My hope is for crypto to just collapse and go away. No, I don’t agree that there’s anything good coming from it. Unless you deal with illegal activities, that is. NFT’s are ridiculous. I hope Apple doesn’t give in to them. If people buy them and they fail, as many have done, Apple will manage to get blamed for that, just as people who think Apple is a bank that can be squeezed to get money out of every time they fail to read the instructions and sue them.
Over many years, as a member since 2003, I have valued your opinions and analysis very, very highly. It seems though that you haven't looked at cryptographic technologies in an even-handed way. Stuff the NFTs (although beyond the very obvious scamming they offer great use cases), these technologies offer unheard of opportunities for privacy in a world where every little device and activity wants to own you. Many of my friends have given up fighting for their privacy and ostracised me, for example, for not using whatsapp to keep up with group activities. It would take a massive public movement for the fight to become mainstream and yet public activism is where change can be wrought. Devices and systems could be introduced labeled as 'ethical devices' being ones that use cryptography (and cryptocurrencies) to keep our identities and data private through every stage of collection, storage AND analysis. I view Apple's products now as ethical devices, however, privacy at even deeper levels is possible.
Many, many people over the years have lived their lives under the belief that they have nothing to hide from authorities or governments. I have too. That's fine, until the rules are changed. Cryptographic tech can shift the balance of power over privacy back in our favour, until at least quantum computing can be brought to bear on the task of cracking keys. Quantum secure tech is perhaps on the horizon though.
Crypto offers great possibilities but like all tech, can be used too for evil. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
What you are saying is true about cryptography. But we’re talking about blockchain tech, (which I do understand has strong cryptography built in). Cryptography is a good. Blockchain technology COULD be used for good, so far though it hasn’t. Pyramid schemes like Crypto, and flat out frauds like NFTs have tainted the technology. I’m still waiting for someone to use it for something that is not set up to steal, and allow criminals to hide their ill gotten gains. In the mean time I’ll be using clean cryptography to secure my stuff, and like you avoid whatsapp et.al.
My hope is for crypto to just collapse and go away. No, I don’t agree that there’s anything good coming from it. Unless you deal with illegal activities, that is. NFT’s are ridiculous. I hope Apple doesn’t give in to them. If people buy them and they fail, as many have done, Apple will manage to get blamed for that, just as people who think Apple is a bank that can be squeezed to get money out of every time they fail to read the instructions and sue them.
Over many years, as a member since 2003, I have valued your opinions and analysis very, very highly. It seems though that you haven't looked at cryptographic technologies in an even-handed way. Stuff the NFTs (although beyond the very obvious scamming they offer great use cases), these technologies offer unheard of opportunities for privacy in a world where every little device and activity wants to own you. Many of my friends have given up fighting for their privacy and ostracised me, for example, for not using whatsapp to keep up with group activities. It would take a massive public movement for the fight to become mainstream and yet public activism is where change can be wrought. Devices and systems could be introduced labeled as 'ethical devices' being ones that use cryptography (and cryptocurrencies) to keep our identities and data private through every stage of collection, storage AND analysis. I view Apple's products now as ethical devices, however, privacy at even deeper levels is possible.
Many, many people over the years have lived their lives under the belief that they have nothing to hide from authorities or governments. I have too. That's fine, until the rules are changed. Cryptographic tech can shift the balance of power over privacy back in our favour, until at least quantum computing can be brought to bear on the task of cracking keys. Quantum secure tech is perhaps on the horizon though.
Crypto offers great possibilities but like all tech, can be used too for evil. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
What you are saying is true about cryptography. But we’re talking about blockchain tech, (which I do understand has strong cryptography built in). Cryptography is a good. Blockchain technology COULD be used for good, so far though it hasn’t. Pyramid schemes like Crypto, and flat out frauds like NFTs have tainted the technology. I’m still waiting for someone to use it for something that is not set up to steal, and allow criminals to hide their ill gotten gains. In the mean time I’ll be using clean cryptography to secure my stuff, and like you avoid whatsapp et.al.
NFTs can be written and have been, that confer membership and voting rights to individuals of some organisation and nothing more. I agree strongly that NFT tech has been abused, as every tech is. Blockchain and other accounting methods such as directed acyclic graphs permit trustless transactions, rather than relying on some central (and highly corruptible) central authority (some crypto tech isn't quite there yet, relying on central authorities to watch over validation but the field is new and the learning curve steep).
