Indeed, if I had an exclusive choice between IOTA and Paypal, the answer is easy: Paypal. I say that as a Bitcoin maximalist who holds almost all his own money in Bitcoin. To be fair to IOTA, this is a single instance of reversing transactions in a case of alleged large scale theft, there is a 'slippery slope' argument, but this is not worse than what PayPal does every day. PayPal will routinely reverse transactions, block access to funds, and will blacklist individuals/entities who are doing things that PayPal does not like, even if not against any rules/regulations that PayPal has published. There is no slippery slope argument with PayPal because they are already at the end/bottom of the slope. For me to say, “I prefer Paypal to IOTA” is damning Paypal with faint praise—to make a point about IOTA. My point is that Paypal does what it says on the tin, and does it much more efficiently than anything like IOTA. This is not to promote Paypal: To the contrary, it is a reductio ad absurdum. If I wanted a centrally-controlled system that is poison to privacy, is cheerful about financial censorship, and can arbitrarily revoke transactions at any time, then I would rather use a system which frankly admits to being exactly that— and which does it using technologies that make sense (I am guessing an enterprise RDBMS), rather than pouring on buckets of snake oil crypto just to make the whole thing look fancier. Or for a different metaphor: IOTA is a Rube Goldberg contraption with the disadvantages of a centralized system, plus many additional complications. Although I do NOT trust Paypal’s security, and past performance is no guarantee that they won’t later suffer an Experian-tier giant hack or other systemic failure, I will also note that in the past 20 years, they have not suffered the sorts of “oopsies” that IOTA seems to have almost on a regular schedule. Two years ago, the big IOTA news was their broken homebrew hash—two months ago, they had that “corrupted ledger” downtime—now, this... If Paypal had IOTA’s record for security and reliability, would they still be in business? That Experian is still in business is not a counterargument here: You have no way to opt out of Experian, and their customers are others who are paying them for your information. If Paypal were to suffer extreme and/or chronic security breaches, then I would think—well, I would hope that lots and lots of people would close their accounts and run away! And that is the point of this thread: Avoid IOTA, due to a high risk of losing money. |
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tyKiwanuka, JollyGood, and Lauda: Thank you. OP was promptly updated with flag #1392 against iotatoken. Ratimov: Thank you for the translation. I have linked to it in my thread metadata post.
Laud Lauda: Credit where due!I appreciate Nullius breaking everything down here (and for starting the thread in the first place), as I wouldn't have read anything about this scam otherwise. Thanks, but Lauda deserves the credit for the initiative. When the story broke about the IOTA network “pause”, she asked me for my opinion due to my technical expertise and the fact that I have discussed IOTA’s failings before, as quoted above. I am not easily shocked. I was shocked that IOTA has a centralized kill switch; I did not know that, until they used it! How do ordinary investors stand a chance with them? I thereupon decided that I needed to do more to warn people so that they don’t risk losing their money. Whereas that is always Lauda’s goal. It was easy, too easy for me to sit back in the Development & Technology forum two years ago and sneer at IOTA’s broken homebrew hash—then ignore IOTA, because I would never risk my money on it. Lauda has a more practical focus on helping others here. Thank you, Lauda.
IOTA is the worst of all worldsI don't like the use of a centralized validator, and would not trust any coin that uses one. I think there is a place for centralized technologies: Chaumian banks. It is a matter of trade-offs. Digicash had excellent privacy and fungibility, but was centralized; Bitcoin is decentralized, but lacks Digicash’s privacy and fungibility on the blockchain layer. (Lightning mostly solves this problem in a different way.) Centralized solutions also have high performance and low overhead, generally. Whereas IOTA has none of these advantages. It promises to be a Bitcoin-style cryptocurrency, but better than Bitcoin— which it is not!In the practical terms which matter to the average user, I think that IOTA is really a Paypal-style solution, but with much higher overhead and, I think, lower security than Paypal— and it is a financially unstable altcoin which makes an even worse investment than government-issued fiat currency. Why would anybody want this? It combines the worst of all worlds! Indeed, if I had an exclusive choice between IOTA and Paypal, the answer is easy: Paypal. I say that as a Bitcoin maximalist who holds almost all his own money in Bitcoin. It appears they are rolling back the IOTA blockchain to reverse the transactions involving the stolen coin. Etherum did something very similar in it's early days when a hacker exploited a flaw and drained coin out of the DAO, although it has something resembling consensus before doing this. I also had that thought about Ethereum. The form that my thought took was, “This is even worse than Ethereum—much worse.” The comparison is damning, whereas I myself have previously called Ethereum a... ...Bolt A Turing Complete VM Onto A Blockchain Security Nightmare With Centrally Controlled Promise-Breaking Via “ Irregular State Change” Exploding Clown Car Cryptokitties Toy Coin... ...among many similar words of endearment in various other posts. Ethereum rewrote the history of its blockchain with a hardfork; but it had a blockchain, and even the top-down Vitalik Says So order took some time and effort to push through. By comparison, IOTA can also rewrite their transaction history with much less effort—and IOTA just recently demonstrated that the people who run it can shut the whole thing off with the push of a button! Much, much worse.
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Vod’s signature says that he is “into creating universes, smiting people, writing holy books and listening to Prayer Messages (PMs)”. Whereas I have my own cult; and on Lauda’s cult thread, it has been documented that I am Cthulhu. Now, Vod and I stand 1111 merits apart—111 earned merits, which is 1/6 of 666. Does the fate of the universe itself hang in the balance?  Deep in the void of nullity,
I stared into the Abyss;
And the Abyss smil’d at me...nullius is cthulhu. That is very clear. Anyone who does not see this is simply closing their eyes.  Protip: Click the pic.Independent screenshot of my 1333: A screenshot that I took yesterday for Vod: Cheers. — Posted at 2020-02-21 20:20 UTC
What is the thread rule for those with four-digit merit counts? (And in the future, five-digit merit counts?) |
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 sub rosaBefore the conspiracy theorists start speculating. Damn, the mind-control implant arrived even faster than I expected. Cherry-picking a misquote of myself out of context, LOL: I am sorry, Mr Quickseller, if you did not realize that simply making peace with Lauda requires that you shall be abducted by space aliens for the implantation of Lauda-alt mind-control devices in your brain. Well, it is now part of the deal. The flying saucer will be at your house any moment, for your psychotronic “onboarding” before you are used for breeding experiments. Anybody who denies this is only a brain-chipped catbot covering up THE TRUTH about you and Lauda, as you will soon see PROVED in a thousand troll posts against you.Alas, Quickseller, no good deed goes unpunished.
