Also, it's impossible to write a whitepaper now, coz we haven't seen 2nd and 3rd parts of the plan yet... By the end of this year we'll see 100$ for 1 NXT.
Lack of a whitepaper is a major drag on NXT. That 2nd and 3rd part of the secret plan must really be something amazing. When do they go into effect? And why oh why would you leave something so monumental only 90 days from now, in April?
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So, quick question. Say you are making a random new NXT password using 2 thru 9, a thru k, m thru n and p thru z so a field of 32 characters. What is the length of such a password to achieve maximum entropy /security, where adding one or more additional characters buys you no additional security?
that is an easy one. 100 digits, because all digits after that are ignored ![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif) Little less, you'll get maximum entropy with 32 symbols, but the thing is, the question is ill formed. Consider one of strings over this alphabet: 23456789abcdefghijkmnpqrstuvwxyz does it look secure to you? Technically that is no more or less random than any other 32 character string, it just looks that way because of human pattern recognition. Humans would try that string "first" so it is not a "random pull". Let me ask it another way. How many possible total NXT accounts are there? What is the algorithm applied to your secret phrase to generate the account number? It's some combination of SHA-256 and Curve 25519, right?
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PoW's Negative Ecological Consequences
Confirming transactions for existing Bitcoins, and creating new Bitcoins to go into circulation, requires enormous background computing power that must operate continuously. This computing power is provided by so-called "mining rigs" operated by "miners". Bitcoin miners compete among themselves to add the next transaction block to the overall Bitcoin blockchain. This is done by "hashing" - bundling all Bitcoin transactions occurring over the past ten minutes and trying to encrypt them into a block of data that also coincidentally has a certain number of consecutive zeros in it. Most trial blocks generated by a miner's hashing effort don't have this target number of zeros, so they make a slight change and try again. A billion attempts to find this "winning" block is called a "gigahash", with a mining rig being rated by how many gigahashes it can perform in a second, denoted by "GH/sec". A winning miner who is first to generate the next needle-in-a-haystack, cryptographically-correct Bitcoin block receives a reward of 50 newly-mined Bitcoins - a reward worth, at the time of this writing, around $50,000. This competition among miners, with its hefty reward, repeats itself over and over and over every ten minutes or so - by early 2014 generating rewards of over 7000 bitcoins per day worth around $7 million dollars per day.
With so much money at stake, miners have supported a blistering arms race in mining rig technology to better their odds of winning. Originally Bitcoins were mined using the central processing unit (CPU) of a typical desktop computer. Then the specialized graphics processing unit (GPU) chips in high-end video cards were used to increase speeds. Field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips were pressed into service next, followed by mining rigs specialized application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) chips. ASIC technology is the top of the line for Bitcoin miners, but the arms race continues with various generations of ASIC chips now coming into service. The current generation of ASIC chips are the so-called 65nm units, based on the size of their microscopic transistors in nanometers. These are due to be replaced by 28nm ASICs in early-2014 and 20nm units by mid-2014. An example of an upcoming state-of-the-art mining rig would be a Butterfly Labs "Monarch" 28nm ASIC card, which is to provide 600GH/sec for an electricity consumption of 350 watts and a price of $2100. On the horizon is a card from Hashblaster slated to have three 20nm ASIC chips providing 3300 GH/sec for 1800 watts of power consumption. Most operational mining rigs will probably be upgraded to this standard of performance and efficiency by mid-2014.
The mining rig infrastructure currently in place to support ongoing Bitcoin operations is astounding. Bitcoin ASICs are idiot savants - they are able to do only the Bitcoin block calculation and nothing more, but they can do that one calculation at supercomputer speeds. In November 2013, Forbes magazine ran an article entitled, "Global Bitcoin Computing Power Now 256 Times Faster Than Top 500 Supercomputers, Combined!". In mid January 2014, statistics maintained at blockchain.info showed that ongoing support of Bitcoin operations required a continuous hash rate of around 18 million GH/sec. During an day of 86,400 seconds, this means around 1.5 trillion trial blocks were generated and rejected by Bitcoin miners looking for the magic 144 blocks that would net them $7 million. Thus around 99.99999999 % of all Bitcoin computation go not to curing cancer by modeling DNA or searching for radio signals from E.T - instead, they are totally wasted computations.
