Theymos: What the fuck is up with BFL and TradeFortress?

[JoelKatz]

Still, proving how defective a system such as Ripple can be, by luring (newbie) people into loosing actual wealth should not be allowed.

It's roughly comparable to proving that Bitcoin is broken by starting an exchange or web-based wallet and then running off with the money or tricking people into deleting their wallet files. It's a Luddite attack on Bitcoin, Ripple, and technology in general -- an attempt to prove that people are too stupid to have powerful tools.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Still, proving how defective a system such as Ripple can be, by luring (newbie) people into loosing actual wealth should not be allowed.

It's roughly comparable to proving that Bitcoin is broken by starting an exchange or web-based wallet and then running off with the money or tricking people into deleting their wallet files. It's a Luddite attack on Bitcoin, Ripple, and technology in general -- an attempt to prove that people are too stupid to have powerful tools.

No, it's not. I would explain it to you, but I don't think you're going to listen.

[smoothie]

Still, proving how defective a system such as Ripple can be, by luring (newbie) people into loosing actual wealth should not be allowed.

It's roughly comparable to proving that Bitcoin is broken by starting an exchange or web-based wallet and then running off with the money or tricking people into deleting their wallet files. It's a Luddite attack on Bitcoin, Ripple, and technology in general -- an attempt to prove that people are too stupid to have powerful tools.

counter-party risk in bitcoin is a well known and discussed topic.

To single out that some users of bitcoin are dumb enough to keep their funds on an exchange explains why they lost their funds as a flaw in bitcoin is retarded. Counter-party risk.

Ripple has much more counter-party risk on more levels than one. The glaring one is that ripple is a centralized system backed by Open Coin and can be shutdown if the overseeing government decided to.

AS the OP indicated many times...THE TRICK IS TO GET RIPPLE TO BE ACCEPTED BY GATEWAYS (I.E. financial institutions) AS WELL AS GETTING OTHER USERS TO ACCEPT IT.

One more level of counter-party risk: User trust.

But like TF said you likely will not listen to what I just said and try to justify why ripple works better or compliments bitcoin blah blah blah.

You have an interest in seeing Ripple succeed so you will ignore logic to see it succeed. Typical salesman. But you are forgiven because that is your job. Just dont try to sucker people into your scam please.

Thanks  

[JoelKatz]

Two people reply to me but neither actually addresses the argument I was making at all. You're welcome to make 800 different arguments, but it gets really tedious when you keep switching to another argument you don't actually believe every time I address the ones you made. Does anyone want to actually respond to this argument:

It's roughly comparable to proving that Bitcoin is broken by starting an exchange or web-based wallet and then running off with the money or tricking people into deleting their wallet files. It's a Luddite attack on Bitcoin, Ripple, and technology in general -- an attempt to prove that people are too stupid to have powerful tools.

[smoothie]

Two people reply to me but neither actually addresses the argument I was making at all. You're welcome to make 800 different arguments, but it gets really tedious when you keep switching to another argument you don't actually believe every time I address the ones you made. Does anyone want to actually respond to this argument:

It's roughly comparable to proving that Bitcoin is broken by starting an exchange or web-based wallet and then running off with the money or tricking people into deleting their wallet files. It's a Luddite attack on Bitcoin, Ripple, and technology in general -- an attempt to prove that people are too stupid to have powerful tools.

So you are saying because it is comparable that it is okay to mislead newbies to use ripple when bitcoin has people that scam via your described methods or users being "too stupid" to use powerful tools?

Now you can go back and address my points above whether you like how I worded it or not.

[JoelKatz]

So you are saying because it is comparable that it is okay to mislead newbies to use ripple when bitcoin has people that scam via your described methods or users being "too stupid" to use powerful tools?

No.

Now you can go back and address my points above whether you like how I worded it or not.

No. I'm not going to switch from argument to argument while you refuse to either defend or abandon the arguments I've rebutted. Please don't restate my argument but actually address the argument I made.