Seven DeadlyBy the way, Quickie, I am pleased to announce that I have PROVED that PrimeNumber7 is my alt—and thus, so are you! For we have all used some form of an extremely uncommon phrase that is completely unknown to people with basic English literacy. (Crude scrapers may not catch all forms of the same phrase.) I accidentally let this slip when I was at Newbie rank—when I started my own cult, only a few weeks after the very first post in my history not only spoke about theymos, but directly addressed him! Oopsie.The god of Bitcoin demands obedience to the divine Law of Consensus. The damned who hardfork without consensus are renegades, abjurers of holiness, rapine oath-breakers, frauds, sowers of discord, and traitors, who shall be consigned damnatio memoriae with their chains to eternal poverty within the depths of Tartarus, where all hashes are broken and all bits are made nothing. ( Cf. the Ninth Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell in Canto XXVIII of Dante’s Inferno, etc., etc.) Furthermore, because I am your sockpuppet, this constitutes a confession that you are also Lauda, the inventor of Bitcoin: Nullius' knowledge about blockchain science and cryptography is a dead giveaway.... He could even be Satoshi.  nullius is lauda. That is very clear. Anyone who does not see this is simply closing their eyes. I/you/Lauda only tagged, then untagged PrimeNumber7 to throw people off my/your/her trail— because the trail leads all the way to theymos, who calculates forum Virtue metrics ( based on the very name of Lauda) for the purpose of enforcing an “upright, God-fearing community which will suffer no witchcraft or other heresy”. Surely, theymos has read the Bible... What the Hell kind of SCAM is this forum, with an administrator who runs scores (if not thousands) of sockpuppet accounts!? Meow.
Deep in the void of nullity,
I stared into the Abyss;
And the Abyss smil’d at me... nullius is cthulhu. That is very clear. Anyone who does not see this is simply closing their eyes.
Witchcraft SightingsAn amateur videographer recently attempted to CAPTCHA the catbat on film. But no William Blake was he! After he was discovered wandering in the woods, stark raving mad and sweating blood, the following was found in his knapsack before the remainder of its contents was seized by heavily-armed visitors who arrived in a black helicopter: By the way, the Cypherkitten image was created using witchcraft with ImageMagick. Here is a one-liner with IM6 that will do a not-too-horrible job of removing the background of Lauda’s old cat-in-goggles avatar: convert kitty_avatar_101872.jpg -fill none -fuzz 13% -draw "matte 0,0 floodfill" -draw "matte 94,0 floodfill" -draw "matte 94,50 floodfill" kitty.png  It is pure evil, of course: I should return to GraphicsMagick. |
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AVOID Is it worse to get scammed by the promise of “investing” in a “smart” boob-tube, or to actually put one of these monstrosities in your home? I am not sure. When even the American FBI warns you that something is spying on you (!), well—you should probably pay attention: Smart TVs are called that because they connect to the Internet. They allow you to use popular streaming services and apps. Many also have microphones for those of us who are too lazy to actually to pick up the remote. Just shout at your set that you want to change the channel or turn up the volume and you are good to go.
A number of the newer TV’s also have built-in cameras. In some cases, the cameras are used for facial recognition...
Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured TV can give him or her an easy way in the backdoor through your router.
Hackers can also take control of your unsecured TV. At the low end of the risk spectrum, they can change channels, play with the volume, and show your kids inappropriate videos. In a worst-case scenario, they can turn on your bedroom TV's camera and microphone and silently cyberstalk you. If they are just worried about this now, then maybe the FBI is behind the times. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned at least five years ago: As the devices in our homes get "smarter," are they also going to spy on us? [...]
The comparisons to 1984's two-way "telescreens" are straightforward. [...]
Given that these devices are networked and can often be updated remotely, user privacy is at the mercy of not just the manufacturer, but anybody who can convince, coerce, or compromise it, to modify the software or collect additional information. And things have gotten worse since 2015! In 2015, the “smart” TVs did not have cameras (!)—and did not have cameras with facial recognition (!!). By the way, are you planning to put one of these in your bedroom!? Or “only” in your living room? Moreover, the “smart” TVs spy on your viewing habits, your websurfing, etc.: Why are TVs so cheap now? Well, your smart TV is watching you and making extra money, tooLOS ANGELES – Your smart TV is watching you. And making money off you as well. That’s why the prices of TVs have fallen so dramatically over the last five years. A mix of lower LCD prices, more intense competition and new ways to profit off the consumer once the set enters our homes have turned the boob tube into something more like a razor. And we, the viewers, are the razor blades. Bill Baxter, the Chief Technology Officer for TV set giant Vizio, referred to it as the "post-purchase monetization" of the TV on a recent podcast interview with the Verge. Translated, that means that more ads are coming at you via prominent branded movie and TV channels on smart TVs. These channels share ad revenues with set manufacturers like Vizio, Samsung, LG, an avenue that didn't exist in the pre-streaming era. They also profit by selling data of your viewing histories to programmers and marketers. The manufacturers have been tracking viewers on smart TVs for several years, but it wasn't until 2017 and beyond that more consumers started buying smart sets, which negate the need for a streaming device like a Roku or Fire Stick to bring in online entertainment from the likes of Netflix and Hulu. Today, virtually all TVs sold are smart TVs, says Steve Koenig of the Consumer Technology Association. [...] Once "smart TVs" began to become popular, manufacturers saw a new opportunity in treating the set as a "glass window" to our viewing habits and reporting them to marketers for a fee, in a process called Automatic Content Recognition or ACR. In 2017, Vizio settled with the Federal Trade Commission and New Jersey's attorney general office for $2.2 million, when it was charged with collecting data without the consent of users. [...] If "I Spy TV" sounds creepy, well, how about those other tech devices in your home? "This pales in comparison," says Jodie McAfee, a senior vice-president of Inscape, which collects data from over 10 million Vizio smart TVs. "What a TV is generating on data is not nearly as granular. It just knows what shows I’m watching and whether the ad is being viewed." Compare that to a smartphone, which tracks your every move in the house, both physically and on the device. It knows what websites you've been to, who you called and texted with, what products you purchased, and if you turned on Facebook or signed into Google, your age, demographic, salary and more. That last part is true, strictly speaking: A “smart” TV is not as bad as a “smart” phone. However, that is like comparing syphilis to HIV. Anyway, (un)fortunately(?), OP here is almost certainly not even involved in the traffic of these obscenely horrible devices. He just wants for you to send money, because—free money for him, LOL! SCAM |
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CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRETNice topic. We need an objective metric to evaluate the gangs to see which one is the most powerful. I propose the metric of a riddle: Is your name a cipher, of cipher? The metric is objective, and binary in its quantification: The result is either 0 or 1. The result is 1 iff zero, and thus is zero iff 1. There can be only one of zero. Does my Kitty Cult win?  I hope you win! And I am relieved that you did not divine my secret plan before I managed to redact it from the Internet. ++opsec. As a certified cult leader myself, I unfortunately cannot join the Cult of Lauda. It says so in the rules of cult-leading. But I do appreciate her eddie13-endorsed power as “the greatest... threat” to TAKE OVER THE WORLD. For that is only a part of my own scheme: I will support Lauda’s conquest; and when her world domination is an accomplished fact, I will then seize her in blockchains and carry her off to the Castle of Nullity where from deep within the void, I will use her to rule this tiny speck of a planet by proxy. It is only the first step in my own plans to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE.The plan is perfect, if Lauda never suspects my intentions before it is too late for her. I had better tighten up my opsec, and encrypt all my musings on the subject. She will never see it coming. Nice kitty. Damn, my security against leaks is even better than the NSA’s and the CIA’s combined! To read more, I suggest this felid command for opening my repository of secrets:
With all due respect to all gangs here and without trying to flame things up ( more than they are / more than I already did  ), I think that Cult of Lauda can be defeated in a 1v1 battle only by the Mods Gang. Lauda that! It will keep her off-guard. It is obvious that Lauda could be conquered only by the best and the strongest! ++lauda
The Zeroth Rule of UnclubSpare a thought too for the gangless, that vast array of bounty-hunters wandering about the altcoin wastelands not getting paid shit for their shit. By so saying, you have inadvertently nominated yourself as Supreme Leader of the V8s. I infer that it may be an unclub, in which non-membership is unobtained in the manner of two men who punch each other in a bar, then buy each other beers. Expect few unfollowers—all of whom must be the rare and rarefied types who eschew Facebook on grounds of their not being ovine slaves its lack of an “I don’t dislike this” button. If you don’t unwant more, I think the trick is that you must disclaim any interest in forming a gang, whilst previously having formed something better: A cult. You see, GazetaBitcoin did spare a thought for the gangless: 4. The Nullian Cult, also known as " The Nullian Gang (TINNG)" Supreme Leader: nullius...although the leader said he is "too much of a lone wolf to form a gang"... Then, you must write autarchic essays so élite that they work best when translated to a beautiful language that relatively few forum members can read: “ Nu respingeți autoritatea: fiți propria voastră autoritate.“ Just as the best of thought was once upon a time writ in classical Latin, or even reserved in Greek, or... * nullius is currently seeking Sanskrit translators for his most precious thoughts. ...kept private. -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
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—and I do not mean that in the monetary sense. Intelligence is priceless.If you are not reading it, then it is not for you. (Prior context of the context: A post which took me several hours to write, which will be read by few and understood by fewer.)
