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So, apparently is making a point! I haven't found yours yet.

I think what the person you were mocking was trying to say, is that with an underground currency, the chances of it vanishing are much higher than even investing in the stock market. Several 'wallet' services have either closed up shop without transferring peoples' wealth back to them or been outright criminal honeypots in the first place. Or you could be that guy that threw out a hard drive with hundreds of thousands worth of bitcoins stored on it.

1. It's not an "underground currency". It's more above ground than any other currency.

2. Many banks and businesses have closed up and taken people's assets with them. What did stockholders of WaMu get? Where is your rant against banks and the dollar?

3. If you throw out a hard drive with your only copy of any file, you lose that file. The lesson here is to make backups of important documents.

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Thus succinctly summarizing the worldview of the bitcoin community.

No the dollar is "backed by taxation", meaning that if you have a dollar and want to redeem it for something, the Feds will give you a dollar for it, probably that they taxed from someone, or printed.
 
I think the point he's making is that even 10 years ago, hen Apple was < 5% share of all computers out there, selling a few thousand a year, Nobody cared to write anything that affected Apple computers and OSx.

Now that Apple computers are a household name, with a lot more sales and actually starting to penetrate the PC market in a measurable way, Their claim that Apple computers are infinitely more secure than Windows based PC's because of obscurity is starting to diminish.

We are seeing more and more OSx based attacks over the last year.

I'm curious on what's the success rate for those so called attacks. All I'm seeing are phishing tricks, which are user based attacks, not OS attacks. No matter how secured an OS can be, you can't stop people from being naive or stupid. I haven't heard 1 case where OS X security itself was attacked and broken.
 
1. It's not an "underground currency". It's more above ground than any other currency.

2. Many banks and businesses have closed up and taken people's assets with them. What did stockholders of WaMu get? Where is your rant against banks and the dollar?

3. If you throw out a hard drive with your only copy of any file, you lose that file. The lesson here is to make backups of important documents.


1. Bitcoins are "underground" in the sense that they are not officially sanctioned nor regulated, and therefore are not considered legal tender by any nation of this world. Trading in bitcoins is "underground" and unregulated and untaxable or trackable by financial Markets. Because of this.. we do lead onto point 2

2. Security and stability. Banks (in developed nations other than the US) are heavily regulated entities that are heavily insured against loss and fraud that must maintain specific ratios of money to debt (tack ratio) to ensure that those who use those banks are not able to lose everythign they have by the banks negligence or failures.

3. Banks that are regulated have stringent security and backup in place to ensure that data cannot be lost in any measurable way. Since Bitcoins are stored locally (usually) to your own computer, YOU are ulitimately responsible for the well being and keeping of that Wallet keychain. Most people at home do not have offsite storage. Nor in depth backup strategies to ensure that they can never lose their wallets. Banks on the other hands, even if their home building were to blow up, Most will continue to operate without a single loss of data.

Source: I am an analyst for financial institution software platforms that are used in major banks around the world. Responsible for planning, installation, support, implementations and Disaster recover.


These all point that Bitcoins, until it is recognised at a national level, or institute some form of stringent regulations will be a "wild west" of commodity trading. And I doubt governments are going to jump aboard the bitcoin bandwagon. Most established countries already have their own currency model. And should Bitcoins become regulated like the financial industry, you would lose the core purpose most people like bitcoins... the "anonymous freedom"

The whole reason this will eventually go down? Taxes. Bitcoins trading isn't taxed because it's not regulated. By technicalities, anyone who deals with bitcoins will need to do their accounting to convert Bitcoins on book to their local currency to claim income and taxes.

However, since it's unregulated and untaxable currently, Governments are going to keep a very close eye on it. it also doesn't help that Bitcoins, due to their Anonymous nature are a prime mover for laundering money or terrorist funding.

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I'm curious on what's the success rate for those so called attacks. All I'm seeing are phishing tricks, which are user based attacks, not OS attacks. No matter how secured an OS can be, you can't stop people from being naive or stupid. I haven't heard 1 case where OS X security itself was attacked and broken.

Very interesting question! similar towards Windows 7+8 i guess.

No platform is secure if you can convince the weakest link to bypass security measures.

As usual, it's not the OS thats really at fault, but the PEBKAC
 
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That generally what piracy comes down too of most digital content these days.

a combination of Price and ease of acquisition.

if the program you want to use is ridiculously expensive that the average use cannot afford it. They will likely pirate it.

if the program you want to use is ridiculously hard to acquire due to location of availability (not available in your region, must wait ridiculously long times for shipping of media..), People will tend to pirate.

if the thing has a negative experience when purchased legitimately due to overbearing DRM. people tend to pirate it (Bioshock 1 from 2k games with rootkit is a great example of people opting to pirate instead of buy because of bad corporate decision).

if on the other hand you make the software title available for a fair price, easy to get, without the need to jump through DRM hell hoops. Piracy goes down.

Things like the App store and Steam for example get it right. its simple, easy and relatively cheap to get titles, almost instantly, without jumping through any hoops.

People just think they're entitled to more than they are. There isn't an issue with the price of software, it's just that Photoshop has landed in the wrong hands of those who want it for hobbyist projects and junk.

The majority of people don't have a reason for pirating, and that's a fact.
 
So...