Here it is again:

It's roughly comparable to proving that Bitcoin is broken by starting an exchange or web-based wallet and then running off with the money or tricking people into deleting their wallet files. It's a Luddite attack on Bitcoin, Ripple, and technology in general -- an attempt to prove that people are too stupid to have powerful tools.

Do you agree or disagree that these are comparable? If you think they are different, in what relevant way are they different?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

They are different because Bitcoin does not allow, say, Instawallet to replace 100 BTC in bitcoin-qt with 100 "BTC" in Instawallet without your explicit approval. Nobody would have lost anything if users had to click "I will trade 10 BTC.Bitstamp for 10 BTC.TradeFortress.

[JoelKatz]

They are different because Bitcoin does not allow, say, Instawallet to replace 100 BTC in bitcoin-qt with 100 "BTC" in Instawallet without your explicit approval. Nobody would have lost anything if users had to click "I will trade 10 BTC.Bitstamp for 10 BTC.TradeFortress.

Bitcoin allows instawallet to do whatever they want without anyone's approval. Both "attacks" take advantage of the fact that you can trick people into doing things that have negative consequences that they might not be aware of.

Both attacks involve tricking someone into doing something that can have negative consequences of which they may not be aware and then exploiting the results of that trick. Even if it required explicit approval, you could just as easily trick people into providing that approval. By requiring it of them before making a payment to them.

http://www.hrmorning.com/would-you-trade-your-password-for-a-candy-bar/

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

OK, let us take two scenarios:

You trust Instawallet for up to 100 BTC. You have 10 BTC in Instawallet. Instawallet closes, bye 10 BTC.

You trust Instawallet for up to 100 BTC with Ripple. You have 10 BTC in Instawallet. Instawallet closes overnight, you become a liquidity provider for Instawallet and take on 90 BTC more debt. Bye 100 BTC.

It is impossible with Bitcoin to lose more bitcoins than you put in. In this case, it would have being zero (I handed out free BTCs). With Ripple, you will lose as much bitcoins as you trust, even if you put in nothing.

[qxzn]

Rock on TradeFortress. The "automatic liquidity providing" feature is broken and I expect they'll eventually figure it out and turn it off.

The question I have yet to get a straight answer from anyone is, what happens to Ripple when everyone turns off automatic liquidity providing? does it still 'work'?

[ktttn]

This user is currently being ignored.

Yeaahp... yup.. hmm? HMMM?! SPEAK UP I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

Tradefortress is as rad as fook in my book.
"...so theres this giant flaw... allow me to demonstrate!" -my version of TF.

[Matthew N. Wright]

You trust Instawallet for up to 100 BTC.

If you're willing to trust Instawallet for 100 BTC, there is something fundamentally wrong with your idea of bitcoin security.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

You trust Instawallet for up to 100 BTC.

If you're willing to trust Instawallet for 100 BTC, there is something fundamentally wrong with your idea of bitcoin security.

You do know I'm using it as an example, right? Replace Instawallet with Mt Gox. If Mt Gox gets hacked, you only lose the amount you had there. If you're using Ripple and Mt Gox gets hacked, then you lose as much as you have trusted it.

[Matthew N. Wright]

You trust Instawallet for up to 100 BTC.

If you're willing to trust Instawallet for 100 BTC, there is something fundamentally wrong with your idea of bitcoin security.

You do know I'm using it as an example, right? Replace Instawallet with Mt Gox. If Mt Gox gets hacked, you only lose the amount you had there. If you're using Ripple and Mt Gox gets hacked, then you lose as much as you have trusted it.

That's not how Ripple works as far as I can tell. If MtGox were hacked, seized or went offline, it seems it would make it impossible for them to function as a gateway, hence no transactions could take place for MtGox USD.

It seems the only thing you're able to prove so far is not to trust you on Ripple.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

You trust Instawallet for up to 100 BTC.

If you're willing to trust Instawallet for 100 BTC, there is something fundamentally wrong with your idea of bitcoin security.

You do know I'm using it as an example, right? Replace Instawallet with Mt Gox. If Mt Gox gets hacked, you only lose the amount you had there. If you're using Ripple and Mt Gox gets hacked, then you lose as much as you have trusted it.