Developers are working hard to achieve the vision for cryptocurrencies as a trustless, low-cost, low-energy and low-risk means of storing and transferring value, which can be thought of after all as simply information. One, Iota, does not charge a fee at all, as each participant functions as a validator (although this one is not yet fully de-centralised). Ethereum has in the past few days gone through a process called the 'Merge' that resulted in energy use dropping by likely over 95%, as they moved away from mining altogether.
In every tech there is opportunity for the good and the bad to prosper. I'd be surprised if Apple isn't looking very closely at opportunities to further employ crypto for the former.
I have no interest in NFTs. My comments are purely from thinking about it.
While an NFT is technically “software”, each one being unique and Individual , they are more like a physical item when we talk about buying and selling them. I would think that eBay would be the better comparison market wise than an App Store or streamer. Those are selling infinitely reproducible soft goods and as such lay commission. Selling an NFT is like selling a hard good that happens to be soft.
I have apps that allow buying and selling of crypto without commission. How is this really different?
again, I have no personal interest in NFT and only passing interest in crypto.
My understanding of an "NFT" is that it allows one to tell people that they are the owner of the image (or digital content) on the file. There could be thousands or millions of people that own a copy of the file but only the owner of the unique NFT can claim to be the owner of the digital contents of that file. Unless one got scammed.
It's the "NFT" token that identifies where the file is located in the blockchain, that is being sold and purchased. That token is what's one of a kind (or should be) and proves you own the digital contents of that file. But not necessarily own the copyright for that digital contents. Unless the artist also transferred over the copyrights with the purchase of the NFT. Copyright laws do not recognize that the owner of NFT, also owns the copyright to the digital contents.
Paying for an NFT allows you to brag that you paid for a file, that everyone else downloaded for free. Otherwise, it's the same file.
I have no interest in NFTs. My comments are purely from thinking about it.
While an NFT is technically “software”, each one being unique and Individual , they are more like a physical item when we talk about buying and selling them. I would think that eBay would be the better comparison market wise than an App Store or streamer. Those are selling infinitely reproducible soft goods and as such lay commission. Selling an NFT is like selling a hard good that happens to be soft.
I have apps that allow buying and selling of crypto without commission. How is this really different?
again, I have no personal interest in NFT and only passing interest in crypto.
My understanding of an "NFT" is that it allows one to tell people that they are the owner of the image (or digital content) on the file. There could be thousands or millions of people that own a copy of the file but only the owner of the unique NFT can claim to be the owner of the digital contents of that file. Unless one got scammed.
It's the "NFT" token that identifies where the file is located in the blockchain, that is being sold and purchased. That token is what's one of a kind (or should be) and proves you own the digital contents of that file. But not necessarily own the copyright for that digital contents. Unless the artist also transferred over the copyrights with the purchase of the NFT. Copyright laws do not recognize that the owner of NFT, also owns the copyright to the digital contents.
Paying for an NFT allows you to brag that you paid for a file, that everyone else downloaded for free. Otherwise, it's the same file.
Some of what you wrote is correct. The NFT does indeed denote ownership, however, the purchaser genuinely might be the only party with access to the work, which might be any form of information. For example, at least one country of which I am aware, is making land titles available via a NFT. Plural ownership outside the usual rules of shared ownership is definitely not acceptable under this model.
It is possible to store any information on the blockchain, however, this would be prohibitively expensive for say, an artwork due to the size of the file. The file is likely to be stored on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and the blockchain used to store a hash pointing to it. The IPFS is a part of the developments under the notion of Web 3.0. Your file could be stored anywhere but accessible only using the correct key.
First, should Apple have to allow crypto Ponzi schemes into their app store? No, of course not. Apple should stay far away from anything involving NFT or cryptocurrency. It's a scam.
Second, and just as important, people should be able to load ANY software of THEIR choice onto THEIR iPhone. It's not Apple's iPhone, it's their iPhone, and Apple has no right to gatekeep software like they do. Apple's actions should be criminal. (Note I didn't say MY iPhone this time like I usually do, I don't want this malware anywhere near my iPhone.
Third, crypto-scamming should be a crime too. We need new laws to ban NFTs and cryptocurrency. You have some? Congrats, the value is now zero, sell it and you go to jail.
My hope is for crypto to just collapse and go away. No, I don’t agree that there’s anything good coming from it. Unless you deal with illegal activities, that is. NFT’s are ridiculous. I hope Apple doesn’t give in to them. If people buy them and they fail, as many have done, Apple will manage to get blamed for that, just as people who think Apple is a bank that can be squeezed to get money out of every time they fail to read the instructions and sue them.