The power and cost involved in this wasteful background miner support of Bitcoin is enormous. If all Bitcoin mining rigs had "Monarch" levels of capability as described above - which they will not, until they are upgraded - they would represent a pool of 30,000 machines costing over $63 million and consuming over 10 megawatts of continuous power while running up an electricity bill of over $3.5 million per day. The real numbers are significantly higher for the current, less-efficient mining rig pool of machines actually supporting Bitcoin today. And these numbers are currently headed upward in an exponential growth curve as Bitcoin marches from its current one transaction per second to its current maximum of seven transactions per second.
There are at least 4000 network nodes at this time.
I actually used incorrect Bitcoin numbers, the current reward is 25 Bitcoins per block, not 50. So it should be : A winning miner who is first to generate the next needle-in-a-haystack, cryptographically-correct Bitcoin block receives a reward of 25 newly-mined Bitcoins - a reward worth, at the time of this writing, around $25,000. This competition among miners, with its hefty reward, repeats itself over and over and over every ten minutes or so - by early 2014 generating rewards of over 3500 bitcoins per day worth around $3.5 million dollars per day....During an day of 86,400 seconds, this means around 750 billion trial blocks were generated and rejected by Bitcoin miners looking for the magic 144 blocks that would net them $3.5 million... So basically the daily reward is currently roughly equal to the daily electricity cost. I think the only way Bitcoin mining is profitable is if you are somehow getting cheap/free electricity by running it on somebody else's grid without them being aware of it...
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So, quick question. Say you are making a random new NXT password using 2 thru 9, a thru k, m thru n and p thru z so a field of 32 characters. What is the length of such a password to achieve maximum entropy /security, where adding one or more additional characters buys you no additional security?
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It could be anybody, including EpicThomas. We may never know.
It could be anybody, including rickyjames ![Cool](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cool.gif) I am a big fan of The X Files. I Want To Believe. Trust No One.
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Before you go and blow a major hole in somebody's reputation, you've got to make damn sure you're right. I didn't release EpicThomas' real world name in the beginning because I wasn't 100% sure I had the right guy until later on. Hopefully Graviton is doing the same thing. I recommend patience for a few days.
This. I'm surprised that it even needs to be spelled out like this. But...Graviton was asking for trouble when he said the account belongs to a "well known and respected member of the Nxt community." That's like waving a bloody steak in front of rabid gossip hounds. I've been thinking about this some more. I take back complimenting myself that I've isolated the truth down to "scenario 3 - unknown new hacker". Anything is possible and we should not start locking ourselves in to thinking the simple answer is the right one. Whoever withdrew that NXT has had weeks to think about how they were going to do it. There are lots of ways set up a false flag operation in that time. It could be anybody, including EpicThomas. We may never know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
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*********** BEGIN GRAVITON COMMENTS**********************
"The BTC from the apparently stolen NXT were cashed out yesterday morning, so what I have left is some info if anything....
10715382765594435905 is not a DGEX account.
We had a moderately large deposit two days ago from 2647797480528736696, washing it quickly through instant withdrawals to BTC.
The owner of the account is a well known and reputable NXT community member."
*********** END GRAVITON COMMENTS**********************
I think that everyone should ask graviton for the nickname +1 I would be interested in knowing as well obviously. Why hide this information from the public? This well known and reputable member should no longer be reputable. It only hurts NXT to keep it secret. Before you go and blow a major hole in somebody's reputation, you've got to make damn sure you're right. I didn't release EpicThomas' real world name in the beginning because I wasn't 100% sure I had the right guy until later on. Hopefully Graviton is doing the same thing. I recommend patience for a few days.
