residents of a country to trade and / or hold USD or gold, then expect similar restrictions on BTC. Krugman deserves to be bashed not because he is part of the system, but because he is trying to turn the system into something far worse. |
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Hmmm, I can't afford my own property, would they have rentals?  Sit on your BTC for a while and paying cash for the property may be become very affordable. |
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I'm more and more convinced that this guy was bought by the central bankers, especially the swedish riksbank who gave him 1 million dollar price money No he has been going directly against the IMF by promoting foreign exchange controls. |
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Paul Krugman has been a strong supporter of foreign exchange controls http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/siren-song-exchange-controls so it is hardly surprising that he would consider Bitcoin evil. Convertible fiat currencies such as the USD, EUR etc have nothing to fear from Bitcoin, but non convertible fiat currencies such as the INR, VEF or ARS have everything to fear from Bitcoin. A convertible hard virtual currency that can be instantly sent across international borders, without the intervention of a bank, is the death knell of any foreign exchange control regime. |
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Very much so. In fact I strongly suspect Bitcoin will end up complementing rather than replacing fiat currencies and the fiat banking system.
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Instead of calling contributors to your thread fools, why don't you go study history and quote 1 example of a power being successful in stopping the adoption of a technology they did not like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmYqUSDch8This begs the question of the economics of using a nitenol engine to recover some of the electricity consumed in Bitcoin mining from the waste heat produced in order to lower the effective cost of the Bitcoin mining operation. |
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... The virtual currency became popular, especially on the mainland, because it enabled individuals to get around Beijing's controls on the movement of capital across its national borders - currently limited to a maximum of US$50,000 equivalent without permission from regulators.
"This, I believe, is the fundamental reason why bitcoins rose in price so steeply, and why the Chinese authorities have now acted to outlaw conversions from renminbi to bitcoins and vice-versa," Greenwood said. ... http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/1390224/bitcoin-service-firms-best-investment-not-virtual-currency The currency control theory, namely the Chinese government is killing the domestic Bitcoin trade to prevent Bitcoin from being used to do an end run around CNY currency controls, makes a lot of sense. My take is that those in China wishing to purchase BTC, will be able to do so through an exchange either outside of China or in one of the special zones such as Hong Kong provided they first get their CNY out of China. As for those who have BTC in China will they be able to sell outside of China or in one of the special zones such as Hong Kong and repatriate their CNY? Are there any restrictions on how much currency a Chinese resident can import into China? As for the impact on price my take is say 90% (1) and 10% (3). |
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One important advantage of credit cards over debit cards when dealing with the risk of identity theft is that with a credit card one gets cash back typically about 0.5%. One can use the cash back to purchase BTC and hold the BTC as a "legal reserve". Then in the future the BTC can, if necessary, be used to finance litigation in order to protect one's credit rating.
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There is also a dystopian future for the Internet straight out of Goerge Orwell's 1984. This dystopian Internet will be powered by DRM, propriety software, and large "premium" content providers. Let us not forget that Apple has already placed millions of telescreens in the hands of unsuspecting citizens worldwide. They are called iPads and iPhones. Microsoft is also placing telescreens in the form of Windows 8 RT tablets. Take a look at the list of supporters of SOPA and PIPA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_official_stances_on_the_SOPA_and_PIPA. They are fighting for an Orwellian dystopian Internet. Keep also an eye on those supporters that backed off when it got to hot. Quite possibly, we can't forget the dark side of the equation: The advent of instantly accessible devices from anywhere, mass surveillance through hacking peoples web devices, when everything is connected to the internet, even your refrigirator is spying on you. But of course people don't like that and hopefully strong enough controls are put in so that people can decide to opt in instead of having to opt out of a enterprise data gathering operation. massive Botnets of course now have much easier access to cameras and microphones, gps data gathering, computational processing, malicious data mining. Processing power hijackings for massively cordinated attacks, phishing for the 21st century. When you consider that there are 17 yottaflops worth of processing power on earth... you begin to see the scope of the problem...That is a massive UltraComputer. Yottaflop = 10^24 FLOPS compared to Petaflops = 10^18 FLOPS Thats a lot of zeroes, for perspective you should read this article on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPSFolding@Home and Boinc are already distributedly computing 10 Petaflops regularly and the biggest single supercomputers are currently running at 54 petaflops(Tianhe-2), Cray has said that they will probably be able to build a Exaflop level computer in 2019, what if a year from now we can use the resources of 17 Yottaflops of processing power? There's a lot of good and evil that can be done with that. What if someone launches a phishing attack against computer time contributors and directs it towards building a virus that mutates or zombifies people? just like some Funguses do in the wild? Most spying on individuals by large corporations and as a result by governments is a result of people opting in. People choose to upload their intimate details to Facebook, people choose to purchase a Windows 8 RT tablet or an iPad. People choose to upload sensitive data unencrypted to cloud services, people choose to run Windows instead of GNU/Linux, people will choose to support the NFL, a strong supporter of SOPA, during the upcoming super-bowl, etc. Then when a government agency, such as the NSA in the US, takes advantage of people's poor choices, people collectively cry foul. Opt in is not the answer, awareness and action in the marketplace is. |
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There is also a dystopian future for the Internet straight out of Goerge Orwell's 1984. This dystopian Internet will be powered by DRM, propriety software, and large "premium" content providers. Let us not forget that Apple has already placed millions of telescreens in the hands of unsuspecting citizens worldwide. They are called iPads and iPhones. Microsoft is also placing telescreens in the form of Windows 8 RT tablets. Take a look at the list of supporters of SOPA and PIPA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_official_stances_on_the_SOPA_and_PIPA. They are fighting for an Orwellian dystopian Internet. Keep also an eye on those supporters that backed off when it got to hot. |
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This is one more reason why one should never use a debit card. I use cash, credit cards, cheques and now Bitcoin instead. The advantage of a credit card over a debit card in this situation is that one's bank account is not impacted. As for cash and Bitcoin the advantages are clear. Cheques being an older, and unpopular, method of payment are also way less likely to this kind of fraud.
No, but it could fuck up your credit rating, especially if you can't prove fraud was involved. At least if they gain access to your debit card they can only spend the funds in there and not max out your credit. There is a dirty little secret that the banking industry does not want you to know here namely that it is they who have to prove that you owe the money; however to protect one's rights one has to be prepared to go to court. The way to protect one's credit in identity theft situations is to sue the credit grantor’s and credit bureaus. I would not waste my time in dealing with their "customer service" lines. Instead upon receipt of the first "dunning letter" or "collection call" I would file a lawsuit, and make it their problem. Paying an attorney in these situations is well worth the cost and aggravation. PS. I would rather pay an attorney 10x the amount in question to litigate rather than settle with a credit grantor or a credit bureau in an identity theft situation. Edit: The above applies where there is no prior relationship with the credit grantor, since in that situation it is always the credit grantor who is at fault since one did not agree to do business with them. If there is a prior relationship, then one must immediately advise them of the fraudulent transactions and co-operate with them. In the latter case litigation becomes an option only if they refuse to reverse the fraudulent transactions. |
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