Over many years, as a member since 2003, I have valued your opinions and analysis very, very highly. It seems though that you haven't looked at cryptographic technologies in an even-handed way. Stuff the NFTs (although beyond the very obvious scamming they offer great use cases), these technologies offer unheard of opportunities for privacy in a world where every little device and activity wants to own you. Many of my friends have given up fighting for their privacy and ostracised me, for example, for not using whatsapp to keep up with group activities. It would take a massive public movement for the fight to become mainstream and yet public activism is where change can be wrought. Devices and systems could be introduced labeled as 'ethical devices' being ones that use cryptography (and cryptocurrencies) to keep our identities and data private through every stage of collection, storage AND analysis. I view Apple's products now as ethical devices, however, privacy at even deeper levels is possible.
Many, many people over the years have lived their lives under the belief that they have nothing to hide from authorities or governments. I have too. That's fine, until the rules are changed. Cryptographic tech can shift the balance of power over privacy back in our favour, until at least quantum computing can be brought to bear on the task of cracking keys. Quantum secure tech is perhaps on the horizon though.
Crypto offers great possibilities but like all tech, can be used too for evil. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
So far, crypto has not shown itself to be very secure. With most of its use being for illegality by individuals, it’s surprising how many of those networks have been taken down by the authorities and every transaction traced, with many people using those networks being arrested. Some major countries have banned all crypto mining and even use, while they prepare their own crypto which, as you can imagine, will be riddled with holes and spyware.
pretty much every crypto “bank” has been robbed, often of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto, while others have been subject to the fraud their owners have perpetuated.
bitcoin is useless as a currency medium because of the. Way it functions, only about a dozen transaction per day can go through for the entire world. Hardly useful, and a major problem that has divided the Bitcoin world as how to solve it have become a bitter fight between two factions. One will speed it up drastically, but will drastically lower the security of the transactions.
there are bugs in the code as well.
I’m sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree. I’ve been following this since Bitcoin first came out, I didn’t see it as useful then, and I don’t now. It’s mostly being used for speculation, not purchasing.
I think there's some confusion here over terminology. "Crypto" is now colloquially used to mean "cryptocurrency" rather than the original "cryptography."
Cryptography allows for the keeping of secrets by using mathematics to interpose a very hard problem between the information and those who wish to read it. There is a key which will more or less instantly solve the problem, allowing for secrets to be efficiently transferred between parties in plain view. This is what allows people to access their banking, medical, legal and other private information over the public internet with an acceptable level of risk.
Cryptocurrencies rely on cryptography to write transactions to a "distributed ledger" - multiple copies of the same document that get updated in near real time as soon as someone correctly guesses a very large random number and passes that key to the rest of the network. A certain number of transactions get written to this ledger after each successful guess, a calculation generates a number that represents the contents of the entire ledger (the "hash") and that number gets appended to the ledger, then the whole process starts again. It is computationally intensive work and since only the first correct guess is accepted there is a huge amount of wasted effort. But anyone can verify that the ledger has not been tampered with at any point, so as long as the majority of participants agree that all transactions are true the ledger (known as a "blockchain") is accepted as a valid representation of all transactions that have occurred. Note that this means a cabal of participants can set themselves up as a majority and thus determine "truth" for all participants.
NFTs are unique tokens that represent a transaction stored in the ledger. The terms of the transaction may be recorded in the ledger or, more commonly, as a separate document (that can, but is not necessarily, be hashed and included in the ledger entry). These terms optionally include details of access to some piece of digital media, and from my limited research it appears that rarely is "ownership" (in the colloquial sense) of that media included. Buying a NFT means asserting your identity as one of the parties to the transaction recorded in the ledger. That is all it gives, and while that is verifiably unique it's really hard to see it as valuable - any value is stored in the terms of the transaction; if the hash of those terms is not stored in the transaction (and remember, it doesn't have to be!) then it's just a promise from some random entity on the internet.
I believe NFTs started out as a workaround to the unchangeability of the blockchain. Once a transaction is written it cannot be modified without the permission of the majority of participants, which is hugely beneficial but sometimes a real pain. Abstracting a transaction into an entity in and of itself allows for a change to be made to the market reality without changing the original transaction, and since the change is itself another transaction recorded publicly the theoretical underpinnings of the system are upheld. Except, if another transaction is being written to the ledger anyway, why does anyone need this new process? My guess is that someone wanted to quickly solve a problem, didn't think through the consequences and their solution ended up being exploited.
