https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204060

Edit: I stand corrected Apple's default is a 6 digit numeric number as the password also trivial to crack.

Apple was very disingenuous here.

The iPhone in question used a combination of real encryption and DRM. If the user uses a secure password then the real encryption kicks in and cracking the DRM will not let the investigators in; however if the user follows Apple's recommendation and uses a 4 digit number, as the password, then the real encryption is effectively neutered and only the DRM remains. The user's password controls the key of the real encryption. Apple controls the keys to the DRM.

Apple relied on its proprietary iOS, and keeping the source code of iOS secret (private key 1) to frustrate the investigation. Apple  also has a private key (private key 2) that controls what operating system software in installed on an iPhone. It also enforces what software can be installed on an iPhone. The FBI would have been perfectly content with the source code of iOS (private key number 1) and the installation key (private key number 2). This would have made the situation equivalent to someone using GNU PG (Licensed under GPL v3) the very software Edward Snowden used for his leaks. Use GNU PG with a 4 digit number as the password and it can also be trivially cracked. Use it with a secure password and it becomes impossible to crack.  The FBI had reason to believe that the terrorist had used a 4 digit number for the password.

Technically one can argue that Apple did not lie, since Apple did not know the 4 digit number that controlled the user key; however since the real encryption was already neutered the only keys that mattered were firmly under the control of Apple.  

Edit: This is not a complex system. Apple went out of its way to make it seem complex, in order to make the debate about real encryption rather than what was the real issue namely DRM.  Richard Stallman identified the issue of malicious features in proprietary software back in 2002. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html In this case they were used to frustrate a perfectly legal anti terrorism investigation .

The Panama Papers example is very relevant. In fact for most people an agency such as the NSA is an insignificant risk at best. The real risk comes fromr large corporations after marketing data and attempting to protect their "intellectual property". Remember Superfish? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish This malware was installed on computers sold to consumers by Lenovo. What this malware did was to break SSL encryption by using a bogus root certificate that was trusted by the installed Windows operating system. Lenovo has not learned its lesson and they are still at it.  https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html. Then there is DRM which is as big or bigger threat to privacy. Remember the Sony rootkit 11 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

One simply cannot rely on any product that is mass marketed to consumers by large corporations such as Microsoft or Apple for privacy or security. In fact I will go as far as to say that if a computer or device has a proprietary operating system and supports DRM, one should not have an expectation of privacy with respect to any data on the computer or device.

Edit 1: In the recent Apple vs FBI dispute it is actually the FBI that was the good guy. Why because what the FBI wanted to do was break Apple's DRM (Jailbreak an iPhone) in order to pursue a legitimate and lawful anti terrorism investigation. The reason the FBI could get a third party to access the iPhone is because DRM, unlike real encryption such as what is used in Monero, is based on snake oil rather than sound mathematics.

Edit 2: The same or similar Apple DRM that the FBI broke, was used from 2009 to 2014 to censor Bitcoin and is currently used to censor Monero

My take on this is that it depends a lot on the time frame. My opinion is that Monero has very strong fundamentals that can lead upside over the medium to long term. On the other hand a day trader using margin can very easily get stopped out long before any fundamentals are reflected on the price. The recent drop has been very close to lock step with Ethererum. Interestingly Monero is at a significant support level while Ethrereum is not. It is very possible that we see a decoupling at this point.

Investing in Crypto currency is not for the faint of heart. One can see a complete loss of the invested funds and also explosive upside returns. Even Bitcoin has seen some extreme movements like a drop from over 30 USD to 2 USD in 2011 followed by a rise over the following two years from 2 USD to over 1000 USD. Then followed by a low just over 150 USD. Monero is even more volatile.

It is at best junk and at worst paid for malware. If you wish to mine Monero just start the client and enter:


The above address in the Monero project donation address and 2 is the number of threads. Mining to the project donation address is a simple way to support the Monero project.

To mine to a different address enter it instead of the above address. To mine using a different number of threads replace 2 by the number of threads.  I have found that half of the total number of processor threads is optimal.

Edit: Check https://getmonero.org/getting-started/donate/ to verify the above address.

What happened with Bitcoin when MTGox went down?

Once cannot use a Bitcoin wallet for Monero.  Here are the options for Monero wallets:

https://getmonero.org/getting-started/choose

MyMonero is similar to Blockchain.info.

Some of us are interested in the long term and not concerned about the short term. I do not like Bitcoin long term because of the blocksize issue.

Take a look at DASH/XMR with settings of all and 1 day. https://poloniex.com/exchange#xmr_dash. DASH is actually trading towards the low end of its historical range since November 2014 so it is not surprising that DASH held up better this time.


To be blunt I do not see this as really relevant here. The issue is that the market is voting for or against Bitcoin rather than for or against Monero, Ethereum, DASH etc.  I suspect to a large degree this is over the blocksize issue in Bitcoin and based to a large degree around short term perceptions and emotions rather than any long term fundamentals.

My take is that:
1) Monero is not impacted by the blocksize scaling issue.
2) DASH for better or worse is not perceived to have this scaling issue. Furthermore because of the pending DASH Evolution it is far from clear how DASH is impacted by the blocksize scaling issue.
3) Ethereum may actually have worse scaling issues than Bitcoin but the market has yet to figure this out.

I suspect it is more those alt-coins that differ from Bitcoin in a significant way. Litecoin and Dogecoin have hardly moved this time around. It seems to me that Ethereum was the leader this time around. Monero was the second and was impacted more because of a much smaller capitalization relative to volume.

