Isn't it interesting that those who pontificate that "Money is not everything" usually have money? I'm not 100% certain on the psychology of money. It is possible those with money say: "time is money" while those who lack prefer: "money isn't everything". When consumers can't afford things they might counsel themselves by saying: "money isn't everything". As if to declare they benefit on a non material level by lacking the funds necessary to afford things. A long time ago, I read a book written by Robert Kiyosaki where he discusses these topics. The relationship between things people say and how it affects their psychology and attitude about money. Which in turn affects their potential for generating income and being successful on a financial, investment or business perspective. I think money can represent a metric for measuring time, space, productivity and other intangibles. The more money a person has the more time they have, the farther they can travel and they can achieve a greater amount of work(productivity). Money is little different from a wrench or a pair of scissors. Its a tool utilized by higher primates. Where things might get a bit weird is when people begin to worship it. Where money defines a persons entire existence: their values, mentality and worldview. To a point where people are willing to do and say anything, compromise every aspect of themselves and their lives to get it. Maybe money can represent a trap in that regard. |
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Advances in technology and productivity should make four-day work weeks a reality soon enough.That's according to Frances O'Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, an organization in the United Kingdom representing labor unions. "I believe that in this century, we can win a four-day working week, with decent pay for everyone," O'Grady said during a speech at the TUC's annual gathering in Manchester, England on Monday. In earlier centuries, workers had to fight for things like the eight-hour workdays, O'Grady points out, which was also the case in the U.S. Now, in the 21st century, "a time of rapid industrial disruption" according to O'Grady, it's time to set our sights on the shorter work week "to take back control of working time," she said. O'Grady also said, "[A]s new tech grows, everyone should get richer." O'Grady's comments add to recent buzz about the feasibility of a shorter workweek. Serial entrepreneur Richard Branson said advances in technology mean that workplaces can reconsider the traditional five-day work week. "Ideas such as driverless cars and drones are becoming a reality, and machines will be used for more and more jobs in the future. Even pilot-less planes will be become the reality in the not too distant future," Branson wrote in a blog post in January. "On the face of it, this sounds like bad news for people. However, if governments and businesses are clever, the advance of technology could actually be really positive for people all over the world. It could help accelerate the marketplace to much smarter working practices," Branson said. In particular, technology enables people to work when and where they want, says Branson, a practice Virgin managers are encouraged to embrace, according to his blog post. Technology can also increase the efficiency of work, said Branson and that means people could work fewer hours. "Many people out there would love three day or even four day weekends. There are many people out there who would want to job share, and would love longer holidays. Everyone would welcome more time to spend with their loved ones, more time to get fit and healthy, more time to explore the world," Branson says. "By working more efficiently, there is no reason why people can't work less hours and be equally – if not more – effective." Similarly, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said advances in artificial intelligence will lead to longer vacations. "More free time is not a terrible thing," Gates told FOX Business Network at the World Economic Forum in January. Perpetual Guardian, a 240-employee New Zealand firm that manages trusts, wills and estates, recently garnered attention for conducting a two-month trial where employees worked four days a week at their regular five-days-a-weekk pay. It was considered a success: Staff stress levels lowered 7 percent, and 78 percent said they could manage work-life balance, from only 54 percent pre-trial.Plus, the change created good will. "Many employees see the reduced working hours as 'a gift' and 'a privilege not a right,' and feel a deep sense of goodwill and reciprocity towards the organization, which manifests in an openness to 'go the extra mile' and think about 'what I can do to give back,'" says the resulting qualitative analysis from Dr. Helene Delaney from the University of Auckland Business School. "Many employees reported a willingness to be available for work purposes on their day off." https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/trades-union-congress-4-day-workweeks-should-be-reality-this-century.html .... If advances in technology and productivity can result in a 4 day work week. Then perhaps the sooner we witness a mass adoption of bitcoin and crypto currencies, the sooner we may reap the benefits of technological progress and productivity gains supplied by utilizing more reliable crypto currencies over troubled fiat money. Like birds migrating south for the winter, a better migration pattern to crypto currencies could represent a greener pasture for the dawn of future financial and economic progress, which could be defined in terms of algorithmic or artificial intelligence based offerings such as the algorithm bitcoin utilizes to determine supply. That said does anyone have an impression calls for a 4 day work week may be a tad bit over optimistic in origins? What can be said of inflation and its outpacing of wage growth? How likely is such a thing likely to become widespread or popularized in a world where robots and automation is becoming more widely supported everyday? |
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Crypto receipts! This is the most perfect thing I have ever read about the blockchain: Citi has developed an instrument it is calling a digital asset receipt. It works much like an American depositary receipt, which have been around for decades to give US investors a way to own foreign stocks that don’t otherwise trade on US exchanges. The foreign stock is held by a bank, which then issues the depositary receipt.