As for Apple's policies... I fear this application of the company's power. In this case it's being used for a clear public good - cryptocurrencies, and especially NFTs, are just another mechanism for scammers to exploit the unwary. I don't believe the company is acting in accordance with its own rules, although I accept that's a matter of how you classify the transactions occurring within the app. If people are buying "virtual goods" then Apple's entitled to its commission, I just don't see how that's a logical description of what's happening. At the end of the day, it's the details of the argument rather than the nature of the participants that should be used to judge - and in this case I think Apple is in the wrong, even though in practical terms the outcome is an overall win for society.
My hope is for crypto to just collapse and go away. No, I don’t agree that there’s anything good coming from it. Unless you deal with illegal activities, that is. NFT’s are ridiculous. I hope Apple doesn’t give in to them. If people buy them and they fail, as many have done, Apple will manage to get blamed for that, just as people who think Apple is a bank that can be squeezed to get money out of every time they fail to read the instructions and sue them.
Over many years, as a member since 2003, I have valued your opinions and analysis very, very highly. It seems though that you haven't looked at cryptographic technologies in an even-handed way. Stuff the NFTs (although beyond the very obvious scamming they offer great use cases), these technologies offer unheard of opportunities for privacy in a world where every little device and activity wants to own you. Many of my friends have given up fighting for their privacy and ostracised me, for example, for not using whatsapp to keep up with group activities. It would take a massive public movement for the fight to become mainstream and yet public activism is where change can be wrought. Devices and systems could be introduced labeled as 'ethical devices' being ones that use cryptography (and cryptocurrencies) to keep our identities and data private through every stage of collection, storage AND analysis. I view Apple's products now as ethical devices, however, privacy at even deeper levels is possible.
Many, many people over the years have lived their lives under the belief that they have nothing to hide from authorities or governments. I have too. That's fine, until the rules are changed. Cryptographic tech can shift the balance of power over privacy back in our favour, until at least quantum computing can be brought to bear on the task of cracking keys. Quantum secure tech is perhaps on the horizon though.
Crypto offers great possibilities but like all tech, can be used too for evil. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
So far, crypto has not shown itself to be very secure. With most of its use being for illegality by individuals, it’s surprising how many of those networks have been taken down by the authorities and every transaction traced, with many people using those networks being arrested. Some major countries have banned all crypto mining and even use, while they prepare their own crypto which, as you can imagine, will be riddled with holes and spyware.
pretty much every crypto “bank” has been robbed, often of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto, while others have been subject to the fraud their owners have perpetuated.
bitcoin is useless as a currency medium because of the. Way it functions, only about a dozen transaction per day can go through for the entire world. Hardly useful, and a major problem that has divided the Bitcoin world as how to solve it have become a bitter fight between two factions. One will speed it up drastically, but will drastically lower the security of the transactions.
there are bugs in the code as well.
I’m sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree. I’ve been following this since Bitcoin first came out, I didn’t see it as useful then, and I don’t now. It’s mostly being used for speculation, not purchasing.
Thanks for your reply. I too am not interested in Bitcoin. Other, more advanced cryptocurrencies have been released and other technologies applied, such as the use of directed acyclic graphs which are fast and cheap to use (and don't require mining). Ethereum has in the past few days successfully moved off mining altogether and is working on a solution to transaction speeds. This is quite new tech. Some provide ways of doing things that aren't possible otherwise.
The problem with cryptocurrencies and authorities, is that some are offered for sale (at first in ICOs, initial coin offerings) where they actually have no assets backing them up. These are viewed as securities and likely invariably violate securities regulations. These should be taken down. This isn't the case with all though and governments are looking hard for ways to make them illegal.
If Bitcoin is the only exposure you have had to cryptocurrencies (which is an unfortunate term dating to the beginnings of Bitcoin), then I can understand your doubts.
Comments
In the mean time I’ll be using clean cryptography to secure my stuff, and like you avoid whatsapp et.al.
Developers are working hard to achieve the vision for cryptocurrencies as a trustless, low-cost, low-energy and low-risk means of storing and transferring value, which can be thought of after all as simply information. One, Iota, does not charge a fee at all, as each participant functions as a validator (although this one is not yet fully de-centralised). Ethereum has in the past few days gone through a process called the 'Merge' that resulted in energy use dropping by likely over 95%, as they moved away from mining altogether.
In every tech there is opportunity for the good and the bad to prosper. I'd be surprised if Apple isn't looking very closely at opportunities to further employ crypto for the former.
NFTs are a total scam, though. Can’t say I feel bad.
