On the Dangers of Cryptocurrencies and the Uselessness of Blockchain

On the Dangers of Cryptocurrencies and the Uselessness of Blockchain
By Bruce Schneier

Earlier this month, I and others wrote a letter to Congress, basically saying that cryptocurrencies are an complete and total disaster, and urging them to regulate the space. Nothing in that letter is out of the ordinary, and is in line with what I wrote about blockchain in 2019. In response, Matthew Green has written—not really a rebuttal—but a “a general response to some of the more common spurious objections…people make to public blockchain systems.” In it, he makes several broad points:

1. Yes, current proof-of-work blockchains like bitcoin are terrible for the environment. But there are other modes like proof-of-stake that are not.
2. Yes, a blockchain is an immutable ledger making it impossible to undo specific transactions. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be some governance system on top of the blockchain that enables reversals.
3. Yes, bitcoin doesn’t scale and the fees are too high. But that’s nothing inherent in blockchain technology—that’s just a bunch of bad design choices bitcoin made.
4. Blockchain systems can have a little or a lot of privacy, depending on how they are designed and implemented.

There’s nothing on that list that I disagree with. (We can argue about whether proof-of-stake is actually an improvement. I am skeptical of systems that enshrine a “they who have the gold make the rules” system of governance. And to the extent any of those scaling solutions work, they undo the decentralization blockchain claims to have.) But I also think that these defenses largely miss the point. To me, the problem isn’t that blockchain systems can be made slightly less awful than they are today. The problem is that they don’t do anything their proponents claim they do. In some very important ways, they’re not secure. They doesn’t replace trust with code; in fact, in many ways they are far less trustworthy than non-blockchain systems. They’re not decentralized, and their inevitable centralization is harmful because it’s largely emergent and ill-defined. They still have trusted intermediaries, often with more power and less oversight than non-blockchain systems. They still require governance. They still require regulation. (These things are what I wrote about here.) The problem with blockchain is that it’s not an improvement to any system—and often makes things worse.

In our letter, we write: “By its very design, blockchain technology is poorly suited for just about every purpose currently touted as a present or potential source of public benefit. From its inception, this technology has been a solution in search of a problem and has now latched onto concepts such as financial inclusion and data transparency to justify its existence, despite far better solutions to these issues already in use. Despite more than thirteen years of development, it has severe limitations and design flaws that preclude almost all applications that deal with public customer data and regulated financial transactions and are not an improvement on existing non-blockchain solutions.”

Green responds: “‘Public blockchain’ technology enables many stupid things: today’s cryptocurrency schemes can be venal, corrupt, overpromised. But the core technology is absolutely not useless. In fact, I think there are some pretty exciting things happening in the field, even if most of them are further away from reality than their boosters would admit.” I have yet to see one. More specifically, I can’t find a blockchain application whose value has anything to do with the blockchain part, that wouldn’t be made safer, more secure, more reliable, and just plain better by removing the blockchain part. I postulate that no one has ever said “Here is a problem that I have. Oh look, blockchain is a good solution.” In every case, the order has been: “I have a blockchain. Oh look, there is a problem I can apply it to.” And in no cases does it actually help.

Someone, please show me an application where blockchain is essential. That is, a problem that could not have been solved without blockchain that can now be solved with it. (And “ransomware couldn’t exist because criminals are blocked from using the conventional financial networks, and cash payments aren’t feasible” does not count.)

For example, Green complains that “credit card merchant fees are similar, or have actually risen in the United States since the 1990s.” This is true, but has little to do with technological inefficiencies or existing trust relationships in the industry. It’s because pretty much everyone who can and is paying attention gets 1% back on their purchases: in cash, frequent flier miles, or other affinity points. Green is right about how unfair this is. It’s a regressive subsidy, “since these fees are baked into the cost of most retail goods and thus fall heavily on the working poor (who pay them even if they use cash).” But that has nothing to do with the lack of blockchain, and solving it isn’t helped by adding a blockchain. It’s a regulatory problem; with a few exceptions, credit card companies have successfully pressured merchants into charging the same prices, whether someone pays in cash or with a credit card. Peer-to-peer payment systems like PayPal, Venmo, MPesa, and AliPay all get around those high transaction fees, and none of them use blockchain.

This is my basic argument: blockchain does nothing to solve any existing problem with financial (or other) systems. Those problems are inherently economic and political, and have nothing to do with technology. And, more importantly, technology can’t solve economic and political problems. Which is good, because adding blockchain causes a whole slew of new problems and makes all of these systems much, much worse.

