>using GMail is nothing like using GSuites is nothing like using Google Docs
G Suite (no s) was the old name for Google Workspace. Google Workspace includes GMail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, etc., so it doesn't really make sense to say that Google Workspace has a different UX than Google Docs, if Google Docs is part of Google Workspace.
Disclosure: I work at Google, but not one of the listed products.
Burning an identity? Instead of hacking the server that serves the binary, you have to hack the developer's machine and commit a malicious source change.
I wouldn't consider either of them to burn an identity.
While I don't disagree in general, there are a couple gaps in your reasoning that weaken the argument:
Adoption doesn't necessarily correlate completely with price. Price can increase without much adoption, due to speculation. In theory, adoption could also increase without much price increase.
Electricity isn't the only requirement for mining. Hardware is also required. Miners can't simply use lots of additional electricity if the hardware isn't there. Yes, new hardware can be manufactured, but it takes time.
The block reward decreases over time. If it's using Europe levels of electricity at time X, then after a block reward decrease, it'll use Europe/2 amount of electricity. This decreasing also disincentivizes manufacturing new hardware.
Miners can have different efficiencies, due to different types of hardware, and different types of electricity generation. So while the least efficient miner will be operating at near breakeven, the most efficient miner will be making much more profit. So while the least efficient miner will use $1M of electricity to mine a $1M coin, the most efficient miner will use less dollars of electricity.
> In theory, adoption could also increase without much price increase.
Not really. A fundamental purpose for any currency is to act as a "store of value". There is no way for bitcoin to represent a store of value (i.e. value commensurate to real-world goods) for a larger and larger portion of society without the price skyrocketing, especially since Bitcoin is inherently deflationary with a max number of coins.
Regarding your other paragraphs, I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how proof-of-work is designed to protect the network. The entire idea behind POW is that the total amount of work must be in direct relationship to the total value of the coins in the network, or else coordinated attacks become possible. I see this misunderstanding all the time in "the block reward decreases over time" argument. It doesn't really matter if miners get their payoff from block rewards or mining fees - they must (on average, over time) get enough reward to make their mining activity worthwhile, and, again, by the inherent design of POW, they need to spend enough on mining to make 51% attacks not worth trying. Just think about how your "If it's using Europe levels of electricity at time X, then after a block reward decrease, it'll use Europe/2 amount of electricity" sentence doesn't make any sense, because eventually in 2140 or so there will be no block rewards, so according to your logic no electricity at all would be required to run the network.
There is simply no getting around the fact that resource costs need to grow linearly with the total value of the network in POW systems.
>The entire idea behind POW is that the total amount of work must be in direct relationship to the total value of the coins in the network, or else coordinated attacks become possible.
The total amount of work must be in direct relationship to the amount an attacker can gain from executing a 51% attack. It's not clear to me that if bitcoin doubles in price, an attacker can gain double the amount from a 51% attack. A 51% attack doesn't allow direct theft of other people's bitcoins. It allows double spend attacks, denial of service attacks, and through those, the ability to tank the price of bitcoin.
>Just think about how your "If it's using Europe levels of electricity at time X, then after a block reward decrease, it'll use Europe/2 amount of electricity" sentence doesn't make any sense, because eventually in 2140 or so there will be no block rewards, so according to your logic no electricity at all would be required to run the network.
It's possible for a block reward to be larger than necessary for security. In that case it can go through several halvings that purely improve efficiency without putting the network at risk. Yes, at some point, with a sufficiently large number of halvings, the network would be at risk, but that doesn't mean we can't have some efficiency gains before that happens. Your previous comment referred to bitcoin using more electricity than Argentina. That's a statement about how much electricity it's currently using, not a statement about how much electricity it needs to use to get the necessary amount of security. It might be possible to decrease the electricity usage while remaining sufficiently secure.
AIUI, Signal push notifications just saying a message was received. Signal then fetches the E2E encrypted message from the server and decrypts it locally. So Apple/Google cannot read the messages, nor can Signal servers.
AIUI, Signal decrypts the E2EE message locally, but then sends the decrypted message to iOS in order to display the notification to the user. iOS then stores this data and it persists after the user dismisses the notification.
This makes sense and there's really no way around it without a change from Apple. If iOS is going to show the user a Signal notification with the decrypted message in the notification body, then iOS must be given the decrypted message. iOS could (and probably should) delete that data off the device as soon as the user dismisses/engages with the notification. But it sounds like they do not.
I agree. My point is that this isn't an "obvious hole in the whole E2E encryption setup", because no network actor (e.g. Google, Apple, Signal servers) can read the data.
This "hole" in E2E is the same as any malware on the device. If the device cannot be trusted, no form of E2E will work. The E2E encryption is functioning properly. The problem here is completely unrelated to E2E encryption. E.g. you could have a personal notes app that makes no network traffic, but generates notifications occasionally regarding your notes, and it could have this same problem, even though no messages are sent over the network, and in fact the phone could have all networking capabilities disabled and still have this problem.
>This makes sense and there's really no way around it without a change from Apple.
There is a bit of a workaround: Signal has a setting to not put message content in the notification. That fixes this AIUI.
One benefit is avoiding screen time. You can't get sucked into your phone/computer if you don't touch them. Looking up a piece of information using the smart speaker helps prevent distraction.
Another benefit is if your hands are full. For example if you're cooking or driving.
Another benefit can be speed. If you're doing something in your house near the smart speaker, it's probably faster to ask it a question than to pull your phone out of your pocket, unlock it (I only have a password, not fingerprint/face ID), and type in the query. For people who are slow at typing, this benefit is larger.
Yes, we spend a lot on weddings, but not as much (adjusted for income) as they do on funerals. In Ghana they spend 2.3x-9x the yearly median income[1] on a funeral. The median income in the US is $45,140[2], so if we were to spend the same amount relative to income on weddings as they do on funerals, that would mean our weddings would be $103k-$406k.
In one of the pictures, the laptop is on his tray, and the wii is on the tray of the seat next to him, and that seat looks empty. So the wii got its own airplane seat?
The receiver will immediately move the bitcoin. So it has the same downside.
If the receiver doesn't immediately move the bitcoin, the receiver is at risk of Satoshi stealing them by retaining the private key and moving them later.
Even if the receiver trusts Satoshi, if the receiver wants to spend the bitcoin on anything, there's the same problem again.
You still have to pay the interest from somewhere. And presumably you'd need to put the coins into some kind of escrow so that the lender can get their money back even if you conveniently forget your private key.
In this case it's not basic stuff. You would need to prove that you own the actual bitcoin or transfer it for it to be collateral on a loan. It's the same as spending it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/22/us/ford-wins-kennedy-awar...
reply