So as for cats and lone wolves. I expect for my next post on this thread to be more popular. :-)
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Teşekkürler, mindrust! Craig Wright’s scam is now correctly identified in the Turkish language as identity theft against Bitcoin’s founder: Bitcoin'in anonim kurucusunun kimliği bir sahtekar tarafından çalındı.
Craig Wright bir kimlik hırsızıdır:
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But theymos said there should be a written contract between the two parties (scammer & victim)  Don’t worry; Flag #1388 is fully compliant with flag rules. It requires objective evidence of a high risk of losing money. I have provided that evidence, whereupon Lauda saw fit to create a flag. A Type-1 flag does not require violation of an oral or written contract with the person raising the flag. If you believe that the evidence in my scam accusation thread adequately demonstrates that IOTA presents a high risk of losing money, then please consider supporting the flag so that newbies and casual websurfers receive a warning. (Logged-in users above Newbie rank will not see the warning, unfortunately.) I don’t think there can be much of a reasonable question on this point, whereas Lauda quoted reporting by no less than IEEE Spectrum two years ago that “multiple prominent security researchers and academic cryptographers... implore investors not to hold the [IOTA] currency”, and I pointed out that they are insecure crypto snake oil who also can and do shut off the network anytime they please. 2. Warning newbies/guests who don't know how to research properly about high-risk people.
A newbie-warning flag is active if there are more people supporting such a flag than opposing it. It shows a banner on topics started by the flagged user for guests and for users with less than 7 days of login time. For all users, a "#" is shown next to their trust scores. The flags that may be raised on violation of an oral or written contract are different types of flags: For contractual violations only, a scammer flag can be created. This is the only thing which causes the "Warning: trade with extreme caution" warning to return. It also triggers a banner similar to the newbie-warning banner which is visible to all users. A scammer flag requires 3 more supporting users than opposing users to become active. My disagreement with some DT members about the proper use of feedback is unrelated to flags. Indeed, I argue for somewhat broader application of negative trust feedback partly on the basis that the flag system has narrow rules, which I respect. |
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Translations:If this thread grows long, important forward references will be linked from this post.
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It is high time—no, long past time to better warn people about the billion-dollar scam with a centralized kill switch. Please support:
From Coindesk, with my red boldface added: IOTA Foundation Suspends Network, Probes Fund Theft in Trinity WalletFeb 13, 2020 at 23:22 UTC Updated Feb 14, 2020 at 15:14 UTC IOTA Foundation, the nonprofit behind the IOTA distributed network, recommended users close their Trinity wallets Thursday after multiple reports of fund theft. IOTA said it started receiving the reports Wednesday and decided to shut off the Coordinator node in the network for further investigation.[...] On Twitter, IOTA said it is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate a coordinated attack that resulted in stolen funds. Dominik Schiener, co-founder of the IOTA Foundation, did not respond to request for comments before the press time. CoinDesk will add updates as the story develops. (Note: This theft followed by IOTA hitting the kill switch happened only a few months after IOTA mainnet had 15 hours of “downtime” caused by a “corrupt ledger state”... Wait, what the hell kind of cryptocurrency has network-wide “downtime”? Bitcoin has no “downtime”, and certainly no “corrupt ledger state”.)What bad news this is for a network that people are entrusting with their money: - The minor point: One way or another, some people got their money stolen due to IOTA’s snake oil “security”.
- The major point: IOTA has a kill switch! They can and do “pause” or “suspend” the whole network, via the peremptory fiat of someone who can turn off your money with the push of a button. Just like flipping a light switch. I actually do not even know of any other cryptocurrency, even horribly centralized ones, that can be shut down so easily as “[pausing] the Coordinator”.
Now, compare this fiasco and other known problems with IOTA to the dishonest claims in OP of IOTA’s announcement thread ( current snapshot): Iota’s blockchain solves the following problems of its blockchain cousin:
Centralization of control
As history shows, small miners form big groups to reduce variation of the reward. This leads to concentration of power (computational and political) in hands of few pool operators and gives them ability to apply wide spectrum of policies (filtering, postponing) on certain transactions. Although there are no known cases where pool operators abused their power, there have been several instances where the opportunity were present. This possibility in a monetary system powering a multibillion (in USD) industry is completely unacceptable.
“Obsolete” cryptography
Although large scale quantum computers do not exist yet, future oriented companies have already begun initiating the steps towards quantum-resistant cryptography. From a security point of view it makes perfect sense to assume that hardware capable of cracking classical cryptoalgorithms may appear in the very near future, so preparation is the only defense. Let me get this straight: IOTA avoids “centralization of control” by having a centralized kill switch which can turn off your money at any time—and they use that kill switch when theft occurs because their way to avoid “‘obsolete’ cryptography” is to sell you a bug-ridden heap of snake oil that has had its homebrew crypto broken in the past, and apparently is overall insecure and buggy (whether or not this latest theft was caused by a break of their crypto). SCAM Because I am a techie, let me put this in terms of something that looks like maths and stuff: IOTA = your money → 🗑️ The current IOTA disaster shows that honest technical experts on this forum, including myself, were justified long ago in giving a roundhouse kick to IOTA’s snake oil security. What do I mean by “snake oil”? Everybody who knows anything about practical cryptography knows well these warning signs: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/1999/0215.html#snakeoilSnake Oil
The problem with bad security is that it looks just like good security. You can't tell the difference by looking at the finished product....
The term we use for bad cryptography products is "snake oil," which was the turn-of-the-century American term for quack medicine. It brings to mind traveling medicine shows, and hawkers selling their special magic elixir that would cure any ailment you could imagine.
[...]
Elsewhere I've talked about building strong security products, using tried-and-true mathematics, and generally being conservative. Here I want to talk about some of the common snake-oil warning signs, and how you can pre-judge products from their advertising claims. These warning signs are not foolproof, but they're pretty good.