Green writes: “I have no problem with the idea of legislators (intelligently) passing laws to regulate cryptocurrency. Indeed, given the level of insanity and the number of outright scams that are happening in this area, it’s pretty obvious that our current regulatory framework is not up to the task.” But when you remove the insanity and the scams, what’s left?

EDITED TO ADD: Nicholas Weaver is also adamant about this. David Rosenthal is good, too.

June 23, 2022 at 10:07PM
via Schneier on Security https://ift.tt/c8Yu9s5

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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Solved

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Solved
By tech@thehiveworks.com



Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
There's another philosophical problem solved. This is easy.

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June 16, 2022 at 08:04PM
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Astronomer Hotline

Astronomer Hotline
By





June 15, 2022 at 08:00AM
via xkcd.com https://xkcd.com/2633/

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Success Stories - Dr Alexa Datko - Family Medicine Residency Match

Success Stories - Dr Alexa Datko - Family Medicine Residency Match
By

Alexa Datko, MD shares her journey to becoming an MD with Scott Harrah, MA, Director of Digital Content at UMHS. She discusses her hometown of San Diego, California, and her status as an elite NCAA Division 1 athlete at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Eventually winding up at UMHS more than six years after graduating from undergrad. Dr. Datko chose UMHS as her medical school because of the small class sizes and the reputation of having professors that were 100% dedicated to helping her succeed in becoming a medical doctor. She then discusses why she chose Family Medicine (with a concentration in OB and Women’s Health) as her choice of residencies. To read her in-depth interview with Scott Harrah, MA, Director of Digital Content at UMHS, please go to this link: <a href="https://ift.tt/3SChT5d" rel="nofollow">https://ift.tt/VFfOdgJ> To learn more about Family medicine as a specialty, please read this informative article: <a href="https://ift.tt/vEcIT9p" rel="nofollow">https://ift.tt/gU45Z9y> If you are interested in learning more about the University of Medicine and Health Science, the small class sizes, and the top-rated professors that are dedicated to helping you succeed in becoming a Medical doctor, check out this link: <a href="https://ift.tt/EypzVTt" rel="nofollow">https://ift.tt/5kuWxVP> TimeStamps - 00:00 Alexa Datko, MD 00:30 Information about Dr. Datko 00:48 Residency in Family medicine in Wyoming 01:03 Always wanted to be a Doctor 02:08 Fell in love with women's health on core rotation 02:29 Why Dr. Datko decided to attend UMHS 03:51 Dr. Datko discusses influential professors at UMHS 06:02 Residency details in Casper, WY 07:53 Family medicine vs Internal medicine

from University of Medicine and Health Sciences <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xFKhE_VKzw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xFKhE_VKzw</a> via UMHS YouTube Channel

May 26, 2022 at 11:56PM
via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xFKhE_VKzw

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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Foreword

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Foreword
By tech@thehiveworks.com



Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I would like to thank patreon typo squad for finding several errors with my fellatio book.

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May 27, 2022 at 02:23AM
via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal https://ift.tt/dPvKZ2j

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“Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting,” Ten Years On

“Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting,” Ten Years On
By John Scalzi

Ten years ago this week I thought I would write a piece to offer a useful metaphor for straight white male privilege without using the word “privilege,” because when you use the word “privilege,” straight white men freak out, like, I said then, “vampires being fed a garlic tart.” Since I play video games, I wrote the piece using them as a metaphor. And thus “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is” was born and posted.

And blew up: First here on Whatever, where it became the most-visited single post in the history of the site (more than 1.2 million visits to date), and then when it was posted on video gaming site Kotaku, where I suspect it was visited a multiple number of times more than it was visited here, because Kotaku has more visitors generally, and because the piece was heavily promoted and linked there. 

The piece received both praise and condemnation, in what felt like almost equal amounts (it wasn’t; it’s just the complainers were very loud, as they often are). To this day the piece is still referred and linked to, taught in schools and universities, and “living on the lowest difficulty setting” is used as a shorthand for the straight white male experience, including by people who don’t know where the phrase had come from.

(I will note here, as I often do when discussing this piece, that my own use of the metaphor was an expansion on a similar metaphor that writer Luke McKinney used in a piece on Cracked.com, when he noted that “straight male” was the lowest difficulty setting in sexuality. Always credit sources and inspirations, folks!)

In the ten years since I’ve written the piece, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, the response to it, and whether the metaphor still applies. And so for this anniversary, here are some further thoughts on the matter.