That's not how Ripple works as far as I can tell. If MtGox were hacked, seized or went offline, it seems it would make it impossible for them to function as a gateway, hence no transactions could take place for MtGox USD.

It seems the only thing you're able to prove so far is not to trust you on Ripple.

That is how it works. You don't need to be a gateway to issue IOUs for starters, and if Mt Gox is offline IOU can still be traded along paths.

[Matthew N. Wright]

That is how it works. You don't need to be a gateway to issue IOUs for starters, and if Mt Gox is offline IOU can still be traded along paths.

If MtGox is offline, why would anyone on the network *accept* a MtGox USD IOU in the first place? There is a user on the other side of that trade who has to basically say "Ripple network, this is what I want!". If MtGox was down/hacked/seized, why would anyone tell the network "I want MtGox USD!" in the first place?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

That is how it works. You don't need to be a gateway to issue IOUs for starters, and if Mt Gox is offline IOU can still be traded along paths.

If MtGox is offline, why would anyone on the network *accept* a MtGox USD IOU in the first place?

Because the Ripple client automatically does it for them if their trust line is not maxed out?

That's what I've being saying for the past N posts.

[Matthew N. Wright]

That is how it works. You don't need to be a gateway to issue IOUs for starters, and if Mt Gox is offline IOU can still be traded along paths.

If MtGox is offline, why would anyone on the network *accept* a MtGox USD IOU in the first place?

Because the Ripple client automatically does it for them if their trust line is not maxed out?

That's what I've being saying for the past N posts.

• The limit of what you're willing to hold in your Ripple balance is your trust limit.
• If mtgox is not operating fractionally, they must have set aside funds to back all the issued IOUs.
• If someone accepts MtGox USD IOUs, they are accepting the risk that MtGox could go down, be seized, DDoSed, etc etc etc. Exact same thing as selling a MtGox code.

Bottom line: Don't trade for things you don't trust.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

That is how it works. You don't need to be a gateway to issue IOUs for starters, and if Mt Gox is offline IOU can still be traded along paths.

If MtGox is offline, why would anyone on the network *accept* a MtGox USD IOU in the first place?

Because the Ripple client automatically does it for them if their trust line is not maxed out?

That's what I've being saying for the past N posts.

• The limit of what you're willing to hold in your Ripple balance is your trust limit.
• If mtgox is not operating fractionally, they must have set aside funds to back all the issued IOUs.
• If someone accepts MtGox USD IOUs, they are accepting the risk that MtGox could go down, be seized, DDoSed, etc etc etc. Exact same thing as selling a MtGox code.

Bottom line: Don't trade for things you don't trust.

It is not the exact same thing as selling a gox code (which you can't generate anymore). Your loss is limited to your gox balance. In Ripple, you can lose more than your gox balance.

You can take steps to prevent that (for example, somehow getting access to the closed source client and not making you a liquidity provider), but the fact is that this can happen means it's a flaw - that they can't fix without ruining ripple.

ITT: people not understanding simple concepts yet thinking they do

[Matthew N. Wright]

It is not the exact same thing as selling a gox code (which you can't generate anymore). Your loss is limited to your gox balance. In Ripple, you can lose more than your gox balance.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You can't lose more than your balance because your balance is a balance of how much trust you've issued to people selling MtGox USD. If you're claiming that people could have been holding MtGox USD IOUs at the time MtGox is taken down, then there is absolutely no difference between that and holding a balance in MtGox (in fact, it is a balance in MtGox-- a Ripple IOU balance).

Back to the point, don't issue trust for an institution-relative currency (MtGox USD) that you don't want to trust. Don't use a payment transactions network (Ripple) that you don't want to trust.

Calling Ripple a scam because you don't understand the how trust works is like calling SWIFT a scam because you opened a bank yesterday, convinced a bunch of other banks to trust you personally, issued a bunch of wire transfers to those banks, then refused to back them. If I end up using Ripple, I'll be very careful who I extend trust to and all you've done here is show that no one should trust you for anything other than direct XRP exchanges (which carry no exchange risk for the receiving party).