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Ricky, you know what to do ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) Sigh. I'm pretty sure Dgex is European, right? That's your side of the pond, not mine. Edited to add:I've narrowed it down to Scenario 3 as being the truth: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.msg4321533#msg4321533"3. There is one or more completely independent hacker(s) out there who took the 300K NXT from five accounts as part of a completely different heist and is laughing at all of us right now because we are not even on their trail yet." Maybe the community can vote on what to do next.
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And I think you misunderstand hiberNXT - just because it doesnt have a public key associated with it does NOT mean that nobody knows the password to the account.
Think about your very first NXT account you had when someone sent you some NXT but you had no outgoing transactions. Those funds in your NXT account were hiberNXT. The only difference is you did know its password, you just hadnt used it yet.
Nope, I fully understand the difference between darkNXT and hiberNXT. DarkNXT is effectively like sunken treasure on a ship that has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. If you are somehow smart enough to hack the entrance code (or maybe have a trapdoor to find it?) , it's pretty much morally yours under salvage law. HiberNXT is, as you say, sitting there waiting for somebody who deliberately created the passcode to use it for the first time. Like possibly a "well known and reputable NXT community member" who did so four times in a 180 second window after a three-week cool-down period. As I've always said, something scary is going on that we STILL haven't gotten to the bottom of. And I'm not the man to go down this mean street... http://quotes.dictionary.com/down_these_mean_streets_a_man_must_go
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NEWS FLASH: Stolen NXT On The Move
To catch a thief, follow the money NXT
Huh, nothing like a big price rise to make a thief break cover.
I just got a PM from plasticAiredale, who has been looking longingly at his lost/stolen NXT in its bandit/darkNXT/who-knows-what account.
What an amazing coincidence, the price of NXT skyrockets and that NXT has now apparently been transferred into Dgex.
Guess that wasn't darkNXT after all - SOMEBODY had a code to move it around...
For the record, where we left the EpicThomas saga in our last chapter:
13643712185318669838 contains 100088 NXT taken from Framewood's 697109629372813510 15182566201738727933 contains 18665 NXT taken from plasticAiredale's 8439060069775407509 9793828175536096502 contains 18197 NXT taken from newcn's 16886318053889080545 12152013998194592943 contains 147690 NXT taken from sparta_cuss's 11794318797680953099 16204974692852323982 contains 7808 NXT taken from PaulyC's 16821029889165561706
...with 16204974692852323982 containing transfers in of an additional 1155NXT from four other transfers on 29.12.2013 08:19:00 thru 08:21:32, and EpicThomas claiming he never touched any of these accounts and the transfers just sort of happened on their own as part of some software bug or piggy-back hacker, and me showing a little mercy...
Now, the saga continues:
13643712185318669838 has transferred Framewood's 100,087 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:12:24 15182566201738727933 has transferred plasticAiredale's 18,663 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:13:55 9793828175536096502 has transferred newcn's 18,196 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:14:24 12152013998194592943 has transferred sparta_cuss's 147,690 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:14:59
16204974692852323982 has transferred PaulyC's 8,962 NXT to 7434018619814562489 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:44:52
7434018619814562489 has transferred 61,372 NXT total to 12407220479703463755 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:44:52
Note:
7434018619814562489 has previously received 9,527 NXT from 6164081464868000542 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:44:05 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist? 7434018619814562489 has previously received 9,194 NXT from 16143592223796100493 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:42:11 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist ? 7434018619814562489 has previously received 24,648 NXT from 17670462608804215164 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:41:31 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist? 7434018619814562489 has previously received 9,042 NXT from 14527793117125736279 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:40:35 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist?
2647797480528736696 has previously received 1,226 NXT from 11093204588975801957 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:15:50 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist?