In this case, the cryptocurrency would be held by a custodian, with the so-called DAR issued by Citigroup, the people said. The bank would alert the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., a Wall Street middleman that provides clearing and settlement services, that it issued a receipt, one of the people said. That lends an important layer of legitimacy and gives investors a way to track the investment within a system that they’re already familiar with, the person added. I want to cry. I want to give those paragraphs a hug. I have written, more than once, about the complexities and inefficiencies of having pretty much all U.S. stocks held by DTCC. “It’s enough to make you wish for a blockchain,” I once wrote. A secure, open, permissionless, immutable record of who owns what, one that doesn’t require investors to trust either a bank or a central Wall Street intermediary or to rely on those intermediaries’ old-fashioned systems: That is a core dream of the blockchain, a central appeal of cryptocurrencies. And then here is Citigroup Inc. looking at investor demand and concluding: Yes, sure, Bitcoin is great, but what Bitcoin investors really want is to hold Bitcoins in the form of receipts issued by a giant bank and registered at DTCC. That’s where the real innovation is! That’s what the people want! “Take this blockchain away from me,” they cry, “and give me the old system that I know!” A claim that you sometimes hear is that the blockchain will revolutionize back-office processes — settlement, custody, etc. — in the financial system. But look at the actual experience of cryptocurrency custody. The main story of institutional investment in cryptocurrency these days is a story of custody, broadly speaking: Large institutional investors want to get access to Bitcoin, but they do not want to own actual Bitcoins, themselves, on the actual Bitcoin blockchain. They want Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, or Bitcoin futures, or Bitcoins held in custody by regulated crypto exchanges or traditional big banks, or, sure, crypto depository receipts, why not. Everywhere there is a blockchain, a trusted central intermediary — often a bank or other old-school Wall Street middleman! — springs up to make it useful. Does that tell you anything about the prospects for blockchains to replace central intermediaries? I confess, though, that it goes the other way too: “Two financial technology companies won New York state approval to issue cryptocurrencies pegged to the U.S. dollar,” the Gemini dollar and the Paxos Standard, “creating more regulated and transparent competitors to Tether and other so-called stable coins,” which are in turn competitors to … the dollar. If you want to hold your Bitcoins through a bank, you can, but on the other hand if you want to hold your dollars through a blockchain, you can do that too. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-10/keep-your-bitcoins-in-the-bank.... Summary: Citibank has created something they call a "digital asset receipt(DAR)" which could allow purchasers of bitcoin to have banks hold their coins. The details aren't clear. There isn't much information posted here about minimum purchasing amounts or who digital asset receipts will be marketed to. Its nice to see innovation and new offerings for crypto enthusiasts. Although I have a feeling these digital asset receipts might come bundled with $100,000 dollar minimum investments and cater only to high(er) end demographics. I would guess some would opt for DAR's if they could provide insurance on bitcoins and crypto up to limited amounts. |
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Tainted extension caught stealing passwords for Google, Microsoft, GitHub and Amazon accounts, but also Monero and Ethereum private keys.The official Chrome extension for the MEGA.nz file sharing service has been compromised with malicious code that steals usernames and passwords, but also private keys for cryptocurrency accounts, ZDNet has learned.The malicious behavior was found in the source code of the MEGA.nz Chrome extension version 3.39.4, released as an update earlier today. Google engineers have already intervened and removed the extension from the official Chrome Web Store, and also disabled the extension for existing users. According to an analysis of the extension's source, the malicious code triggered on sites such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, GitHub, the MyEtherWallet and MyMonero web wallet services, and the IDEX cryptocurrency trading platform.
The malicious code would record usernames, passwords, and other session data that attackers would need to log in and impersonate users. If the website managed cryptocurrency, the attacker would also extract the private keys needed to access users' funds.
The extension would send all collected data to a server located at megaopac[.]host, hosted in Ukraine.Chrome users who used the extension should review the Chrome browser's Extensions section and double-check that it's been disabled. Out of an abundance of caution, all users should reset passwords at the affected services, and move cryptocurrency funds to new accounts safeguarded by new private keys. Other extensions have been compromised with malicious code in the past two years. In most instances, past hacks happened after attackers phished extension devs and used access to their accounts to push malicious versions of legitimate extensions. Google and MEGA.nz spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment before this article's publication. Credit for discovering the malicious code inside the MEGA.nz Chrome extension goes to an Italian developer and contributor to the Monero Project who goes online by the pseudonym of SerHack. A copy of the MEGA.nz Chrome extension version 3.39.4 --the one containing the malicious code-- is available via this Dropbox account. Security researchers who looked at the MEGA.nz Firefox add-on did not find any malicious code. UPDATE [September 5, 4:00 AM, ET]: A MEGA.nz spokesperson responded to ZDNet's request for comment, confirming our report. MEGA.nz shared the following new details about the incident. The malicious v3.39.4 version was uploaded on the Chrome Web Store on September 4, 2018, at 14:30 UTC. MEGA.nz submitted a new, clean version of the extension to the Chrome Web Store, v3.39.5, four hours later. Google's staff removed the extension one hour later and five hours after the initial breach. "We would like to apologise for this significant incident," a MEGA.nz spokesperson said. "We are currently investigating the exact nature of the compromise of our Chrome webstore account." In a blog post published after our initial report, MEGA.nz also showed its dissatisfaction with Google's Chrome Web Store security measures, which, they believe, helped attackers pull off the extension hijack.
"Unfortunately, Google decided to disallow publisher signatures on Chrome extensions and is now relying solely on signing them automatically after upload to the Chrome webstore, which removes an important barrier to external compromise. MEGAsync and our Firefox extension are signed and hosted by us and could therefore not have fallen victim to this attack vector. While our mobile apps are hosted by Apple/Google/Microsoft, they are cryptographically signed by us and therefore immune as well."https://www.zdnet.com/article/mega-nz-chrome-extension-caught-stealing-passwords-cryptocurrency-private-keys/ .... Initial data says google chrome is more vulnerable to this attack vector than firefox due to google disallowing publisher signatures of chrome extensions. Do we have info which says whether firefox is a more secure browser than chrome at this point in time? There may also other alternatives like brave browser which could be worth looking into. And of course linux and its various browser distros. This might sound counter intuitive but does anyone get a feeling MEGA.nz will gain a largely userbase from this incident than any negative affects felt as a result of bad publicity? |
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What we have to accept is, Capitalism has destroyed the world now. We don't know how long the modern civilization will last with this situation? I think we must live in harmony with the environment. otherwise, we cannot survive. Nature will react soon.