Edit: It would be interesting to see if Monero decouples in a significant way from Ethereum in this, although at this point I suspect the Monero market capitalization is simply too small for this to happen yet.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hammer.asp
http://www.onlinetradingconcepts.com/TechnicalAnalysis/Candlesticks/Hammer.html

Red hammer just got painted on the daily XMR/XBT chart.

I could not care less about 1 MB, 3.2 MB or 8 MB in 2017. What I am interested in is in the possibility of a few TB, PB, or more per block in say 50 years. Why because it comes to financial matters I take the point of view that if one takes care of the long term the short term will take care of itself.

I would suggest reviewing Warren Buffett's 9 rules. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/12/05/9-rules-that-helped-warren-buffett-produce-a-18261.aspx. This is how the rich got rich.

Now compare this with how the poor are kept poor:

0% Down. No payments until 2017 30% APR starting from the date of purchase.

Ethereum or Dash being or not being a scam does not change the fundamental issue with Bitcoin and the blocksize debate. Over the last 24 hours we have seen the ETH/XBT pair having much higher liquidity than XBT/USD with ETH/XBT accounting for over 50% of Bitcoin trades vs approximately 17% for XBT/USD.. This if anything should be a wake up call for Bitcoin. I commented on this in the Monero thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=753252.msg14493286#msg14493286.

My take is that the market is very uneasy about Bitcoin over the blocksize debate. Instead of selling for fiat some investors are looking at alt-coins. If some of these of these alt-coins have serious fundamental problems of their own, they may not be the winners in the end; however that does not mean that Bitcoin itself has some very serious issues.


You can rest assured that no matter how much energy is spent in debating the Dash instamine, it will not make Bitcoin scale.

There are many assumptions about the Bitcoin markets that are simply no longer the case. The most blatant is that the  most liquid XBT markets or the "major" markets are XBT/USD pairs. This is simply no longer the case Ethereum accounted for over 50% of Bitcoin trading, over the last 24 hours, with by far the largest Bitcoin market being the ETH/XBT pair on Poloniex. By comparison XBT/USD  accounted for around 17%. during the same period. One can see this by comparing https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/?markets=all#markets with https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/?markets=main#markets. Note I have excluded the exchanges that have no trading fees mostly in China due to the high probability  of fake trades; however they may be some legitimate trading going on there.

XMR/XBT on Poloniex accounts for 1.8% of Bitcoin trades followed by DASH/XBT and MAID/XBT on Poloniex at just under 1% each. To put this into perspective XMR/XBT on Poloniex is comparable to XBT/USD on Coinbase at 1.9% and was actually ahead earlier today.

What we are witnessing is a shift of Bitcoin trading away from fiat to alt-coins, with by far the preferred choice being Ethereum followed by Monero and Dash.  We have also witnessed Poloniex becoming the largest Bitcoin exchange by volume. We are also seeing a lot of the value in Bitcoin moving towards the alts rather than fiat. One possible outcome here is that a shift from Bitcoin to another alt-coin will not necessarily imply a lost in trust in Crypto currency as a whole.

So what do I see is the impact on Monero. First the fundamentals have not changed over the last few days. Secondly Monero is starting to be traded as a hedge against Bitcoin's problems. Over the short term this will lead to extreme volatility as we have seen lately; however over the long term this can be very bullish simply because of Monero's minuscule market capitalization when compared to Bitcoin. One significant factor here is that there are ample supplies of XMR available at a price. This will fuel both liquidity (good) and volatility (bad) over the short term. Also if Ethereum stumbles it is quite possible for a major upside move in Monero with possibility Dash and Maidsafe coming along for the ride.

It is in many cases way easier and less risky to invest with a 4 - 14 year time frame than to speculate with a 24 hour time frame.  Many of Warren Buffett's ideas about stocks can also be applied to crypto currencies. Here are his 9 rules http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/12/05/9-rules-that-helped-warren-buffett-produce-a-18261.aspx

Take for example (rule 1) the 50 year rule and apply it to both Monero and Bitcoin. Consider how much technology has changed in the last 50 years and then consider which one of Monero or Bitcoin is better placed to adapt to the technological changes for the next 50 years.

Monero's adaptive blocksize limit relies on a miner penalty that depends upon the block reward. It simply will not work in a coin without a tail emission or demurrage since once the block reward runs out there is no miner penalty. Yes this includes most Cryptonote coins starting with Bytecoin. Aeon's I understand is the exception among Cryptonote coins. My take is that the tail emission in Digitalnote is way to low for the adaptive blocksize limit to work but I have not looked at this particular case in detail. Bytecoin may because of the two year premine / ninjamine lead provide a very good case on how an adaptive blocksize limit can fail in the absence of a tail emission or demurrage. The small block group in Bitcoin do make a very good case here.

As for Bitcoin or Bitcoin like coins it will also not work. One notable exception is Dogecoin because it has a tail emission. The other alternative to a tail emission would be demurrage so one could for example add a Monero style adaptive blocksize limit to Freicoin.

If we have, dare I say, a real long term buyer whale that is for the most part being fed by shorts this can get real interesting.

Yes state level compliance in the US is the issue here, which is why I edited my post. One must also keep in mind here the issue of compliance in every international jurisdiction where they do business.

Edit: Here is the 50 state survey on Money Transmission Licensing http://abnk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/abnk.assembly.ca.gov/files/50%20State%20Survey%20-%20MTL%20Licensing%20Requirements%2872986803_4%29.pdf Montana is one of two states that does not have any requirements. So Poloniex is compliant at the state and federal level. Where it gets interesting is their out of state clients.

Here is a link to the original paper http://fc16.ifca.ai/bitcoin/papers/CDE+16.pdf