So... known stolen NXT from five known heists plus possible stolen NXT from five other possible heists are now in two brand-new "CLEAN NUMBER" accounts:
12407220479703463755 containing 61,372 NXT currently worth approximately $6,500 USD (PaulyC) 2647797480528736696 containing 285,859 NXT currently worth approximately $30,000 USD (Framewood, plasticAiredale, newcn, sparta_cuss)
Now the NXT is in "clean" new NXT accounts, time for the thief to send it to exchanges for BTC:
12407220479703463755 has transferred 61,371 NXT total to 10715382765594435905 at timestamp 19.01.2014 00:18:44
10715382765594435905 is a huge trading account, 1,340+ transfers, currently with 21M NXT ; salsacz thinks this is Bter?
2647797480528736696 has transferred 284,634 NXT to 6635869272840226493 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:18:44
6635869272840226493 is definitely DGex
I have sent numerous emails and PMs to Graviton asking him to freeze trading on 2647797480528736696 and ID the user
I will send the same to Bter about 12407220479703463755.
EpicThomas, if I find out this is you and that you have played me for a fool, I am going to take vacation days from work and come to visit my sister in Florida and do a ride-along with the Orlando FBI when they come to put handcuffs on you.
great job! I focused on some of the accounts in the early days when I was stolen, but I didn't check them recently. thank you rickyjames, and other people who helped discovering the case. Let me give my final update on this topic by reaching out with an open hand to two outstanding NXTers. I could not have done what little I have done regarding EpicThomas without the real detective work by all the folks mentioned in this post by Salsacz : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.msg4651128#msg4651128...and most importantly by detective work by Salsacz himself. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and Salsacz deserves A LOT of credit for his work on this site in MANY areas - advertising and hacker tracking and much more. I may have made a big splash in the past few weeks chasing EpicThomas with big words and big graphics, but I never intended for that to overshadow the real work and real dedication and real effort by others who deserve praise for their actions that further the cause of NXT a lot more than I do. If I've ruffled any feathers with my bluster, I apologize for that. Secondly I would like to clarify something I said above about Graviton. I mentioned that I had sent numerous PMs and emails to him to inform him of the movement of stolen NXT thru DGex. This was not meant to imply that he was unresponsive and needed prodding from repeated communications from me. Just the opposite - I sent one email to many locations simultaneously, to reach him as quickly as possible, not knowing which would reach him first, and he responded back to me very quickly. Graviton has taken a lot of heat over Dgex lately, and I do not want to add any further fuel to any of the fires around him. He has always given me good service at Dgex and has always been responsive to my direct communications with him. I consider Graviton to be an honorable man trying hard to provide not one but two vital services to the NXT community, both with his forum and with his exchange. As with Salsacz, Graviton's service to the NXT community far exceeds my own in chasing EpicThomas. And with that, let me pass on what information I have received from Graviton: *********** BEGIN GRAVITON COMMENTS********************** "The BTC from the apparently stolen NXT were cashed out yesterday morning, so what I have left is some info if anything.... 10715382765594435905 is not a DGEX account. We had a moderately large deposit two days ago from 2647797480528736696, washing it quickly through instant withdrawals to BTC. The owner of the account is a well known and reputable NXT community member." *********** END GRAVITON COMMENTS********************** If the owner of 2647797480528736696 is "a well known and reputable NXT community member", then it's not EpicThomas. Guess I'm not going to Florida to see my sister Connie. Instead, it looks like maybe darkNXT can be harvested, or maybe (to quote Hamlet) something is rotten in the state of Denmark, or maybe something else is going on that I don't understand and that's way beyond me. I think I will pull the brim of my fedora down over my eyes and walk away down the dark street now, becoming increasingly distant in bright pools of light laid down by the streetlamps. See y'all.