From a historical perspective, a hard form of socialism was attempted on a large scale in both stalinist russia and maoist china. In both instances socialism was tried and found to be an inferior system. To compete economically on a global scale, both socialist russia and socialist china were forced to abandon socialism in favor of capitalism which has proven to be a better system. In terms of capitalism vs socialism there are two options present. Either people have the freedom and right to own property, start businesses and patent / copyright their intellectual property. Or people lack these basic freedoms and rights under socialism where the government owns everything and controls everything. Suffice it to say, the narrative which demonizes and attacks capitalism without providing much evidence or detail to support this thesis is totalitarian in origin. |
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Seeing these attempts @ creating a "stable coin" makes me think maybe I should create a crypto currency of my own.  If what Voltaire said is true and "fiat money always returns to its intrinsic value of zero" then why would anyone ever want their currency pegged to fiat which history may dictate is destined to crash, eventually? All around the world nations like india, venezuela, argentina and turkey are struggling with severe economic issues due to the ambiguity and unreliability of fiat money. The year is 2018. With our technology and science should we not be able to do better than this?. I would like to believe that we can have a brighter future without being doomed to repeat mistakes of the past for all eternity. But maybe I'm only kidding myself and we're all screwed. |
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First UFC 228 embedded vblog #1 is up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8GMpf5wyYcNot a lot of notes for this one. --Carla Esparza was taken down a few times by Claudia Gadelha in her last fight. If Claudia can get Esparza down, MMA logic says Tatiana Suarez might definitely get Esparza down. Of course, Gadelha's takedowns were setup by her kickboxing. The feints and setups Gadelha used to get Esparza down need to be taken into account. That said, Suarez could be a betting lock, here. --Tatiana Suarez was ranked #3 in the world for her divison of wrestling when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. That diagnosis hurt her chances for olympic stardom as it took her 2-3 years for her cancer to fully go into remission, iirc. --Both Niko Price and Abdul Alhassan are explosive and athletic fighters with high finish rates of their opponents. I'm not a fan of playing under or inside the distance props. If the under 2.5 rounds prop is offered I might take it. Even under 1.5 rounds might be #worth. I probably wouldn't take under 1.5 personally. But for those who enjoy over/under Price vs Alhassan and Tatiana Suarez vs Carla Esparza could be worth looking into. --For those who enjoy playing underdogs, Cody Stamann could be worth a look. --Irene Aldana vs Lucie Pudilova and John Dodson vs Jimmie Rivera could be over 2.5 round fights. Those lighter weight divisions don't see a lot of finishes some days. I never play over/under. Just throwing this out there to try to produce some conversation. --I don't have any picks for the main event. How well Darren Till's weight cut goes will be crucial here. I think its best to wait till after weigh ins to make bets on the main event. To see how weight cut drama unfolds. Leans posted above were. -Tatiana Suarez ML -Niko Price vs Abdul alhassan under or in the distance -Suarez vs Esparza under -Cody Stamann ML -Aldana vs Pudilova over 2.5 -Rivera vs Dodson over 2.5 4/6 leans were correct. 66.6% accuracy. (My actual accuracy on calls might be higher than that) Maybe I'll start posting picks in the future. I usually do ok calling mixed martial arts outcomes. There were some good fights on this card. Some impressive performances. A lot of heart showed by Carla Esparza, Darren Till, Karolina K, Aldana, Pudilova and maybe a few others--even if they lost their fights. |
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^ But Woodley has prolly learned a lot after that beating he got from Mac Donald, right? He can't let Till get aggro on him from the start. Dan Hardy said it right. Woodley has to show Till that he can't be run over... A big body shot or a double leg could do the trick imo, and let Till have second thoughts.
When Darren Till and Tyron Woodley do their media and weigh in staredowns, Darren Till may also have a massive size advantage. That could be part of it. There's no doubt Woodley is a great wrestler. I don't think he has the cardio to wrestle for more than one or two rounds though and he might totally be gased out after that. Woodley took down Stephen Thompson in one of their fights and it was too draining on him. He slowed down noticeably & had to recover. Woodley using his wrestling in these 5 rounders may not be an option. Woodley throwing body shots @ Darren Till is a nice thought. Darren Till is a bit on the tough and gritty side though. If Woodley doesn't finish him, he could outwork Woodley. |
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Darren Till said he weighed "182 pounds this morning" at 0:34 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIKbCIaPDgc^ Got any notes for Andrade vs KK? I made a small bet on KK at 4.25. She's obv mentally strong judging from her fight vs JJ, so she could get lucky as long as she tries to finish all three rounds. Big question there is whether KK has an answer to Andrade's powerful takedowns and slams. Andrade might also have the more powerful strikes. KK does have excellent cardio and pushes a good pace. I'm not certain if KK hits hard enough to get Andrade's respect. Andrade might walk through all of KK's punches and absorb them the way she does without being fazed too much. I probably wouldn't bet a lot on that fight. I would look for an easier option. Hey guys... Here's a video of krach's predictions at his Degenbet channel at YT. I recommend you guys watch it as he gives good insights on the matches. We have the same bets on Woodley and KK.  Degen Bet Predictions: UFC 228https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kadu_jdjY7kOh and Woodley's line is fading. He's up to 2.15 now. Hmmm... Bad weight cut, recurring shoulder injury...? Hydrogen? Good analysis & breakdowns by krach although I'm on the opposite end of some of his picks. Woodley didn't look that impressive to me when he fought Demian Maia. Got the impression Woodley avoided the clinch to avoid exerting himself and testing his gas tank. Most of Woodley's opponents give him plenty of time and space to rest and catch his breath. I don't think Darren Till will give Woodley that luxury. Woodley has a tendency to not throw many punches or kicks in a round. Darren Till might outstrike Woodley on volume due to Woodley's inactivity. Woodley looking passive in many of his fights that give the impression Darren Till will win by being more aggressive, throwing a higher volume of strikes and pressing the action. |