It's the "NFT" token that identifies where the file is located in the blockchain, that is being sold and purchased. That token is what's one of a kind (or should be) and proves you own the digital contents of that file. But not necessarily own the copyright for that digital contents. Unless the artist also transferred over the copyrights with the purchase of the NFT. Copyright laws do not recognize that the owner of NFT, also owns the copyright to the digital contents.
Paying for an NFT allows you to brag that you paid for a file, that everyone else downloaded for free. Otherwise, it's the same file.
It is possible to store any information on the blockchain, however, this would be prohibitively expensive for say, an artwork due to the size of the file. The file is likely to be stored on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and the blockchain used to store a hash pointing to it. The IPFS is a part of the developments under the notion of Web 3.0. Your file could be stored anywhere but accessible only using the correct key.
pretty much every crypto “bank” has been robbed, often of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto, while others have been subject to the fraud their owners have perpetuated.
bitcoin is useless as a currency medium because of the. Way it functions, only about a dozen transaction per day can go through for the entire world. Hardly useful, and a major problem that has divided the Bitcoin world as how to solve it have become a bitter fight between two factions. One will speed it up drastically, but will drastically lower the security of the transactions.
there are bugs in the code as well.
I’m sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree. I’ve been following this since Bitcoin first came out, I didn’t see it as useful then, and I don’t now. It’s mostly being used for speculation, not purchasing.
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
Cryptography allows for the keeping of secrets by using mathematics to interpose a very hard problem between the information and those who wish to read it. There is a key which will more or less instantly solve the problem, allowing for secrets to be efficiently transferred between parties in plain view. This is what allows people to access their banking, medical, legal and other private information over the public internet with an acceptable level of risk.
Cryptocurrencies rely on cryptography to write transactions to a "distributed ledger" - multiple copies of the same document that get updated in near real time as soon as someone correctly guesses a very large random number and passes that key to the rest of the network. A certain number of transactions get written to this ledger after each successful guess, a calculation generates a number that represents the contents of the entire ledger (the "hash") and that number gets appended to the ledger, then the whole process starts again. It is computationally intensive work and since only the first correct guess is accepted there is a huge amount of wasted effort. But anyone can verify that the ledger has not been tampered with at any point, so as long as the majority of participants agree that all transactions are true the ledger (known as a "blockchain") is accepted as a valid representation of all transactions that have occurred. Note that this means a cabal of participants can set themselves up as a majority and thus determine "truth" for all participants.
NFTs are unique tokens that represent a transaction stored in the ledger. The terms of the transaction may be recorded in the ledger or, more commonly, as a separate document (that can, but is not necessarily, be hashed and included in the ledger entry). These terms optionally include details of access to some piece of digital media, and from my limited research it appears that rarely is "ownership" (in the colloquial sense) of that media included. Buying a NFT means asserting your identity as one of the parties to the transaction recorded in the ledger. That is all it gives, and while that is verifiably unique it's really hard to see it as valuable - any value is stored in the terms of the transaction; if the hash of those terms is not stored in the transaction (and remember, it doesn't have to be!) then it's just a promise from some random entity on the internet.
I believe NFTs started out as a workaround to the unchangeability of the blockchain. Once a transaction is written it cannot be modified without the permission of the majority of participants, which is hugely beneficial but sometimes a real pain. Abstracting a transaction into an entity in and of itself allows for a change to be made to the market reality without changing the original transaction, and since the change is itself another transaction recorded publicly the theoretical underpinnings of the system are upheld. Except, if another transaction is being written to the ledger anyway, why does anyone need this new process? My guess is that someone wanted to quickly solve a problem, didn't think through the consequences and their solution ended up being exploited.
As for Apple's policies... I fear this application of the company's power. In this case it's being used for a clear public good - cryptocurrencies, and especially NFTs, are just another mechanism for scammers to exploit the unwary. I don't believe the company is acting in accordance with its own rules, although I accept that's a matter of how you classify the transactions occurring within the app. If people are buying "virtual goods" then Apple's entitled to its commission, I just don't see how that's a logical description of what's happening. At the end of the day, it's the details of the argument rather than the nature of the participants that should be used to judge - and in this case I think Apple is in the wrong, even though in practical terms the outcome is an overall win for society.
The problem with cryptocurrencies and authorities, is that some are offered for sale (at first in ICOs, initial coin offerings) where they actually have no assets backing them up. These are viewed as securities and likely invariably violate securities regulations. These should be taken down. This isn't the case with all though and governments are looking hard for ways to make them illegal.
If Bitcoin is the only exposure you have had to cryptocurrencies (which is an unfortunate term dating to the beginnings of Bitcoin), then I can understand your doubts.