1. First off: Was the piece successful? In retrospect, I think it largely was. One measure of its success, as noted above, is its persistence; it’s still read and talked about and taught and used. Anecdotally, I have hundreds of emails from people who used it to explain privilege to others and/or had it used to explain privilege to them, and who say that it did what it was meant to do: Get through the already-erected defenses against the word “privilege” and convey the concept in an interesting and novel manner. So: Hooray for that. It is always good to be useful.

2. That said, Upton Sinclair once wrote that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” In almost exactly the same manner, it is difficult to get a straight white man to acknowledge his privileges when his self-image depends on him not doing so. Which is to say there is a very large number of straight white men who absolutely do not wish to acknowledge just how thoroughly and deeply their privileges are systemically embedded into day-to-day life. A fair number of this sort of dude read the piece (or more perhaps more accurately, read the headline, since a lot of their specific complaints about the piece were in fact addressed in the piece itself) and refused to entertain the notion there might be something to it. Which is their privilege (heh), but doesn’t make them right.

But, I mean, as a straight white dude, I totally get it! I also work hard and make an effort to get by, and in my life not all the breaks have gone my way. I too have suffered disappointment and failure and exclusion and difficulty. In the context of a life where people who are not straight white men are perhaps not in your day-to-day world view, except as abstractions mediated by television or radio or web sites, one’s own struggles loom large. It’s harder to conceive of, or sympathize with, the idea that one’s own struggles and disappointments are resting atop of a pile of systemic privilege — not in the least because that implicitly seems to suggest that if you can still have troubles even with those many systemic advantages, you might be bad at this game called life.

But here’s the thing about that. One, just because you can’t or won’t see the systemic advantages you have, it doesn’t mean you don’t still have them, relative to others. Two, it’s a reflection of how immensely fucked up the system is that even with all those systemic advantages, lots of straight white men feel like they’re just treading water. Yes! It’s not just you! This game of life is difficult! Like Elden Ring with a laggy wireless mouse and a five-year-old graphics card! And yet, you are indeed still playing life on the lowest difficulty setting! 

Maybe rather than refusing to accept that other people are playing on higher difficulty settings, one should ask who the hell decided to make the game so difficult for everyone right out of the box (hint: they’re largely in the same demographic as straight white men), and how that might be changed. But of course it’s simply just easy to deny that anyone else might have a more challenging life experience than you have, systemically speaking. 

3. Speaking of “easy,” one of the problems that the piece had is that when I wrote the phrase “lowest difficulty,” lots of people translated that to “easy.” The two concepts are not the same, and the difference between the two is real and significant. Which is, mind you, why I used the phrase “lowest difficulty” and not “easy.” But if you intentionally or unintentionally equate the two, then clearly there’s an issue to be had with the piece. I do suspect a number of dudes intentionally equated the two, even when it was made clear (by me, and others) they were not the same. I can’t do much for those dudes, then or now.

4. When I wrote the piece, some folks chimed in to say that other factors deserved to be part of a “lowest difficulty setting,” with “wealth” being primary among them. At the time I said I didn’t think wealth should have been; it’s a stat in my formulation — hugely influential, but not an inherent feature of identity like being white, or straight, or male. This got a lot of pushback, in no small part because (and relating to point two above) I think a lot of straight white dudes believed that if wealth was in there, it would somehow swamp the privileges that being white and straight and male provide, and that would mean that everyone else’s difficulty setting was no more difficult than their own.

It’s ten years on now, and I continue to call bullshit on this. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and I’ve been in the middle, and in all of those economic states I still had and have systemic advantages that came with being white and straight and male. Yes, being wealthy does make life less difficult! But on the other hand being wealthy (and an Oscar winner) didn’t keep Forest Whitaker from being frisked in a bodega for alleged shoplifting, whereas I have never once been asked to empty my pockets at a store, even when (as a kid, and poor as hell) I was actually shoplifting. This is an anecdotal observation! Also, systemically, wealth insulates people who are not straight and white and male less than it does those who are. Which means, to me, I put it in the right place in my formulation.

5. What would I add into the inherent formulation ten years on? I would add “cis” to “straight” and “white” and “male.” One, because I understand the concept better than than I did in 2012 and how it works within the matrix of privilege, and two, in the last decade, more of the people I know and like and love have come out as being outside of standard-issue cis-ness (or were already outside of it when I met them during this period), and I’ve seen directly how the world works on and with them. 

So, yes: Were I writing that piece for the first time in 2022, I would have written “Cis Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.” 

