These guys make Don Jr. and Jared look SMART! It's time again for another episode of The Moron Squad, our semi-regular check in with the bit players in the Russia Show -- the ones that make Donny Jr. and Jared look like criminal masterminds by comparison. That's right,
Probably the simplest way to say it is that a blockchain is a way of having 'trust' between two parties who don't know each other, without a third party being in charge of that trust. So as an example, let's say I wanted to send you money, internet stranger! Currently it would be something like 1) you give me an email address I can send to, let's say via Paypal, 2) I send money from a bank or credit card, and my bank/credit card company verifies the funds are there and sends them, 3) you receive the funds, and Paypal guarantees that you can retrieve them, 4) your bank verifies that you've received them and allows you to spend them. You have to trust me with your email, we both have to trust Paypal and our banks/credit card companies. And if instead of sending money you were to buy something online, you'd have to 'trust' the seller's reputation and website security (a bigger deal in some cases than others). No matter what we do when transacting online, there are always layers of intermediaries, usually operating for-profit, which have to be there to make sure the transaction works.
Again, blockchains get rid of the need for any third party. Bitcoin's blockchain is what is otherwise known as a 'distributed ledger' — basically a big fancy public encrypted spreadsheet. Anyone can download the blockchain on any computer (it just lives on this distributed network of random volunteer computers around the world, there's no central database to mess with), and have the history of *every* transaction that's ever been on the network. Every ~ten minutes, a 'block' of information about recent transactions is bundled together, verified, and stored on the 'chain' of transaction history, linked to the previous block. (Note that you can only *see* transactions this way, not touch any Bitcoin. Note also that each transaction is linked to pseudonymous sender/receiver accounts, or 'wallets'; each wallet gets a public string of numbers, and the full history of each wallet is recorded as a byproduct of recording transactions.) So what you end up with is a record of network consensus on every transaction that's ever happened, all done automatically by encryption and locked-in algorithmic rules.
The awesome-cool part is that this doesn't need to be about money, because it's more broadly about recording automatically-checked-and-verified information (a lot of which could be done through 'private' versions of a blockchain, verified/'public' only within a closed system instead of across the whole internet, when dealing with especially sensitive information). Instead of syncing/verifying transaction records, you could put marriage/birth/death certificates on a blockchain. You could have medical devices syncing to a personal health history, or facilitate data inventories for any number of smart devices. You could have publicly verifiable voting records that still protect voter identity. (You could also potentially have more direct 'voting' on a number of issues.) And oh, on the finance side again, as an artist/tiny business owner I'm also excited about the possibilities for microtransactions — imagine being able to post a work (an art piece, a photo, an article, a story) with a digital tip jar next to it that could accept donations as little as $0.01, with literally no ordeal, no third party, no fees on that transaction, no signing up with a service to make the donation.
So that's kind of the gist — just let me know if there's anything I didn't explain very well. And I'd be happy to (try to) answer any other questions; even if all this crypto stuff ends up a flaming garbage pile, it's just absolutely fucking fascinating to me in the meantime :)
Shoot, got carried away and didn't answer the direct questions :( I know others have weighed in, but since I own and have spent bitcoin personally, I'll just say that 1] yes you can cash it in for dollars, or other cryptocurrencies (I've routinely done this for a bunch of stuff, most recently poster frames, and there are more and more places you can spend bitcoin/crypto directly), 2] it's a fiat currency, the amount of bitcoin is fixed but the price fluctuates (you can watch it real time online), 3] you can't deposit in a bank, because the whole point is it's decentralized so that no one is standing between you and your money (it's stored in online 'wallets'), 4] there's no exchange rate, it's just a global freestanding currency, 5] no one regulates it, and everyone regulates it, because that's how the blockchain is set up (see my other comment), 6] you can manipulate the currency INDIRECTLY, if you are a big miner or are financially huge (as in you are a bank, or a country), but even then only holders of the currency can do it (so there's no real incentive to make the price go *down* long-term), and any such manipulative buy-ins or dumps are obvious as fuck because of the blockchain/ledger. Otherwise, all the horror stories have come out of the exchanges, which are privately run (one of those trade-offs between convenience and safety, but none of them to do with Bitcoin itself).
Rat-raping bastard; what self-respecting rat would consent to fuck him?
Send Dawg with a Kirby vacuum cleaner.
Damn! You’re right! Not sure how I missed that. Thanks.
Is that real lint or bitlint? If it were me, I'd rather have the real lint because that's the kind of lint you can count on.
The Spy Who Came in from the Shitstorm.