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I've been asked a few times why even the smallest odds difference matters for me when I gamble. I'm not a professional gambler, nor do I spend a lot on gambling, but when it comes to sports, I feel there is an obvious difference. For me it's just a practical choice to choose the bookie that gives me the most returns, even if I don't gamble much. To offer a different perspective, sometimes a higher maximum bet could be more attractive than odds. It is true that higher winnings can potentially be achieved by higher betting odds. On the other side of the equation, the same may be achieved with greater max bets via greater risk / greater reward. Some books limit betting to 0.1 BTC or lower(on certain games). Those low limits are sometimes on games people wish they could lay 0.5 BTC or more, where books will limit betting 0.03 or a relatively low sum. I'm not certain if I'm a professional gambler. There is a chance I might qualify. Although I could see myself quitting in the near future if books limit me, etc. |
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Futher economic implications of india's "demonetisation" policy from 2016: Meantime, consumers are spending less, which is hurting small producers who, in turn, are being forced to scale back their activities. As a consequence, supply chains at small, medium and even larger companies are breaking down. Lorries are stranded with no money for fuel, workers will not load goods for free and distributors can’t pay up. Wholesale markets in many cities are shut. Mr Singh said current liquidity squeeze will reduce India’s gross domestic product growth rate by 2 per cent, with agricultural production, small industries and the vast, cash-driven informal sector, which employs millions of youth, hardest hit. Businesses are quietly warning of potential job losses in labour-intensive manufacturing industries as well. https://www.thenational.ae/business/india-s-demonetisation-creates-payday-cash-crisis-1.204867Appears to have inflicted far more economic damage than economic benefits provided. Was this related to the "cashless society" movement? Either to create a precedent where paper money might be blamed for the negative implications of india's 2016 demonetization policy. Or to discourage the use of cash, in some strange attempt to push electronic money as being a superior alternative? |
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In short, this article talks about research by the economist Joost van der Burgt in the relationship between the price of Bitcoin and Google searches for Bitcoin. This diagram shows the relationship. He then said that the reason of " deflated the bubble" was because of the introduction of bitcoin futures. My take on it is that because of the introduction of futures, that might have deflated the bubble before it got to a level where it might burst completely, Do you think there is a link/effect between Google searches for Bitcoin and price? Do you think we will hear "form that media" about the continuation of this bubble for a long time? Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/this-chart-could-explain-why-the-bitcoin-bubble-hasnt-fully-burst.html.... A better explanation may be the lull in bitcoin transactions near the beginning of 2018.  More info: After peaking at $411 million in September(2017), the amount of money the largest 17 crypto merchant-processing services received in the best-known cryptocurrency has been on a steady decline, hitting a recent low of $60 million in May(2018), according to research that startup Chainalysis Inc. conducted for Bloomberg News. While the amount merchant services such as BitPay, Coinify and GoCoin received increased slightly in June(2018) to $69 million, it was still a far cry from the $270 million received a year ago, Chainalysis found. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/bitcoin-s-use-in-commerce-keeps-falling-even-as-volatility-easesI suspect there is one good reason why google searches are not a valid metric for measuring interest. Most will only google for trends like bitcoin once in their lives. Google searches do not reflect consistent enthusiasm, activity or interest. They measure that initial spark of curiosity. But tell little of whether that initial interest wanes or remains. AFAIK there is no background for google searches being valid indicators for public interest in something. There is no precedent or history for it. And there isn't likely to be either due to the spurious and pseudoscience nature of the concept. There was a thread made on this topic a few weeks ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4968875 |
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If they are targeting crypto, its not what they would announced it via a memo that would leaked and which organization would they have referred it to? I don't see any influence on crypto at the moment. This is the last time I remember something like a visible effort being made to undermine systems created to support anonymous browsing, etc. Developer of anonymous Tor software dodges FBI, leaves USMay 17, 2016In its mission to hunt criminals, the FBI has been keen to hack Tor, the Internet browser that hides your true location. The FBI's attempts to break into Tor are starting to manifest in strange ways. FBI agents are currently trying to subpoena one of Tor's core software developers to testify in a criminal hacking investigation, CNNMoney has learned. But the developer, who goes by the name Isis Agora Lovecruft, fears that federal agents will coerce her to undermine the Tor system -- and expose Tor users around the world to potential spying.