People downloading softwares with viruses on windows = Windows is terrible at security.
People downloading shady apps on Android = Android is terrible at security
People downloading softwares including viruses on Mac = That's not a security issue, people are just dumb.

Sure.

Best comment I’ve read all day.
 
umm... do you this is in any link to the fact Mt. Gox is down ?

This is no surprise if true...

Target the most popular apps and or/rename to cause the most damage...

https://www.mtgox.com/

Its all the same stuff..... Trouble is, no matter how many peple think how clever they are, they aren't

I think the smartest thing is not to use bit-coin at all .... :)

You think there is a cool new thing always, but that cool new things there is always a catch-22, something no one things about till is happens..
 
umm... do you this is in any link to the fact Mt. Gox is down ?

Yes, there's a link. Gox is gone because (allegedly) someone stole all their customers' bitcoins. The value of bitcoins has suddenly far exceeded the capacity for amateurs to secure their data. Thefts are up everywhere. One estimate suggests bitcoins are 1000x more likely to be stolen in large scale heists than USD.
 
Releasing a bitcoin stealing Trojan just when they're about to be rendered worthless. Good timing there, well done. Have a million Zimbabwe dollars.

I already have this...
Zimbabwe-One-Hundred-Tril-001.jpg

so why would I bother? :D

Anyway, I have an offline Bitcoin wallet, but I've invested none of my "other" fiat currency in it. I answered a couple of CrowdFlower-type tasks and watched a small handful of ads for a minimal bit of coin--way, WAY less than 1/10 BTC, so if Bitcoin goes away or becomes irreversibly corrupted, I've lost nothing except a little time.

I have to agree with The Economist on pirating Pixelmator, though. I got my legit copy of version 1 from a MacUpdate or MacHeist bundle a couple of years back, and it does what I need. Can you imagine explaining to your jail cellmates that you're in for stealing an app worth less than $20? Awkward...
 
Source: I am an analyst for financial institution software platforms that are used in major banks around the world. Responsible for planning, installation, support, implementations and Disaster recover.

So if bitcoin payments replace payments with the software you analyze, will it affect your livelihood?

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And I doubt governments are going to jump aboard the bitcoin bandwagon.

Best news I've heard all day.

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1. Bitcoins are "underground" in the sense that they are not officially sanctioned nor regulated, and therefore are not considered legal tender by any nation of this world.

So you define "underground" as those things not "officially sanctioned or regulated"? That's a pretty broad definition.

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Since Bitcoins are stored locally (usually) to your own computer, YOU are ulitimately responsible for the well being and keeping of that Wallet keychain.

Yeah. Personal responsibility is overrated. What was I thinking?
 
so if bitcoin payments replace payments with the software you analyze, will it affect your livelihood?
likely not. Banking systems are more than capable of handling multiple currencies and/ or tradable commodities. If anything, it would likely be great for business. New banks pop up, new installs means more work!
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best news i've heard all day.
i'm a middle man when it comes to what i think the government's involvement can be. Sometimes it can be excellent, see canada's economy since 2008, with strong regulation, but sometimes it can be a hinderance. See canada's economy 80s-90's. Responsible governments should know when to back off, and when to get involved. Unfortunately, thats an oxymoron. Responsible government.. Ha. But government itself doesn't necessarily mean bad.
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so you define "underground" as those things not "officially sanctioned or regulated"? That's a pretty broad definition.
i agfree. It's very broad, but i think it has served me well enough, you are free to come up with your own narrower definition if you please. I'm willing to hear and discuss
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yeah. Personal responsibility is overrated. What was i thinking?
not at all. Personal responsibility is a huge thing. Everyone should be responsible for themselves. However, having a safety net in place for those who absolutely crap the bed is a nice way of helping look after eachother as well to make sure that everyone has equality. But i'm not going to get into this discussion cause it starts getting damn personal and everyone is different and no one idealogy is correct
Answers above... sort of...
 
On Windows, you don't need to create Trojans. You create a virus that infects everyone, not just idiots who try to pirate software.

I do not think there have been any viruses on Windows for many years now. Lately all I hear is security problems with OS/X and iOS.
 
MacMini plus the cost of a monitor. MBA at the very base level. How many people get the absolute bottom entry level model? I'm sure many do. But I'd wager most people spend over $1K on their new Mac.

refurbs don't count

Monitors don't count either, monitors aren't macs. :D
 
On Windows, you don't need to create Trojans. You create a virus that infects everyone, not just idiots who try to pirate software.
Viruses went virtually extinct in the early 2000s. There hasn't been a meaningful consumer affecting worm since Conficker in late 2008. That worm however relied on an already-patched vulnerabilities. In addition, like all worms it could not reach machines behind a NAT (Router) - thus any maintained or just plain standard home setup was immune.

Only worm of mention since then is Stuxnet, and Flame. Those however are also considered to be among the most advanced malware to yet have been created - and they didn't target consumer systems.
Note for example that number of Flame infected machines sit between 'several hundred' to 'a thousand'.
 
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You might want to check on the difference between a virus and a trojan.

Just a suggestion to avoid further embarrassment....;):)

You're aware all the "virus reports" on Windows include Trojans, right ?
Just so you know, what defines a virus is that it's installing itself when you launch it, without the user consent.
You fire up your cracked software (or the bitcoin app), it installs the malicious browser extension (without you knowing what's happening), annnd you're screwed.

Hello, this is Virus.
 
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