makeasnek

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Scams/theft: person has the wallet lost through scam or left, how do you invalidate the lost credentials or tickets.

In these examples, we are talking about credentials issued by a central authority. That authority can re-issue new credentials and invalidate old ones. Easy peasy.

If we’re talking about the risk that people have their crypto stolen in general, yes it does carry that risk same as cash. There are several strategies to mitigate this: people can park larger amounts at institutions if they want or they can use things like multi-sig wallets. You have one smaller pot of money which is your everyday spending wallet which you (or somebody who gains access to it) can spend from whenever you want, and one which is “multi-sig” meaning at least one of your trusted friends/family members/etc also has to sign off if money moves out of that account. You can have multiple people on the multi-sig wallet and set the rules for example 2 of 5 friends or what have you. You wouldn’t leave $10,000 in your phone’s mobile wallet just like you wouldn’t carry a briefcase with $10,000 in cash on the subway. Small money in your spending wallet, big money in your multi-sig.

This is similar to how one stores money normally. You have some cash in your wallet and you put the rest in a bank. In order to withdraw significant money from your bank account, the bank is going to undertake some kind of investigation to make sure it’s actually you. This might be checking your ID at the teller for example. They might also include some type of fraud guarantees where they will cover any losses you experience. That kind of a system is not incompatible with blockchain and I expect with time industries will appear to mitigate these kinds of risks from an insurance perspective.

Also, generally speaking, no system is going to completely eliminate theft and fraud. 99% of the fraud and theft committed over human history has been done using traditional currency, including the kinds of fraud that aren’t even called fraud because the “right people” are doing them like bank bailouts or market manipulation. Even highly-credentialed systems like Paypal are rife with fraud, ask any ebay seller. So we can’t expect crypto or any other technology to eliminate it either, there will always be some. The best we can do is try to find technological, social, and educational methods for reducing it.

Wallet loss: loss through any number of means: fire, incompetence, computer being destroyed, loss of account to cloud backup etc

Same risks as cash, multi-sig or institutional holdings as explained above can solve this.

Issuer need to invalidate: if tickets/credentials were purchased by fraud or an issue occurs where they need to invalidate

Same as answer 1

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Exactly. Same with NFTs

makeasnek, 1 year ago

Personally I’m excited to see Flatpak become more widespread and usable, fixing some “rough around the edges” aspects of it. I’ve been using it quite a bit this past few months and I think it presents a really coherent, simple vision for how to do package distribution that solves a lot of pain points. The sandboxing functionality is critical and easy to use, I don’t need every app to have access to everything in my home directory.

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 6 months ago)

Every linux enthusiast should try Qubes at least once. The architecture is totally different, vastly more secure in many ways than most Linux distros. It’s definitely not for everybody, but if privacy and security rank high on your priority list it’s worth a look. It never ends up in Linux top ten lists for some reason, but it’s an incredible OS.

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 5 months ago)

!boinc is the final level. Using your Pi to cure cancer and identify asteroids

makeasnek, 1 year ago

Sure would be a shame if people used this blacklist as a basis for leaving negative reviews on Amazon.

makeasnek, 1 year ago

Show up in every election and vote (and be engaged in other ways politically). It’s very easy to ignore people who don’t vote. Don’t like your options at the polls? Participate in primaries and donate to campaigns pushing ranked choice voting.

makeasnek, 1 year ago

Love seeing content like this, just regular people talking about why Linux works for them. Kudos, enjoyed the post!

makeasnek, 1 year ago

If you want privacy/security, check out qubes

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 5 months ago)

There was some shady stuff on behalf of the DNC but he legitimately lost. He didn’t get the votes. Because his voters didn’t vote in the primaries. A number of reforms have been made to the primary system since then, a bunch of the people who oversaw that primary got fired, and many states are now moving towards ranked choice voting which will eliminate the need for primaries entirely. If half the people who complain about how voting is useless actually participated in the primary process, our political landscape would look a lot different. I used to be one of those people, I get it, the whole damned thing is a bit of a racket, but it doesn’t change that voting takes 5 minutes and has a concrete impact on who runs the government.

Edit: And that’s the presidential race. You can make much more of a difference, and the rules are much less wonky, in local and state elections. Hell, many of those positions are entirely uncontested.

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 5 months ago)

Elections have consequences. Vote in generals and vote in primaries. Tell your reps (and potential reps) that you care about privacy.

makeasnek, 1 year ago

You can do both. You always get the same shitty options to vote for because most people don’t vote, and even fewer of them vote in primaries or participate in the political process in other ways.

makeasnek, 1 year ago

The reason you only get to vote for the “lesser of two evils” is because you don’t participate in primaries (assuming you are talking about the US system here). If MAGA can get a psycho like Trump to be their party nominee, you can get your kind of psycho nominated as well.

Primaries are where you actually get a chance to express what kind of candidate you want. Hell, you can even run for office! Generals are where you hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils because otherwise it’s an automatic vote for the worst of the two evils.

I agree voting seems pointless sometimes. But it’s still important. But it’s a lever of power you have access to and nobody can take it away from you no. And you can spend the 364 other days of the year impacting politics in other ways.

makeasnek, 1 year ago

OBS is an absolute powerhouse, an amazing example of what OSS can do

makeasnek, 1 year ago

Nostr is also looking like a pretty good tool for filling the same purpose

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 5 months ago)

Same. Any place asking for donations that supports Bitcoin lightning is an instant donate for me, I always give something even if it’s a small amount. Lightning fees are so low that I’m happy to give small amounts whereas otherwise I’m worried my $3 donation will turn into $0.50 by the time it reaches the organization if it’s through Paypal or whoever.

makeasnek, 1 year ago

It’s a medium to transfer funds from one place to another. It’s solving the same problem a different way.

makeasnek, 1 year ago (edited 6 months ago)

Love GNU software stack, but they’re about 15 years too late on this one.

Bitcoin can:

• Transfer internationally or across the room
• Confirms in less than one second (with Bitcoin lightning, otherwise can take a few minutes but still much faster than most banks, especially internationally)
• Pay less than one cent in fees per transfer (with Bitcoin lightning, otherwise cents to dollars on main chain)
• No middlemen
• Operate with 24/7 uptime, 365 days a year without single protocol breaking hack because it’s some of the most widely reviewed code on the planet.
• Entirely open source software and protocol
• Is available to anybody with a network connection and a cell phone regardless of whether or not they have access to safe, stable banking infrastructure, which billions, with a B, do not. No barriers, no credit requirements, no nonsense.
• Has been doing this for 15 years running.
• Can’t be printed at the whim of politicians and governments. Has a fixed supply which means as the Bitcoin economy grows, all who have Bitcoin benefit, not just those in charge of monetary policy and whomever they decide to pass the benefits onto. Nobody can split your BTC in half and give the other half to somebody else, which is exactly how supply inflation works.
• Using <1% of global electricity, often from renewable resources as renewable and over-produced electricity tends to be the cheapest

Each year it gets easier to use, gains more users, increases market cap, and generally adoption continues to grow.