That's why, when FBI agents approached her and her family over Thanksgiving break last year, she immediately packed her suitcase and left the United States for Germany.https://money.cnn.com/2016/05/17/technology/tor-developer-fbi/index.html .... Although it is not publicized, it is possible the FBI and other government agencies put pressure on tech corporations and developers to engineer deliberately made backdoors into their products. Example: intels CPU "bug". Twitter also had a "bug" which "accidentally" recorded user passwords in plaintext not long ago. The worst case scenario here, could be crypto software wallets like electrum as well as platforms like blockchain.info having zero day backdoors built into them. We've seen evidence of nano ledgers as well as bitfi hardware wallets having vulnerabilities. Anyways, I'm far from being an expert on this topic. Would be interested to hear what others have to say about this. |
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First UFC 228 embedded vblog #1 is up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8GMpf5wyYcNot a lot of notes for this one. --Carla Esparza was taken down a few times by Claudia Gadelha in her last fight. If Claudia can get Esparza down, MMA logic says Tatiana Suarez might definitely get Esparza down. Of course, Gadelha's takedowns were setup by her kickboxing. The feints and setups Gadelha used to get Esparza down need to be taken into account. That said, Suarez could be a betting lock, here. --Tatiana Suarez was ranked #3 in the world for her divison of wrestling when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. That diagnosis hurt her chances for olympic stardom as it took her 2-3 years for her cancer to fully go into remission, iirc. --Both Niko Price and Abdul Alhassan are explosive and athletic fighters with high finish rates of their opponents. I'm not a fan of playing under or inside the distance props. If the under 2.5 rounds prop is offered I might take it. Even under 1.5 rounds might be #worth. I probably wouldn't take under 1.5 personally. But for those who enjoy over/under Price vs Alhassan and Tatiana Suarez vs Carla Esparza could be worth looking into. --For those who enjoy playing underdogs, Cody Stamann could be worth a look. --Irene Aldana vs Lucie Pudilova and John Dodson vs Jimmie Rivera could be over 2.5 round fights. Those lighter weight divisions don't see a lot of finishes some days. I never play over/under. Just throwing this out there to try to produce some conversation. --I don't have any picks for the main event. How well Darren Till's weight cut goes will be crucial here. I think its best to wait till after weigh ins to make bets on the main event. To see how weight cut drama unfolds. |
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What if BITCOIN is DIGITALIZED but is being LITERALLY MINED like Gold and Silver ( MINED OVER 6 FT BELOW THE GROUND )and has a lot more value than gold, would you consider it to have an increase value over time? ; D
And If it is would you rather dig your house out of it or just stay on your sit and buy some of it ; D You touched upon one of the reasons bitcoin could have a significant advantage over gold. As mining technology advances, researchers will devise more accurate methods for detecting gold underground. Better and more efficient methods of extracting gold from the earth's crust will be devised. All in all, improvements in technology could reduce the value of gold over the long term as it became a more easily obtainable and common metal. Bitcoin is better suited to resist improvements in technology while maintaining a steady stream of allotment and distribution. Its algorithmic restrictions limit significant increases in hashpower from bitcoin being mined @ a substantially faster rate. This could be deemed a significant advanrtage over gold, precious metals and commodities over the long term. |
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A pact of five nation states dedicated to a global “collect it all” surveillance mission has issued a memo calling on their governments to demand tech companies build backdoor access to their users’ encrypted data — or face measures to force companies to comply.
The international pact — the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, known as the so-called “Five Eyes” group of nations — quietly issued the memo last week demanding that providers “create customized solutions, tailored to their individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements.”This kind of backdoor access would allow each government access to encrypted call and message data on their citizens. If the companies don’t voluntarily allow access, the nations threatened to push through new legislation that would compel their help. “Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions,” read the memo, issued by the Australian government on behalf of the pact. It’s the latest move in an ongoing aggression by the group of governments, which met in Australia last week. The Five Eyes pact was born to collect and share intelligence across the five countries, using each nations’ diplomatic power and strategic locations as chokepoints to gather the rest of the world’s communications. Since the Edward Snowden disclosures in 2013, tech companies have doubled down on their efforts to shut out government’s lawful access to data with encryption. By using end-to-end encryption — where the data is scrambled from one device to another — even the tech companies can’t read their users’ messages. Without access, law enforcement has extensively lobbied against companies using end-to-end encryption, claiming it hinders criminal investigations. Security researchers and other critics of encryption backdoors have long said there’s no mathematical or workable way to create a “secure backdoor” that isn’t also susceptible to attack by hackers, and widely derided any backdoor effort.In 2016, rhetoric turned to action when the FBI launched a lawsuit to force Apple to force the company to build a tool to bypass the encryption in an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter, who killed 14 people in a terrorist attack months earlier. The FBI dropped the case after it found hackers able to break into the phone. But last month, the US government renewed its effort to set legal precedent by targeting Facebook Messenger’s end-to-end encryption. The case, filed under sealed, aims to break the encryption on the messaging app to wiretap conversations on suspected criminals. It’s not the first time the Five Eyes nations have called for encryption backdoors. An Australian government memo last year called for action against unbreakable encryption. Although the UK’s more recent intelligence laws have been interpreted as allowing the government to compel companies to break their own encryption, wider legal efforts across the other member states have failed to pass. https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/03/five-eyes-governments-call-on-tech-giants-to-build-encryption-backdoors-or-else/ .... This is the type of news story which could definitely benefit from greater exposure.  I'm not certain if crypto currencies will be affected by these political agendas aimed at weakening encryption standards. If financial institutions have been targeted by this political movement, its not something that has been publicized much. Such anti encryption measures could weaken security measures on smart phones, desktops, laptops and other hardware utilized to conduct financial transactions or conduct business. Although crypto currencies may not be directly targeted by this, it is possible thieves and criminals could utilize the type of backdoors governments demand to steal bitcoins and other electronic tokens. There could be cause for concern over these measures. |