6. Ten years of time has not mitigated the observation about who is on the Lowest Difficulty Setting, especially here in the United States. Indeed, if anything, 2022 in the US has been about (mostly) straight white men nerfing the fuck out of everyone else in the land in order to maintain their own systemic advantages. Oh, you’re not white? Let’s pass laws to make sure an accurate picture of your historical treatment is punted out of schools and libraries, and the excuse we’ll give is that learning these things would be mean to white kids. You’re LGBTQ+? Let’s pass laws so that a teacher even mentioning you exist could get them fired. Trans? Let’s take away your rights for gender-affirming medical treatment. Have functional ovaries? We’re planning to let your rapist have more say in what happens to your body than you! Have a blessed day!

And of course hashtag not all straight white men, but on the other hand let’s not pretend we don’t know who is largely responsible for this bullshit. The Republican party of the United States is overwhelmingly straight, overwhelmingly white, and substantially male, and here in 2022 it is also an unabashedly white supremacist political party, an authoritarian party and a patriarchal party: mainstream GOP politicians talk openly about the unspeakably racist and anti-Semitic “Great Replacement Theory,” and about sending people who have abortions to prison, and are actively making it more difficult for minorities to vote. It’s largely assumed that once the conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court (very likely as of this writing) throws out Roe v. Wade, it’ll go after Obergefell (same-sex marriage) as soon as a challenge gets to them, and then possibly Griswold (contraception) and Loving (mixed-race marriage) after that. Because, after all, why stop at Roe when you can roll civil rights back to the 1950s at least?

What makes this especially and terribly ironic is that when game designers nerf characters, they’re usually doing it to bring balance to the game — to put all the characters on something closer to an even playing field. What’s happening here in 2022 isn’t about evening up the playing field. It’s to keep the playing field as uneven as possible, for as long as possible, for the benefit of a particular group of people who already has most of the advantages. 2022 is straight white men employing code injection to change the rules of the game, while it’s in process, to make it more difficult for everyone else. 

So yes, ten years on, the Lowest Difficulty Setting still applies. It’s as relevant as ever. And I’m sure, even now, a bunch of straight white men will still maintain it’s still not accurate. As they would have been in 2012, they’re entirely wrong about that. 

And what a privilege that is: To be completely wrong, and yet suffer no consequences for it. 

— JS

May 18, 2022 at 04:27PM
via Whatever https://ift.tt/nZtY23o

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Success Stories - Michelle Hornedo MD - Internal Medicine Match

Success Stories - Michelle Hornedo MD - Internal Medicine Match
By

Michelle Hornedo, MD shares her journey of matching into Internal Medicine. Michelle Hornedo, MD recently graduated from the University of Medicine and Health Sciences (UMHS) in Saint Kitts and was interviewed by Scott Harrah, MA the director of digital content for UMHS from the New York administrative office. Here are some of the key points of the video: Dr. Hornedo chose to attend UMHS because it was so warm and welcoming. In addition, she had a close friend at UMHS that helped her make up her decision to attend UMHS. She mentioned that the professors had an open-door policy and that everyone was willing to give extra help and support. Dr. Hornedo discusses the opportunities at UMHS that helped her match into Internal medicine. She also suggested that working harder than others are willing to do will help you stand out above other students competing for residency positions. Read more on a recent interview with Dr. Hornedo here: <a href="https://ift.tt/OQJy3XS" rel="nofollow">https://ift.tt/r17pNtB> For more information about Internal Medicine as a Medical specialty go here <a href="https://ift.tt/jSXg49x" rel="nofollow">https://ift.tt/0YKgU2S> If you are a prospective student please check out our Caribbean Medical School overview page <a href="https://ift.tt/xfRu4Fg" rel="nofollow">https://ift.tt/3n4uUoZ> If you are interested in contacting Dr. Hornedo about Internal Medicine or have questions about her experience at UMHS, she can be reached here <a href="mailto:mhornedo@umhs-sk.net">mhornedo@umhs-sk.net</a> -TimeStamps - 00:00 Matching into Internal Medicine 01:51 Why Choose UMHS? 02:42 UMHS has great opportunities in many hospitals 03:20 Dr. Hornedo discusses influential professors and staff at UMHS 04:38 How the education at UMHS helped her match into Internal Medicine 06:45 Description of Internal medicine as a medical specialty 08:59 Advice for students interested in attending UMHS

from University of Medicine and Health Sciences <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF3tGLVW8v4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF3tGLVW8v4</a> via UMHS YouTube Channel

May 21, 2022 at 01:55AM
via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF3tGLVW8v4

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