Warning Sign #1: Pseudo-mathematical gobbledygook.
In the quote above, notice the "unique in-house developed incremental base shift algorithm." Does anyone have any idea what that means? Are there any academic papers that discuss this concept? Long noun chains don't automatically imply security.
[...]
Warning Sign #2: New mathematics.
Every couple of years, some mathematician looks over at cryptography, says something like, "oh, that's easy," and proceeds to create an encryption algorithm out of whatever he has been working on. Invariably it is lousy.
[...]
Warning Sign #3: Proprietary cryptography.
I promise not to start another tirade about the problems of proprietary cryptography. I just include it here as a warning sign.
[...]
Warning Sign #4: Extreme cluelessness.
Some companies make such weird claims that it's obvious that they don't understand the field.
[...]
Warning Sign #7: Unsubstantiated claims.
[...]
Other companies make claims about other algorithms that are "broken," without giving details. Or that public-key cryptography is useless. Don't believe any of this stuff. If the claim seems far-fetched, it probably is.
[...] I can stop at 5 of Schneier’s “warning signs” without proceeding further, methinks. I am not only calling IOTA insecure now. See what I said two years ago in a discussion with some of the smartest people in the Development & Technology forum, after IOTA’s homebrew hash was cracked. All emphasis and boldface are hereby quoted as in my original posts. Merited by achow101 (2), LoyceV (1)The recent (and a really good) example of bad code here: http://www.tangleblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/letters.pdfDom, David and the rest of the IOTA team,
We have found serious cryptographic weaknesses in the cryptographic hash function
curl used by IOTA, curl. These weaknesses threaten the security of signatures
and PoW in IOTA as PoW and Signatures rely on curl to be pseudo random and collision
resistant.
... This is not “bad code”. It is DIY crypto. Worse, DIY crypto for a primitive—a DIY hash! Worse still, DIY crypto by a corporate outfit which never showed any evidence of being inhabited by world-class cryptographers—despite their claim in a spin-job piece that “ the IOTA Foundation has already subcontracted a team of 5 world-class cryptographers, as well as 3 independent ones to come up with a final design of Curl and then start the long peer-reviewed process, as was always the plan.” N.b. that even world-class cryptographers need their primitive designs to undergo extensive peer review before fielding them with Other People’s Money—whether it’s the “final design”, or otherwise! One of the people who broke IOTA had some damning words for it, in “ Cryptographic vulnerabilities in IOTA”: You might think that IOTA, a cryptocurrency worth over a billion dollars, and working with organizations like Microsoft, University College London, Innogy, and Bosch, BNY Mellon, Cisco, and Foxconn (through the Trusted IOT Alliance) would not have fairly obvious vulnerabilities, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. When we took a look at their system, we found a serious vulnerability and textbook insecure code.“In 2017, leaving your crypto algorithm vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis is a rookie mistake. It says that no one of any calibre analyzed their system, and that the odds that their fix makes the system secure is low,” states Bruce Schneier, renowned security technologist, about IOTA when we shared our attack. Bitcoin requires a new mindset. [...] If you get that, then you will pay careful attention to the quality of your code. Also, you will much respect Core—because they get it, too. And if you dare to make your own currency, you will not start by designing your own hash function as IOTA did! That really wrecks any credibility they ever had. I don't know precisely what happened with IOTA but I have read a little bit about it and I'm not sure why the currency continues to circulate given what I do know. I guess too many people had invested into it by that point, which is more a political reason for continuing to exist rather than anything based on technical merit or the capability of the system. I'm not sure why the IOTA people thought it was a good idea to throw in some untested cryptography, but that seems like a very amateur thing to do.
As for the latter bolded part: I don’t see “amateur”. I see PHB + NIH.Come on. We’re the big boys. Microsoft is involved—you know, the company which does \ instead of / as a directory delimiter. For our billion-dollar cryptocurrency, we will do innovation! We don’t just use a commercial off-the-shelf hash which everybody else has. We have our own hash! The boss says so. I hereby partly retract one statement that I made in the above quotes: Anybody who buys into such ill-conceived crypto-junk as IOTA deserves to lose their money, on grounds of foolishness. The word “deserves” was rhetorical hyperbole. Newbies and people who are not technical experts do not deserve to lose money on a billion-dollar scam, which they lack adequate knowledge properly to evaluate. Wherefore my new action against IOTA: People deserve to be warned, so that they do not unknowingly take the high risk of losing money that comes with investing in a “cryptocurrency” that uses snake oil crypto, has suffered thefts (due to apparently as-yet undisclosed insecurities), and has actually had its whole network shut down with a centralized kill switch. IOTA is a broken-by-design financial time bomb!
Disclosures: I have no financial position which could be in any way directly affected by IOTA’s market price. Indeed, I flatly ignore >99% of the altcoin market. IOTA just keeps coming to my attention as a disaster by design. In 2018, it was their broken homebrew hash; now, it is their kill switch... I want to warn others so that people don’t take a high risk of losing money by buying into a billion-dollar scam with snazzy marketing, big corporate backers, and abysmally insecure technology. |
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I read it all @nullius. The adage (not originally mine) is, “If you read it, it’s for you.” Maybe we should say the same thing about Jeff Garzik? He, "abandoned" core and tried to set up his own "bitcoin unlimited" or something along those lines. Indeed, jgarzik’s political game with BU didn’t work out so well—so he became a NYA/2Xer. I just lolled at his current signature: “Jeff Garzik, Bloq CEO, former bitcoin core dev team; opinions are my own.” (Bold underscore mine.) In 2014 (cough), he was highly trusted and widely admired! Actually, till 2017... Traitors always evoke an intense feeling of horror and personal violation in those who trusted them. Whenever I think of jgarzik, I think of dooglus’ comment which I memorialized in this screenshot when I was a Newbie, when I had been actively posting for less than five days: “What have you done with the old jgarzik and how much will it cost us to buy him back?” This was when 2X tried to subvert the Bitcoin P2P network; committer: jgarzik, whose code is not trustworthy. Read that 28ebbdb commit for details. Underhanded bastard. Reading in the recent release notes a list of “ Network fork safety enhancements”, I can well imagine the internal monologue which must have gone through some dev’s head. “I need to finally finish this patch for Segwit change address support (plus tests, tests, tests). No wait, first I need to find some ingenious hack to ban fork nodes who lie about their identities so that they can waste node resources and try to subvert the whole network. Network safety first. Sigh.” It requires prodigious engineering effort to produce mission-critical financial software which handles hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of value, operates in a hostile network environment, and is never, ever allowed to make the sort of mistake which could drop huge amounts of money on the floor because somebody rushed the change address patch. I’m so glad that Core gives this to you, me, and everybody else for free so we can run our businesses, whether or not we pitch in what we can for what is an open-source project. For sure i'm not going to invest money to create own work arounds or own patches to core code.