Probably the simplest way to say it is that a blockchain is a way of having 'trust' between two parties who don't know each other, without a third party being in charge of that trust. So as an example, let's say I wanted to send you money, internet stranger! Currently it would be something like 1) you give me an email address I can send to, let's say via Paypal, 2) I send money from a bank or credit card, and my bank/credit card company verifies the funds are there and sends them, 3) you receive the funds, and Paypal guarantees that you can retrieve them, 4) your bank verifies that you've received them and allows you to spend them. You have to trust me with your email, we both have to trust Paypal and our banks/credit card companies. And if instead of sending money you were to buy something online, you'd have to 'trust' the seller's reputation and website security (a bigger deal in some cases than others). No matter what we do when transacting online, there are always layers of intermediaries, usually operating for-profit, which have to be there to make sure the transaction works.
Again, blockchains get rid of the need for any third party. Bitcoin's blockchain is what is otherwise known as a 'distributed ledger' — basically a big fancy public encrypted spreadsheet. Anyone can download the blockchain on any computer (it just lives on this distributed network of random volunteer computers around the world, there's no central database to mess with), and have the history of *every* transaction that's ever been on the network. Every ~ten minutes, a 'block' of information about recent transactions is bundled together, verified, and stored on the 'chain' of transaction history, linked to the previous block. (Note that you can only *see* transactions this way, not touch any Bitcoin. Note also that each transaction is linked to pseudonymous sender/receiver accounts, or 'wallets'; each wallet gets a public string of numbers, and the full history of each wallet is recorded as a byproduct of recording transactions.) So what you end up with is a record of network consensus on every transaction that's ever happened, all done automatically by encryption and locked-in algorithmic rules.
The awesome-cool part is that this doesn't need to be about money, because it's more broadly about recording automatically-checked-and-verified information (a lot of which could be done through 'private' versions of a blockchain, verified/'public' only within a closed system instead of across the whole internet, when dealing with especially sensitive information). Instead of syncing/verifying transaction records, you could put marriage/birth/death certificates on a blockchain. You could have medical devices syncing to a personal health history, or facilitate data inventories for any number of smart devices. You could have publicly verifiable voting records that still protect voter identity. (You could also potentially have more direct 'voting' on a number of issues.) And oh, on the finance side again, as an artist/tiny business owner I'm also excited about the possibilities for microtransactions — imagine being able to post a work (an art piece, a photo, an article, a story) with a digital tip jar next to it that could accept donations as little as $0.01, with literally no ordeal, no third party, no fees on that transaction, no signing up with a service to make the donation.
So that's kind of the gist — just let me know if there's anything I didn't explain very well. And I'd be happy to (try to) answer any other questions; even if all this crypto stuff ends up a flaming garbage pile, it's just absolutely fucking fascinating to me in the meantime :)
Shoot, got carried away and didn't answer the direct questions :( I know others have weighed in, but since I own and have spent bitcoin personally, I'll just say that 1] yes you can cash it in for dollars, or other cryptocurrencies (I've routinely done this for a bunch of stuff, most recently poster frames, and there are more and more places you can spend bitcoin/crypto directly), 2] it's a fiat currency, the amount of bitcoin is fixed but the price fluctuates (you can watch it real time online), 3] you can't deposit in a bank, because the whole point is it's decentralized so that no one is standing between you and your money (it's stored in online 'wallets'), 4] there's no exchange rate, it's just a global freestanding currency, 5] no one regulates it, and everyone regulates it, because that's how the blockchain is set up (see my other comment), 6] you can manipulate the currency INDIRECTLY, if you are a big miner or are financially huge (as in you are a bank, or a country), but even then only holders of the currency can do it (so there's no real incentive to make the price go *down* long-term), and any such manipulative buy-ins or dumps are obvious as fuck because of the blockchain/ledger. Otherwise, all the horror stories have come out of the exchanges, which are privately run (one of those trade-offs between convenience and safety, but none of them to do with Bitcoin itself).
Assange has developed Trumpian levels of projection: everything he says is her is actually him.
Sigh. Is it my ethics? Morals? Kindness? Caring? Something is keeping me from being rich.
I would have been tempted to stuff a gym locker inside him!
Wow. I actually laughed out loud. First time in far too long. Thanks.
Not Kaspersky I'm guessing?
Possibly from the rhetoric the US govt spewed when Edward Snowden dropped? and Assange presumptuously put himself in the same rowboat?
Let's see what kind of phishing e-mail I can come up with.....
Don't forget the allen wrench.
They do seem to be cut from the same cloth. Or maybe taking the same advice.