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LOL! LOL! LOL! I guess I am doing my own brand of advertising for NXT! We all contribute what we can. and still you haven't caught 1 thief or thief's Bitcointalk account or didn't find any new theft except of those who were found by others All true. Well, I do know that EpicThomas did indeed put out a poisoned client, and I do indeed know who he is in the real world... Maybe we all had to just go away for a while to let the heist go to this next step... But I told you about EpicThomas That is true, Salsacz, I first heard about EpicThomas from you.
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LOL! LOL! LOL! I guess I am doing my own brand of advertising for NXT! We all contribute what we can. and still you haven't caught 1 thief or thief's Bitcointalk account or didn't find any new theft except of those who were found by others All true. Well, I do know that EpicThomas did indeed put out a poisoned client, and I do indeed know who he is in the real world... Maybe we all had to just go away for a while to let the heist go to this next step...
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LOL! LOL! LOL! I guess I am doing my own brand of advertising for NXT! We all contribute what we can.
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NEWS FLASH: Stolen NXT On The Move
To catch a thief, follow the money NXT
Huh, nothing like a big price rise to make a thief break cover.
I just got a PM from plasticAiredale, who has been looking longingly at his lost/stolen NXT in its bandit/darkNXT/who-knows-what account.
What an amazing coincidence, the price of NXT skyrockets and that NXT has now apparently been transferred into Dgex.
Guess that wasn't darkNXT after all - SOMEBODY had a code to move it around...
For the record, where we left the EpicThomas saga in our last chapter:
13643712185318669838 contains 100088 NXT taken from Framewood's 697109629372813510 15182566201738727933 contains 18665 NXT taken from plasticAiredale's 8439060069775407509 9793828175536096502 contains 18197 NXT taken from newcn's 16886318053889080545 12152013998194592943 contains 147690 NXT taken from sparta_cuss's 11794318797680953099 16204974692852323982 contains 7808 NXT taken from PaulyC's 16821029889165561706
...with 16204974692852323982 containing transfers in of an additional 1155NXT from four other transfers on 29.12.2013 08:19:00 thru 08:21:32, and EpicThomas claiming he never touched any of these accounts and the transfers just sort of happened on their own as part of some software bug or piggy-back hacker, and me showing a little mercy...
Now, the saga continues:
13643712185318669838 has transferred Framewood's 100,087 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:12:24 15182566201738727933 has transferred plasticAiredale's 18,663 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:13:55 9793828175536096502 has transferred newcn's 18,196 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:14:24 12152013998194592943 has transferred sparta_cuss's 147,690 NXT to 2647797480528736696 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:14:59
16204974692852323982 has transferred PaulyC's 8,962 NXT to 7434018619814562489 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:44:52
7434018619814562489 has transferred 61,372 NXT total to 12407220479703463755 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:44:52
Note:
7434018619814562489 has previously received 9,527 NXT from 6164081464868000542 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:44:05 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist? 7434018619814562489 has previously received 9,194 NXT from 16143592223796100493 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:42:11 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist ? 7434018619814562489 has previously received 24,648 NXT from 17670462608804215164 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:41:31 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist? 7434018619814562489 has previously received 9,042 NXT from 14527793117125736279 at timestamp 19.01.2014 23:40:35 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist?
2647797480528736696 has previously received 1,226 NXT from 11093204588975801957 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:15:50 ; is this stolen NXT from a previous heist?
So... known stolen NXT from five known heists plus possible stolen NXT from five other possible heists are now in two brand-new "CLEAN NUMBER" accounts:
12407220479703463755 containing 61,372 NXT currently worth approximately $6,500 USD (PaulyC) 2647797480528736696 containing 285,859 NXT currently worth approximately $30,000 USD (Framewood, plasticAiredale, newcn, sparta_cuss)
Now the NXT is in "clean" new NXT accounts, time for the thief to send it to exchanges for BTC:
12407220479703463755 has transferred 61,371 NXT total to 10715382765594435905 at timestamp 19.01.2014 00:18:44
10715382765594435905 is a huge trading account, 1,340+ transfers, currently with 21M NXT ; salsacz thinks this is Bter?
