2013-08-01 NY Times - Virtual Currency Gains Ground in Actual World

[kiko]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/technology/personaltech/virtual-currency-gains-ground-in-actual-world.html

A Positive piece worth reading. No quotes we haven't seen before, but the tone is very upbeat. Go help bump it up their most-read list.

Edit:

There are no iOS bitcoin wallet apps and Apple did not respond to e-mails seeking an explanation.

I love that the NY Times is leaning on Apple to explain their bitcoin fatwa.

[zoinky]

Isn't Gliph an iPhone App that has Bitcoin support?

https://gli.ph/

[aigeezer]

I was intrigued at this little smear inside the piece, quoted in its entirety (bolding mine):

“The way the basic bitcoin system works is both incredibly solid and incredibly clever from a technical standpoint,” said Nicholas Weaver, senior staff researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, which studies and advances a range of emerging technologies. “The system’s security is fragile, however, and the economic model behind bitcoin is, well, crazy stupid.”

So of course I looked up Weaver, as I had never heard of him. It turns out he's a computer scientist with no creds that I can find in economics. However, he is the author of this curiously-titled article in Wired:

"Hear Ye, Future Deep Throats: This Is How to Leak to the Press"

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/05/listen-up-future-deep-throats-this-is-how-to-leak-to-the-press-today/

Fascinating.



 

[Carlton Banks]

“The system’s security is fragile, however, and the economic model behind bitcoin is, well, crazy stupid.”

How can this man even makes claims to be a computer scientist? I've never once lost money using Bitcoin, either due to the "fragile security" or the "crazy stupid economic model". The precise opposite, in fact: the security features have convincingly kept my money safe, and the economic model has made my money more valuable. He's an expert shill, or an expert idiot.

[solex]

“The system’s security is fragile, however, and the economic model behind bitcoin is, well, crazy stupid.”

How can this man even makes claims to be a computer scientist? I've never once lost money using Bitcoin, either due to the "fragile security" or the "crazy stupid economic model". The precise opposite, in fact: the security features have convincingly kept my money safe, and the economic model has made my money more valuable. He's an expert shill, or an expert idiot.

This puzzles me too. Sound bites like "crazy stupid" and "fragile security" are simply infantile and ignorant.

I have spent many years in IT, but not using c++ such that I can trawl through the Bitcoin code and understand it all, let alone pick holes in it. However, I have read around the edges, the wikis, github, dev blogs, code snippets, pull requests and dev comments. This, plus the fact that the software has run in the field, under duress, for 4.5 years means that I have a high degree of confidence about Bitcoin's integrity and potential extreme longevity.