Another one of my Newbie posts, from when I had been actively posting for seventeen days: You fork, you die.Genuine Bitcoin has crushed numerous forks and attempted forks: “Bitcoin XT”, “Bitcoin Unlimited”, “Bitcoin Classic”, and the “New York Agreement” (misnamed “Segwit2X”; nothing to do with Segwit), to name but a few. These no longer exist. For the current outbreak of forks, if you wish to claim some fork coins, then dump them in exchange for real Bitcoin, and enjoy your free bitcoins. Otherwise, simply ignore. Anything from “Bitcoin Cash” to “Bitcoin Super Diamond Plus2X Plutonium With Ponies” is only a scam; and these scams will die sooner or later, just as did their antecedents. There are many pretenders to the Bitcoin title. However: There is only one Bitcoin. That tombstone could also read: Here lies Jeff Garzik’s reputation in Bitcoinland.Whereas Gavin Andresen is worse, much worse.
JayJuanGee: ++occam(Not that that negates the likelihood of a leash on the grand-scale scammer and identity thief who seems thus far curiously immune to consequences. I could never get away with what he’s been doing for years. Cui bono?) |
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whatever man, you're nuts if you think i'm reading all that. you win, OK? My mistake was presuming a literacy level above that of Twitter. I am here for substance. I am willing to invest my time in substance (and without a paid signature—for freedom, not “for free”). If you are not reading it, then it is not for you. until next time. Have a nice day. |
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I'm not reading the portion of this post that doesn't apply to me. I have things to do. So, your reply begins with a fit of narcissism. Protip: The world does not revolve around you. None of my post was about you, personally—a screen name “nutildah” on an Internet forum. Your supposition that I care about that is lamentably mistaken. And if you consider Reputation squabbles to be impliedly more important “things to do” than stopping Faketoshi, then your priorities are—different than mine. I have things to do, myself. One of my top priorities is to fight back against malicious attacks on Bitcoin: The Bitcoin that gives us freedom. Two days ago, for the Anastasia thread, I began writing an essay on how that thread may be the beginning of the most important thing that I have yet done in my life! Greg Maxwell was right when he urged last month that the community can do better in protecting Bitcoin from malicious attacks by liars and scammers. He inspired me. “ Merited by nullius (20)” If I can do my part to lead by example, and to arm others with stronger arguments and more powerful strategies, then that will achieve a result far bigger than me, far more important than me as an individual. My glory thus will be only and exactly what I have done for a cause that has brought inestimable value to the lives of millions, and should in the future free billions. It is certainly a cause more important than your petty little ego, nutildah. And it is much bigger than Gavin Andresen, for all he may style himself as a big-shot. Bitcoin is the cause. For me to call out Gavin as he deserves is only the effect. What? No you goof. I'm not "excusing" Gavin -- [...] How do you twist this into me making excuses for Gavin? Now, you are equivocating—quite dishonestly, at that. The substantial effect of your post was to defend and excuse Gavin. It was minimization. Whether you consciously intended this is objectively irrelevant to the Gavin question, because this is not about you. (It is relevant to your own reputation; but see above for my own opinion of your personal importance.) I'm simply relaying his _actual words_, which are _less_ favorable for BSV than BSV shills would have us believe. You did not simply do that. In the context of the discussion, the substantial effect of blandly parroting his equivocation with some moderate negativity about “the narrative”, without further comment, was to minimize and excuse what he did wrong. And my inference as to your intent to defend Gavin was in fact correct, as you later make unequivocal: Truth be told, Gavin did far more for bitcoin than you and I ever have and ever will so if the man wants to have an opinion, let him have it. Traitors are the worst of enemies; and treason is oft called the one crime that is truly unforgivable. Marcus Junius Brutus surely did much for Rome; but he will be forever be cursed, damnatio memoriae, as a vile wretch who murdered Caesar. E tu, Gavin?Men who have fought and bled on the battlefield for their countries have had their medals stripped and their monuments demolished, and been hanged (even drawn and quartered) as the worst of criminals—after they turned traitor. Even if never caught and hanged, they have always been damned in history. Reductio ad absurdum, would you argue that Benedict Arnold should be praised by Americans for all he had done for their country? He was a great general—George Washington’s most-trusted man, who could have been as famous and beloved as Washington himself! Surely, he did as much for America as Gavin did for Bitcoin. As much.Don’t lecture me about what Gavin has done for Bitcoin, in reply to my condemnation of what he has done against Bitcoin. Your praise of Gavin, and the grounds of that praise, only make him worse. Gavin has done massive actual harm: Bitcoin Foundation, XT, Faketoshi “verification”, Btrash shilling... You are defending him because he says there’s an “equal chance” that Craig Wright is either a scammer or Satoshi!?
If I were in less of a mood I would be inclined to tell you to go fuck yourself. How terribly rude of you—and quite behind the times on the latest Bitcoiner slang. Here, let me help you: Let us learn from a boor who, in the big picture, has done a little bit less to damage Bitcoin than Gavin has overall. Go fork yourself, nutildah.2016, with obsolete language:2018, after Faketoshi stuck a fork in his back, Jihan changes his tune and upgrades his F-bombs: A note for Bitcoin maximalists, and nullius fans (who are a strict subset of Bitcoin maximalists): My post documenting the new Bitcoin F-word (a negative counterpart to Bitcoiner slang “HODL”) has been delayed by my ineptitude at drawing funny cartoons. Some custom Bitcoin-political cartoons are needed to break up my walls of text in several planned Bitcoin advocacy threads. If anyone with even stick-figure-cartoon level freehand drawing skills (or preferably better) would be so kind as to contact me, I would be much obliged. Thank you. To be clear, I am documenting actual usage of “fork” as the dirtiest insult in the Bitcoiner vocabulary. I have even seen it pop up occasionally on Did TMAN say a bad word?. I did not invent an obvious pun which has been occasionally seen on /r/Bitcoin, etc. for years. I may have somewhat started to encourage its recent use—for the greater good of Bitcoin. ;-)
Or you mean I'm wrong that he shouldn't be able to have an opinion that Craig might be Satoshi (with the caveat that he also might just be some random scammer, and in either instance he should be ignored)? This is not a matter of “opinion”. (Not in the colloquial sense of that word, anyway.) Craig Wright’s claim of Satoshihood presents a question of fact. Gavin Andresen’s 2016 “verification” of Faketoshi presents a compound question of fact—compound, insofar as it invokes many factual questions about Gavin and “cui bono?” So no, he shouldn’t be able to have an “opinion” that Craig Wright “might be Satoshi”—or rather, his such “opinion” should absolutely and irreparably ruin his reputation, in the same manner as if a “Chief Scientist of the Geophysics Foundation” were to “opine” that the Earth “might be flat”.Moreover, in no case whatsoever should Faketoshi be ignored. That was my mistake, for years—a grievous error in judgment, which I am now striving to correct. So... You “100% believe” that Satoshi endorsed the cryptographic competence of someone who does not know how to verify a forking digital signature!? See also: The Same Standard Applies to MeLet’s take the media-hyped 15-minutes-of-celebrity name of “Gavin Andresen” out of the picture. And let’s make this personal, insofar as the foregoing argument hypothetically would apply to me, too, if I were to do as Gavin did. Two years ago, I received the following endorsement of my technical competence: | achow101 | 2018-02-13 | Very knowledgeable about Bitcoin and cryptography related things. Frequently gives in-depth, constructive, and well though out answers on various topics. |
If, tomorrow, I were to claim that Faketoshi “verified” a signature for me (!) on the same basis as his “verification” for Gavin, then that would leave only two realistic possibilities: Either (1) I am maliciously lying with the intent to support Faketoshi in a scam, or (2) Bitcoin Core developer and technical forum moderator Andrew Chow is himself so incompetent that he said the foregoing about someone who doesn’t even know how properly to verify a digital signature. What would Occam say about that? —Would any sane person not accuse me of lying, and not question what motive I may have for abusing my technical reputation to support a scam?