2647797480528736696 has transferred 284,634 NXT to 6635869272840226493 at timestamp 20.01.2014 00:18:44
6635869272840226493 is definitely DGex
I have sent numerous emails and PMs to Graviton asking him to freeze trading on 2647797480528736696 and ID the user
I will send the same to Bter about 12407220479703463755.
EpicThomas, if I find out this is you and that you have played me for a fool, I am going to take vacation days from work and come to visit my sister in Florida and do a ride-along with the Orlando FBI when they come to put handcuffs on you.
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I couldn't care less about these calculations. I care about the idea NXT represents and that would make NXT a success or not.
Either you want to present NXT as a rich guy's club with some kind of superior technology or you want to present NXT as a network/ movement for free people, for decentralization and against all power government.
Sorry for the spoiler. Before u continue this discussion u'd better to know that PoS is required only during bootstrapping phase of Nxt. I can't reveal details now, u have to wait for the 3rd part of the plan. I really wonder how to participate in writing a NXT white paper amid such a clandestine environment..
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what I meant was if TF code will be release in April before being fully implemented?
I doubt we will have TF code 100% ready in April. TF Phase 1 is in effect now, and TF Phase 2 will be enabled @47000, so TF Phase 3 will be enabled @*****, TF Phase 4 will be enabled @*****, TF Phase 5 will be enabled @******? Last phase requires a big infrastructure with hubs and service providers. So where can I find written descriptions of the five levels of TF to add to the white paper?
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WE NEED AN ACCOUNT FREEZE CODE CAPABILITY A USER CAN LOAD INTO THE BLOCKCHAIN AS A PAID MESSAGE THAT ALL NODES WILL RECOGNIZE AND REJECT ALL TRANSACTIONS OUT OF THIS ACCOUNT UNTIL A USER REVERSES IT AND TURNS IT OFF WITH A SECOND PASSWORD. No need to shout, but yes. +1 ### woulda saved me 107000 NXT ![Sad](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/sad.gif) Would have saved me 500k NXT. ![Sad](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/sad.gif) And these is the whole EpicThomas mess, and the earlier Framewood loss, AND WE STILL ARE NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED IN ANY OF THESE CASES. RED ALERT ON THE NCC-1701-D. WE NEED NODE RECOGNIZED ACCOUNT FREEZE CODES. As a lawyer says to a jury, I rest my case. Utopianfuture, you could wake up tomorrow to this nightmare. So could I. Dear reader, so could you.
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...WE NEED AN ACCOUNT FREEZE CODE CAPABILITY A USER CAN LOAD INTO THE BLOCKCHAIN AS A PAID MESSAGE THAT ALL NODES WILL RECOGNIZE AND REJECT ALL TRANSACTIONS OUT OF THIS ACCOUNT UNTIL A USER REVERSES IT AND TURNS IT OFF WITH A SECOND PASSWORD...
in my eyes this doesn't add any security level. if your account pw got stolen, the second pw would also have been stolen. there's no defence against keyloggers. this applies to regular banking more or less also. it's also not unsafer than bitcoin, because your wallet.dat can be stolen equally. No. I envision the client displaying the unfreeze code visually and you copying it down old school paper and pencil to defeat keyloggers. At least this would be one option for the paranoid, like me.
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NEX is a joke but a potentially deadly one if we do not respond quickly to its legitimate criticisms.
His criticism is not based on real things. PS: Once we have TF ready we can change transaction limit from 4.25 to 1000 transactions per second. 200x increase in TPS will lead to the same increase in price. Do not underestimate the power of fools to manipulate the minds of the ignorant. Once there was this guy named George W. Bush ruling a group of people who called themselves Americans... So once TF kicks in with 1000 tps, the max NXT block size goes from what to what?
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