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Fed up with their high-pressure jobs, some millennials are quitting and embracing the FIRE movement. (It stands for financial independence, retire early).Carl Jensen experienced what he calls “the awakening” sometime around 2012. He was a software engineer in a suburb of Denver, writing code for a medical device. The job was high-pressure: He had to document every step for the Food and Drug Administration, and a coding error could lead to harm or death for patients. Mr. Jensen was making about $110,000 a year and had benefits, but the stress hardly seemed worth it. He couldn’t unwind with his family after work; he spent days huddled over the toilet. He lost 10 pounds. After one especially brutal workday, Mr. Jensen Googled “How do I retire early?” and his eyes were opened. He talked to his wife and came up with a plan: They saved a sizable portion of their income over the next five years and drastically reduced expenses, until their net worth was around $1.2 million. On Tuesday, March 10, 2017, Mr. Jensen called his boss and gave notice after 15 years at the company. He wasn’t quitting, exactly. He had retired. He was 43. Hacking Your Way to Retirement Although Mr. Jensen’s story may seem exceptional, a more modest version of the stockbroker who makes a killing on Wall Street and sails off to the Caribbean, he is part of a growing movement of young professionals who are intently focused on quitting their jobs forever. Millennials especially have embraced this so-called FIRE movement — the acronym stands for financial independence, retire early — seeing it as a way out of soul-sucking, time-stealing work and an economy fueled by consumerism. Followers of FIRE tend to be male and work in the tech industry, left-brained engineer-types who geek out on calculating compound interest over 40 years, or the return on investment (R.O.I.) on low-fee index funds versus real estate rentals. Indeed, much of the conversation around FIRE, on Reddit message boards or blogs like Mr. Money Mustache, revolves around hacking one’s finances: strategies for increasing your savings rate to the hallowed 70 percent, tips for cheap travel through airline rewards cards, ways to save nickels and dimes at the grocery store. Some practice “lean FIRE” (extreme frugality), others “fat FIRE” (maintaining a more typical standard of living while saving and investing), and still others “barista FIRE” (working part-time at Starbucks after retiring, for the company’s health insurance). To be “firing” is to slash one’s expenses to maximize saving while amassing income-generating investments sufficient to support oneself. To have “fired” is to have achieved that goal. “A lot of people think you’re a new-age hippie,” said Mr. Jensen, who sold his four-bedroom, four-bathroom house, downsized to a more modest home and maxed-out retirement accounts while firing. “They can’t even wrap their minds around it.” In retirement, Mr. Jensen and his wife and two daughters plan to live on roughly $40,000 a year generated from investments. Because his wife currently works, they have yet to draw on those accounts. But already, it’s a life rich on time but short on luxuries: Groceries are bought at Costco, car and home repairs are done by him. “People always assume there’s an external circumstance: ‘Oh, you must have received an inheritance,’” Mr. Jensen said. “We’ve just chosen to live far below our means. That itself is a radical idea.” Equally radical is opting out of the work force in your 30s or early 40s, a time of life when men and women are normally leaning into their careers, or, less happily, enduring the daily grind to pay the bills until Social Security kicks in. Jason Long, a pharmacist in rural Tennessee who retired last year at the ripe old age of 38, said his father had a hard time understanding why Mr. Long couldn’t continue to work and collect his $150,000 salary. But Mr. Long said he was deeply unhappy in his job, where over his career he witnessed drug costs skyrocketing, sick people battling with health insurers and the over-prescription of opioids and the resulting addiction crisis. His customers, angry, confused, financially stretched, often lashed out at the person behind the counter. “There were days when I had 12- or 14-hour shifts where I didn’t use the restroom, where I didn’t eat, because so much work was piled up on me,” Mr. Long said. Like Mr. Jensen, he had been saving a sizable portion of his income over the past decade, and he and his wife had a paid-for house and an investment portfolio worth a little more than $1 million. Why stick around? “The reality is the numbers are there for me,” Mr. Long said. “To go to a job that’s making you miserable every day, it doesn’t make sense to pad the bank account at that point.” Why These Millennials Hate Work Quitting the rat race isn’t a new concept. From the Shakers of the 1700s to the back-to-the-land hippies of the 1960s and ’70s, a strain of Americans has always embraced simple living. One of the bibles of the FIRE movement, “Your Money or Your Life,” which teaches readers to reduce their spending and value time (or “life energy”) over material gain, was published in 1992. But Vicki Robin, who wrote that financial guide with Joe Dominguez, said the FIRE crowd is a different breed of dropout than those in the ’90s. “Our aim was not just to have a whole bunch of people quit their jobs,” Ms. Robin said. “Our aim was to lower consumption to save the planet. We attracted longtime simple-living people, religious people, environmentalists.” The FIRE adherents are, by contrast, “very numbers oriented, fascinated by the minutiae of taxes and accounting,” Ms. Robin said. They are also benefiting from an lengthy bull run in the stock market and, in some cases, the privilege of class, race, gender and background. It’s difficult to retire at 40 if you work a minimum-wage job, say, or have crushing student-loan debt, or did not have the same opportunities as others because you grew up poor in a crime-ridden neighborhood. But if, as Ms. Robin said, FIRE adherents “don’t have the aspirational part” of earlier generations, why are they so determined to quit the work force? Many millennials haven’t been working longer than a decade, if that. It’s about having agency, Ms. Robin said: “The worker in this economy has very little sense of control over their existence. People are expendable. You’re a young person and you look ahead and you say, ‘What’s there for me?’” That accurately describes how Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung felt. The married couple from Toronto became minor celebrities (and the target of online haters) when they retired from their tech jobs in 2015 to travel the world full time. They were in their early 30s at the time. Ms. Shen’s wake-up moment came when she watched a fellow I.T. colleague collapse at his desk after clocking 14-hour days and get hauled away in an ambulance. For several years before that, she and Mr. Leung, following the path laid out by their parents, had tried to buy a house in Toronto’s ever-escalating real estate market. But, Ms. Shen said, “It didn’t matter how much you saved, it was a goal post that kept moving. And I was seeing people stressed out paying their mortgages.” Though they had good educations and well-paying jobs in the booming tech sector, Ms. Shen and Mr. Leung faced the looming threats of outsourcing and artificial intelligence, and had no hope of a retirement pension, or even that their employers would exist in five years. At the same time, their jobs were all-consuming, their work hours basically 24-7. Rather than chain themselves to a costly mortgage, and therefore to high-pressure jobs, the couple decided to pour their money into an investment portfolio and peace out. “The rule books our parents have given us is advice that’s perfect for 1970,” Ms. Shen said. “We have to throw out that rule book and write a new one.” Mr. Leung spoke of the challenges his generation faces more bluntly. “We don’t have jobs that will take care of us,” he said. “We have