and knowing what you already know about my post history here its ludicrous to entertain the idea for 1 second I am defending his 50% belief that Wright is Satoshi. I hope that's not what you were actually thinking. It is indeed puzzling why you, of all people, would step up to minimize the single act by the self-styled “Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist” which instantly gave Faketoshi mass-credibility in the mass-media. As I have said repeatedly in various ways (including on Gavin’s trust page), Gavin created a monster— and not as an isolated act, but as part of his years-long pattern of the odious so-called “Bitcoin Foundation”, backstabbing Core with XT, later on shilling Btrash... How many times need I repeat myself? Are you paying attention?Shitting on Gavin now isn't going to change anything for the better. Shitting on him for not yet completely taking back his words on Wright isn't going to change anything either. That is shortsightedness and a shallow view of the situation. You do not understand what I am doing; for I think strategically, as you evidently do not. That is not my problem, and is certainly no reason for you to condescend to me. ELI5 for you: The Faketoshi scam is a tower of lies that stands on a foundation of lies. Although thanks in large part to Gavin, it has grown far bigger than Gavin’s “verification”, I am dynamiting a key piece of the foundation. I also aim to provide a salutary object example of what happens to the reputations of people who betray their own principles. That would be beneficial to Bitcoin, which will fail if it is not protected by people with high principles. I am a Core supporter—as an effect, not a cause. If Core were to betray the principles that they have consistently, courageously upheld for a decade, then I would repudiate and condemn them. Same with Blockstream: I admire them be cause they do great work for an important cause, be cause they employ people with technical skill that far exceeds mine for that cause—not because they are big-shots. Gavin “shit all over” the magnificent work of such people for years. I aim to dish it back to him; and if you don’t like it, then I will duly file your opinions in “taken under advisement”. 🗑️
P.S., if you wish to deserve a less contemptuous response, please consider not making a fool of yourself by condescending to me when you are wrong. You presumed to dish it out against a better chef; bon appétit. |
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Brain dead Troll.
[...]
You've got your sensational minute in the sun. Well done Troll - Well done. Mind your manners, child. GazetaBitcoin has contributed more substance to the forum in the past few months than you have in the pat few years. You destroyed the credibility of your own past work with bizarre accusations, petty grudges over nothing, etc., ad nauseam. Despite my usual attempt to quietly try to avoid excluding users who may have many tags on scammers, I decided for my part that your tags are categorically unreliable to do a long-term lack of regard for evidence, or even sanity; it seems that many others reached similar conclusions. And now, with all the airs of a self-entitled brat, you aver that you distrust GazetaBitcoin’s judgment not due to his friendliness toward me, but because he quoted marlboroza’s inoffensive joke in a thread about forum controversies (!). Such is the viciousness of superannuated children who toss insults at whomever sits at the lunch table with someone outside their playground clique. —A clique that in Timelord2067’s case seems to be rapidly approaching a population of 1. From what I see of his post history, GazetaBitcoin is here to talk about cypherpunks history and T. C. May, government invasions of financial privacy, government suppression of the freedom of information, the nature of decentralized versus government-issued digital currency, etc. Those are important issues which have nothing to do with DT squabbles. He has also translated thus far two of my own Bitcoin advocacy essays to the beautiful Romanian language: Bitcoin: Fenomenul social ( Bitcoin: The Social Phenomeon), and Proiectul Anastasia: Bitcoinerii împotriva furtului de identitate -țeapa lui CSW ( Project Anastasia, my thread for community action to stop Craig Wright’s grand-scale identity theft against an important historical figure). And GazetaBitcoin is a thinker; I am proud to see his Romanian translation of an essay on my personal philosophy, Anarhia Autarhiei Autoritare: Fii Propria Ta Autoritate (summary: “ Don’t reject authority: Be your own authority.”). I have noticed that certain characters around here, plural, seem to have taken a disliking to him, for no possible reason than that he is friends with people whom they dislike. I hope that his being targeted with a poo-flinging crossfire will not drain his time and energy from Bitcoin, cypherpunks history, and the thinking of deep thoughts—not to mention any IRL commitments that he may have. He is an innocent bystander. To lash out at him because of his friendships is despicable, beneath contempt. For my part, I say: If you have a problem with me, pick on me. — Well, try to, anyway.It’s a free-speech forum. Those who dislike me may open another ten threads against me, ~ me twice over, curse my name whilst shaking a fist at the sky, or whatever such futile measures may best express their vindictiveness against me. Not that I give a damn—which seems to be the problem, thus why they are now trolling others on the basis of “you like nullius, so now I hate you”. Forkin’ hell, how low can you go?
GazetaBitcoin, for whatever it may be worth, my suggestion is to ignore, Do Not Feed The Trolls, and just focus on what is important. Of course, far be it from me to criticize others for calling out ill behaviour! I just think it’s not worth your time—for the same reason that I myself am 90% out of the Reputation forum; I plan to ignore it almost entirely, after I tie up a few loose ends here and there. I have bigger fish to fry.Do you really want to waste even five seconds’ worth of your energy and intelligence wondering what non-reasons screen name “Timelord2067” may have for distrusting your judgment? —When tyrants are destroying financial privacy, Faketoshi is still on the loose, whereas on the upside, Bitcoin itself is a positive joy? What else could you have done with the energy spent on this thread? A Timelord2067 exclusion is not even worth noticing. Hell, even if he were to make some wild false accusation or ridiculous insinuation against you in public, the appropriate response would be not more than that thus exemplified, and probably less: Why is my nick in this thread?
Why is my alt's nick in this thread? Uups, wrong account. “LOL.” If you even deign to notice. Just food for thought.
Off-topic: The Nullian Gang (TINNG)It's the sexiest gang on Bitcointalk, that's for sure.  What, are you trolling me with catnip!? That poster is the “sexiest”? My only problem is that I am too much of a lone wolf to form a gang, other than in the sense of the venerable old Lumber Cartel. As n.a.n.a.e. said, “TINLC”—we (TINW) say so—and, “ There Is No Nullian Gang” ( or so I would have you believe), although I do have a cult! But I'll let you in on a secret. Thick skin is a merit magnet. Indeed.But the handling of such matters may not come so easily to someone who seems to lack much past flamewar experience, and is idealistic about giving to the forum community. No good deed goes unpunished! I wouldn’t knock him for questioning this, much traduce him as “thin-skinned”: He said he just wanted to know why, which shows an earnest, noble, but sadly mistaken overestimate of the rationality of empty-headed screen names. It is not even a matter of general life experience, but of very specific experience dealing with petty Internet garbage: I’d wager that even a wizened sage and pillar of an IRL community would be a bit shocked at the sheer idiocy found on the Internet forums. From the looks of his posts, I would presume that GazetaBitcoin has spent more time building his own Bitcoin news website and maybe even having a life than troll-wrangling. By the time he hits Sr. rank, he will probably look back at this and LOL. I get it. Facing inexplicable, irrational hostility on the Internet is old hat for me. I was never thin-skinned; but yes, there was a time when I tried to reason with the unreasonable, or at least so patiently to find their nonexistent reasons. Well—I don’t want to date myself; but if I cut my teeth on AC2 and lurked in the anarchic firestorm of cypherpunks, it probably means that I long ago stopped asking “why” of basement-dwelling obsessive Internet mouth-frothers. /dev/null has an infinite capacity.
I need to interview someone who has The Thickest skin around LOL Unfortunately, it will take time away from my public service of holding a blow torch to double-talking three-digit uids who visit the CIA and repeatedly fork-attack Bitcoin. But I like to eat, too; inquire for hourly rates. ;-) |
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I, nullius, am a 118-year-old Russian princess named Anastasia! (← If I were to say this seriously, and say it loudly enough, and insist on it with neither uncertainty nor hesitation, then somebody, somewhere would actually believe it—and more somebodies would have some doubts.) Whereas BSV propaganda is actually more effective than Bcash propaganda, because contra what you were told as a child, a half-truth isn’t the worst lie... I must preface this by noting that I doubt Craig Wright’s own ability to carry off such a—well, a psy-op by himself. In view of how the Faketoshi sham is being handled overall, I expect that Wright has some sound advice in some form or another. He is a shrewd scammer, but he was never so smart as one who could understand the deeper details of human psychology. Money and power are on the line. Cui bono?
Blackhat Mindhacking 101: Exploiting Wetware InsecurityThis is a basic exploit in human psychology—a sort of stack-smashing buffer overflow of the capacity to assess falsehoods: I think in general the pattern we've seen from Wright is that he isn't particularly convincing or persuasive, but rather he exploits the fact that people are usually unprepared to deal with such an audacious liar. ... the sort of person who will go literally red faced screaming at you that NO, IN FACT THE SKY IS GREEN NOT BLUE THE SKY IS GREEN. When faced with behaviour like that some people just start wondering if maybe its legit because they'd personally never act that way unless they were telling the truth and were absolutely sure of it. Damn. You made me look outside at the sky, just to double-check! And then, I started wondering if maybe, just maybe, I am colourblind—protanopia often does cause difficulty distinguishing green from blue!—or perchance, I went slightly insane, and I confused the meanings of basic English words blue and green in some Twilight Zone style psychosis... You sounded so sure. Nobody would sound so sure unless he is sure, and he’s telling the truth. Subjectively, I know that I wouldn’t dare to tell such a whopper—and if I tried, I would stammer and stare at my toes or glance around nervously, instead of saying it straight while looking you in the eye. Of course, it is not necessary for me to be so introspective as to think through all of this: I feel that nobody could tell such a lie, because I instinctively feel that I myself couldn’t. I empathize: I feel what a liar would feel in that position, and thus, I feel that he must not be lying. It feels terrifying to me. It is not because I am so virtuous. I know that I could probably get away with the petty little lies that most people sometimes tell themselves and others. But such a ghastly monster of a lie, telling people that the sky is green? I would fear being caught; I wouldn’t dare! When I see Dr. Wright declare that he invented Bitcoin, I wince, and wonder in the back of my mind what the consequences will be if he’s lying— no, I wouldn’t dare! Therefore, nobody would dare... Add to that: You apparently have more education than I do, and you definitely have more money than I do, and you’ve got plenty of friends for “social proof”—hell, you are even better-looking than I am!—I am just some guy on the Internet; how I am to be sure you’re wrong? —And who am I to say so? I am a no-name nobody; I’m a nothing, a nullity. (nullius = Latin: ‘of nobody, of nothing, of zero’.)Doctor Craig Satoshi
fresh-scrubbed and dolled up as best he can manage,
showing credentials, looking confident,
surrounded by a retinue (see also): Who am I to question him? Dare I? Could the sky be green? You made me seriously question my own judgment, just because you sound so certain!I’ve been advised that I am “ nowhere near as smart as [I] (and apparently many merit sources) think” I am. Since my childhood, I’ve been told that I should be humble. How can I be sure of the authority of my own mind? — Dare I risk being left to stand alone?Nullian Rule: To exercise fully independent judgment in the face of opposition requires that one’s humility be inversely proportional to the strength of the opposition. And the delicate Internet tea-party debate-club members would never dream of using ad hominem argumentation, even when it is objectively correct! Need I remind you that argumentum ad hominem is only an “informal fallacy”, and is not at all fallacious when personality and personal credibility are relevant to—no, are the issues being argued? Oops, I forgot that. I became so “logical” that I feel like I should avoid anything ad hominem. Furthermore, I’ve been told that it is rude to insult someone by calling him a “liar”. Mother said so: I should judge actions and not people, and put things in terms of “‘I’ statements” and diffident requests, not harsh demands: “Dr. Wright, you make me feel like your claims are incredible; would you please provide me a verifiable Satoshi signature at the threshold, or at least explain to me one more time why you refuse to do so? I’m sure that you are a good person—we are all good people, deep down inside!—there must be some little misunderstanding. Maybe I misunderstood something. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings; I apologise! It’s not you; it’s me.” “ Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive...” is what I was taught not to be by my mother, and my kindergarten teacher, * and the finger-wagging Sunday-school teacher who told me that the meek shall inherit the Earth, by the mass-media culture, the movies, the teevee, and the beauty-pageant winner who said that all she wants is world peace and to meet a nice guy. Sounds great in a swimsuit. To stand up and face someone down is to be a jerk: Cruel, contemptuous, forceful, domineering, heartless, as if I’m some aristocrat who looks down his nose at everybody. It is indubitably unkind and unsympathetic. Why can’t I at least be nice to somebody who tells me that the sky is green? Philological protip: Compare the etymological development of the word “nice” with the proposition, “...der ungefährliche Mensch sein muss: er ist gutmüthig, leicht zu betrügen, ein bischen dumm vielleicht, un bonhomme. Überall, wo die Sklaven-Moral zum Übergewicht kommt, zeigt die Sprache eine Neigung, die Worte ‘gut’ und ‘dumm’ einander anzunähern.” And I know, gmaxwell, Dr. Wright’s (actual) credentials do not compare to yours—however, Gavin Andresen’s socially important credentials do! Why, he even has the mark of popular fame in $CURRENT_YEAR: A Wikipedia page! Sorry, I could not find one for you (despite your @wikimedia address). And Gavin is the official Chief Scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, he has a three-digit forum ID, he hob-nobs with big cheeses in the government and the Council on Foreign Relations... Even if I were so terrifically prideful as to argue against Dr. Wright, who am I to argue with Gavin? —Who am I, just-nobody, to stand alone and call him out, cast the first stone and say that he is an untrustworthy liar? Dr. Wright has been expertly “verified” by the Bitcoin Chief Scientist. He also has some peer pressure on his side. hv_ and his buddies are Internet nobodies; but then, I’m the guy who named himself “of nobody” on the Internet. Who am I to call hv_ such nasty names as “shill”, “liar”, etc.? Him, and plenty like him ( a dime a dozen)... Who am I to stand against Dr. Wright and the Bitcoin Chief Scientist and a crowd of folks? Authority plus peer pressure! *again When Dr. Wright sounds so sure...Anyway, Sir Maxwell, I feel sheepish; I admit that you may have a point here. If I dare to repudiate your fully self-confident declaration that the sky is green, then either people will think I’m a jerk, or people will think I’m a fool. Maybe both! I dunno. Maybe you are right. Maybe my eyes are lying to me, or maybe I made a big mistake—and then everyone will laugh at me, because the sky actually is green, and the Earth is flat, and 2 + 2 = 5, and Dr. Craig Steven Wright invented Bitcoin, and I’m just so stupid that I didn’t realize it. * nullius is suddenly feeling so insecure. :-(