to take care of ourselves.” Go Where It’s Cheap By ditching a big city, Ms. Shen and Mr. Leung exemplify another underlying reason for the popularity of FIRE: the high price of urban life, especially in places like New York and Southern California. There’s the insane housing prices, the high cost of child care, the temptations of so-called lifestyle creep. “We were spending nearly $3,000 a month on rent, and that was considered a good deal,” said Scott Rieckens, 35, who, along with his wife, Taylor, 33, and their infant daughter until recently lived in Coronado, Calif., a pricey beach town across the bay from San Diego. “We made something like $160,000 between the two of us, but we didn’t have a whole lot left over.” After hearing a podcast interview with Mr. Money Mustache, a.k.a., Pete Adeney, who The New Yorker called “the Frugal Guru” (he retired at 30), Mr. Rieckens became fired up. He told his wife they should ditch their leased BMW and quit eating out several nights a week. But even with those lifestyle cuts, the couple couldn’t increase their savings rate substantially unless they relocated to a cheaper community, a deleveraging tactic the FIRE crowd calls “arbitrage.” The idea, Mr. Adeney said, is “to reap the high salary” of a place like Silicon Valley, “then take that nest egg out to any of the thousands of nice, affordable cities and towns we have in this country and begin a second stage of life on your own terms.” Ms. Rieckens, who works in recruiting, was initially reluctant to give up her BMW and beachy life and the prestige that went with it, until she saw a retirement calculator that showed they could retire in 10 years if they adopted FIRE and moved, or when they are 90 if they continued their upscale lifestyle in Coronado. “I never paid attention to the finances, I thought it will all work out,” Ms. Rieckens said. “After I had a baby, I had stress around how I could spend more time with her. I was almost a slave to my job because of the way we were living.” Last year, the couple left Southern California in search of a community that would give them more financial freedom, a journey Mr. Rieckens, formerly a creative director for a creative agency, is chronicling in a documentary, “Playing With FIRE.” They ended up in Bend, Ore., where there’s no state sales tax and they could afford to buy a house. Gas for their used Honda CRV with 186,000 miles (they got rid of the BMW and downsized to one vehicle) is a dollar-per-gallon cheaper than in San Diego, although Mr. Rieckens often rides his bike around town. “The whole retire early thing is unimportant to me. It’s more about gaining control of your time,” Mr. Rieckens said. “If you dive into the definition of retirement, what you’re retiring from is mandatory labor. It’s not necessarily about piña coladas on the beach.” When You Retire Before Your Parents A retirement that starts well before you go gray and lasts 40, 50 even 60 years is an anomaly in modern life. How do you fill all those days, months, decades? On a recent weekday afternoon, Mr. Jensen was taking his two daughters, ages 8 and 11, to the Boulder County Fair. “I told them, ‘O.K., we’re going to wait until Thursday for half-price day,’” he said. “And by the way, we’re walking there. It’s two miles from our house.” Fearing boredom, Mr. Jensen at first took on way too much, and he found it strange to be at the local rec center exercising alongside senior citizens, or shopping at empty big-box stores on a Tuesday. He also beat his own mother to retirement, which made for awkward family get-togethers. But one year in, he has settled into his life of leisure, enjoying time spent raising his daughters, making sure they never see him vegging in front of the TV. Mr. Jensen also practices an activity that for many FIRE achievers seems to be the new golf: writing a financial advice blog. Other FIRE retirees turned bloggers include Early Retirement Dude; the husband and wife behind Our Next Life; the Frugalwoods, a young married couple with children, who wrote a book about their transformation from suburban Boston high earners to retired Vermont homesteaders; and Ms. Shen and Mr. Leung, who when not traveling the world are calling for a Millennial Revolution (“Stop working, start living”). It’s hardly surprising that a tech-savvy generation would proselytize on the internet. Also, blogging can provide the holy grail of early retirement, an additional income stream. Perhaps Mr. Long, the pharmacist in rural Tennessee, has given the most detailed, thoughtful account of someone who has fired. In a series of posts to Reddit’s financial independence message board, Mr. Long chronicled with dry wit and self-effacement his first year in retirement. One month into FIRE, he wrote of the guilt he felt spending money (on video games), and his concern that he would be over his household budget. He spent his days with family, at the gym, doing housework, exercising. He had no regrets so far: “I made the right decision. This is life.” In the second month, Mr. Long reported a 2.8 percent increase to his portfolio over the first two months, even after living expenses, and listed his accomplishments as more reading, more cooking, volunteering and “faster Rubik’s cube solves.” Stress levels were way down, he wrote: “A friend of mine said the sense of dread from my face was gone.” In the months that followed, he rewatched the mini-series “Roots,” lost all interest in talk of FIRE now that he had achieved it, feared a looming stock market crash, had nightmares that “I’m back at work and arguing with morons,” finished a marathon in a personal best sub-three hours, felt moments of social isolation, took a two-week road trip across the heartland, and went twice to the beach in Florida with his wife and watched their net reach its highest point, despite not working, which he attributed to “the passage of the tax cut for wealthy job creators like myself.” Oh, and he started a blog. “My life is so much better than it was before,” Mr. Long wrote seven months in. “I hope everyone here finds this peace.” Speaking by phone, Mr. Long acknowledged it was possible that he’d simply burned out, that all of this FIRE stuff was just a needed break until he found a more satisfying career. When he was recently offered a job back in the pharmaceutical field, it induced a mild panic attack. That morning, he’d woken up on his own, “not when an alarm clock told me that I had a responsibility.” He’d read the news online for 30 minutes, went on a seven-mile run, took a nap and “watched the ceiling fan spin around for a little bit.” He had been watching the movies from They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? a website that ranks what it calls the 1,000 greatest films. He’d watched 600 or so. He had work to do. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/style/fire-financial-independence-retire-early.html .... This is a long piece on financial freedom, retiring early, advice on how to save money and the so-called "FIRE" movement( Financial Independence Retirement Early) which I've never heard of before today. I wonder if there is a similar movement revolving around bitcoin and crypto? I know there are many buying lamborghinis living beyond their expected means for their age group, due to being early adopters of crypto. Perhaps in the future we'll see a crossover of sorts where FIRE adherants and crypto join forces. lol |
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we shouldn't forget either that the US is not Venezuela in the sense the former can allow itself to indulge in excessive government spending as it can make the rest of the world pay for it, Venezuela included. But isn't that exactly what Trump is hellbent on doing anyway? Whenever I hear him say something, he always ends up saying that [put some country here] should pay for something or bear some part of the expenditures that Uncle Sam is allegedly making for their protection or whatever.