Craig Wright does not need for a majority of people to believe him: He needs only for a hard core of shills and fanatics to believe him, whilst the majority wavers.Military counterinsurgency studies show that a revolution can be carried off by as little as 10% of the population. This applies to both violent and nonviolent “revolutions” in the sense that the deciding factor is social change of opinion. The majority is always deadweight: Apathetic fence-sitters, at best. If the majority has no too-strong opinion, then its opinion will be carried by a vocal, absolutely fanatical minority— if there is no opposing minority of equal or greater strength and certitude. In the current context: If Craig Wright can play the mass-media to introduce doubt into the minds of most people who have heard of Bitcoin, and if he is shilled to the hilt by a cadre of hv_ types, and if the only significant opposition is a bunch of forum theorists who won’t push the issue as hard as hv_ does, then Faketoshi will win. That he is wrong is irrelevant. History shows that contra popular delusions, the truth is a fragile and precious thing. Lies are robust, because they appeal to the power of human frailty—and because they can be manufactured at will: I have only one truth, but Craig Wright can make up a new lie every day so as to drown my protests of truth in endless arguments. A compounding factor is the distaste that many Bitcoiners have for drama, hostility, and especially, emotionalist arguments and ad hominem attacks. It is good to have a culture that values logical arguments—but do not confuse critical thinking skills for efficacy at persuasive argument. If Craig Wright wields false persuasive arguments against your facts and logic, then he will win the hearts and minds of the majority, whose critical thinking skills are negligible. As I have said before: Don’t bring a sword to a gunfight.If you debate the question of Craig Wright’s claims to or before the average person, then you may mostly convince him—yet he will harbour a lingering doubt: How can I be sure that Craig Wright isn’t Satoshi? He seems so sure... As aforesaid, the doubt is Faketoshi’s trump card, his secret nuclear weapon. And you allowed that doubt to persist, via your first mistake: Debating a question in a reasonable manner, which implies that there is a reasonable question to debate! Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto. He did not invent Bitcoin. He is a liar, a scammer, and a grand-scale identity thief. Every expert who has ever examined the matter has so concluded, without any doubt—except for Gavin, the same Gavin of the thoroughly corrupted so-called “Bitcoin Foundation”, the same Gavin who visited the CIA and the CFR before embarking on a years-long campaign of fork attacks against Bitcoin! Gavin has no credibility.That is a conclusion, not an argument—and certainly not an invitation to debate. I will only debate Faketoshi or his shills if they can produce the most basic piece of evidence: A verifiable signed statement by one of Satoshi’s known keys, identifying Craig Wright as Satoshi. They do not do so, because they are liars or dupes—period. That is the truth, the objective truth, based on facts and not “debates”. Complaints >/dev/null This is how it’s done, folks! Don’t waver in the face of lies. Don’t quibble with liars. The emotional question in the minds of those watching these “debates”: Are you as confident that Craig Wright is not Satoshi, as he seems to be when he declares that he is?I exceed his confidence because I am a Bitcoin expert, I have examined the facts, and I know that Wright is dead wrong. I know the truth. I do not need to argue.
* A small personal story—not quite about kindergarten, per se: When I was in the sixth grade, a teacher said something gratuitously rude to the class unpopular kid—and the whole class laughed at him, except for me. He was the stereotypical unpopular kid: Jewish, nerdy as hell, a face as handsome as dog barf, skinny and runty, but inadvertently too wont to advertise his 148 IQ—and he was enthusiastic about books of tricky riddles and little mathematical puzzles.
He was admittedly annoying: Mostly harmless; but all he ever wanted to talk about was puzzle books, Star Trek (yes!), or this top-of-the-line new computer that his family had just bought, way back when that was a big thing... And since he knew that he annoyed people, he had the exact opposite of self-confidence. He thus annoyed all the worse, with a self-conscious, desperate puppy-dog friendliness.
I don’t remember what the teacher said to him; it was forgettable, just a matter of picking on him like everybody else did. There certainly was no reason. He was supinely diffident, a wannabe teacher’s pet; he wouldn’t have even imagined doing anything to incur the teacher’s negative opinion, much less dared it. And for my part, the teacher never would have expected me to dare opposing authority. A congenital tendency to orderliness is easily mistaken for blind obedience by those who see only the surface.
I abruptly stood up on my chair, and told the teacher with cold courtesy that she was wrong. Cue twenty pairs of eyes suddenly staring at me—of a sudden, you could have heard a pin drop. ’Twas the silence of mass shock, from the teacher on down.
Later that day, the teacher approached me in the hallway, hugged me, and profusely apologised to me. I have no idea what she said to him, if anything at all. I never asked him, because I wasn’t really his friend, either: I was born to be nobody’s; I kept everybody at arm’s length. He liked me, though—probably because I didn’t treat him like dirt, he could invite me to his birthday party without the risk of a crushing rejection, and he respected my IQ of higher-than-his.
Now, I am not sure whether I accidentally wrote a saccharine glurge story, or showed myself tenfold as arrogant for my sense that noblesse oblige. Anyway, the point of the story is about the social pressure of combined authority and peer opinions in the abstract, irrespective of the particulars of the circumstance. Moreover, I have with myself a running contest for the title of “the longest footnote in history”—so to speak.
Postscript: A Liar’s EquivocationBoldface is mine: So Gavin believes there's an equal chance that Craig is a "master scammer." The narrative that he completely believes Wright is Satoshi has been bogus since before BSV was even an idea. Soooooo... Let me get this straight. After he played a pivotal rôle in the creation of a monster, your excuse for Gavin is that he equivocates? Either way, he clearly says Wright should be ignored. ...and that he sometimes may whine that, in substantial effect, would you please ignore something that is very embarrassing to him—which he himself is too dishonest, too cowardly, and/or too compromised to repudiate with the same mass-media “Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist” starburst as with which he originally “verified” Faketoshi? You never see BSVers talk about this blog entry when they talk about Gavin, its always a YouTube clip of an interview he gave _before_ he wrote this post. You see, that is the “nice” * thing about equivocation: Faketoshi can get the support he needs, and Gavin can try to repair his reputation without actually repudiating his “verification” unequivocally, in no uncertain terms. (* See above notes on “nice” etymology.)Gavin has done massive actual harm: Bitcoin Foundation, XT, Faketoshi “verification”, Btrash shilling... You are defending him because he says there’s an “equal chance” that Craig Wright is either a scammer or Satoshi!? Not falling for that one. If he ever wants to be known as anything but a malicious liar, he needs to come clean and put serious effort into repairing the actual damage that he did. Shrugging doesn’t cut it.
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