That's an interesting topic, one I'm not certain I know the answer to. When the former Soviet Union (USSR) ran into issues with debt they weren't able to cover their costs by resorting to military action or forcing others to pay their bills. Most powerful nations on earth have far more debt than liquidity. Forcing foreign nations to cover your debts could be more expensive than paying off debt directly. Prevention could go a long way. When disaster strikes in terms of severe economic or social upheavel it can take decades to fix things. Preventing tragedies associated with deficit and debt from occurring is the only sound strategy. |
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If the security community could tell you just one thing, it’s that “nothing is unhackable.” Except John McAfee’s cryptocurrency wallet, which was only unhackable until it wasn’t — twice. Security researchers have now developed a second attack, which they say can obtain all the stored funds from an unmodified Bitfi wallet. The Android-powered $120 wallet relies on a user-generated secret phrase and a “salt” value — like a phone number — to cryptographically scramble the secret phrase. The idea is that the two unique values ensure that your funds remain secure. But the researchers say that the secret phrase and salt can be extracted, allowing private keys to be generated and the funds stolen. Using this “cold boot attack,” it’s possible to steal funds even when a Bitfi wallet is switched off. There’s a video below. The researchers, Saleem Rashid and Ryan Castellucci, uncovered and built the exploits as part of a team of several security researchers calling themselves “THCMKACGASSCO” (after their initials). The two researchers shared them with TechCrunch prior to its release. In the video, Rashid is shown setting a secret phrase and salt, and running a local exploit to extract the keys from the device. Rashid told TechCrunch that the keys are stored in the memory longer than Bitfi claims, allowing their combined exploits to run code on the hardware without erasing the memory. From there, an attacker can extract the memory and find the keys. The exploit takes less than two minutes to run, Rashid said. “This attack is both reliable and practical, requiring no specialist hardware,” said Andrew Tierney, a security researcher with Pen Test Partners, who verified the attack. Tierney was one of the hackers behind the first Bitfi attack. The McAfee-backed company offered a $250,000 bounty for anyone who could carry out what its makers consider a “successful attack.” But Bitfi declined to pay out, arguing that the hack was outside the scope of the bounty, and instead resorted to posting threats on Twitter. This new attack, Tierney says, “meets the requirements of the bounty in spirit, even if it does not meet the specific terms that Bitfi have set.” McAfee earlier this month said, “the wallet is hacked when someone gets the coins.” Bill Powel, vice president of operations at Bitfi, told TechCrunch in an email that the company defines a hack “as anything that would allow an attacker to access funds held by the wallet.” “Because the device does not store private keys, that is what prompted the unhackable claim,” he said. When pressed, Powel did not address the specific claims of the cold boot attack. McAfee, who was copied on the email to Bitfi, did not respond. Within an hour of the researchers posting the video, Bitfi said in a tweeted statement that it has “hired an experienced security manager, who is confirming vulnerabilities that have been identified by researchers.” “Effective immediately, we are closing the current bounty programs which have caused understandable anger and frustration among researchers,” it added. The statement also said it will no longer use the “unhackable” claim on its website. Rashid said he has no immediate plans to release the exploit code so as to prevent the estimated few thousand Bitfi users from being put at risk. Just last month, Bitfi won the Pwnie Award for Lamest Vendor Response, a traditional award given out at the Black Hat conference for companies that react the worst in response to security issues. https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/30/john-mcafees-unhackable-bitfi-wallet-got-hacked-again/.... This isn't necessarily an isolated issue. There were vulnerabilities for ledger nano devices publicized earlier this year. For whatever reason, locking down and securing bitcoin hardware wallets appears to be an impossible task. I wonder if these vulnerabilities are deliberately built into the devices as concealed backdoors, rather than legitimate engineering mistakes. There is a considerable trend towards weakening encryption and security standards for surveillance purposes. The recent intel security bug could also represent this movement. Et al. |
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I wish Trump would talk more about the tax plan originally posted on his personal website where he proposed cutting income taxes for poor people and lowest income earning americans from its current 30% or so rate down to 0% to 6%.
I imagine Trump's proposed tax cuts were a big part of the reason many initially supported him. Its sad to see not much progress has been made there. Most are completely unaware those income tax cuts were part of Trump's original tax plan.
The economy appears to be doing well atm. Spending is still raging out of control. There doesn't appear to be much anyone can do to marginalize that. That's the most criticial issue atm. The media could help a lot by informing people that their country could actually go bankrupt if overspending isn't fixed. And that the implications of such a thing could be lost pensions, welfare, unemployment benefits. Many services and jobs provided by the state would disappear. There is a lot of aging infrastructure which funding could not be appropriated to maintain. Within a worst case scenario the USA could end up like venezuela if spending continues unchecked.
An example of a recent infrastructure fail are new orleans levees breaking during hurricane katrina. That was due to levee maintenance funds being re-appropriated towards the iraq war effort. That type of thing could become more common, unfortunately.
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