iqatedo

DAalseth said:

iqatedo said:

melgross said:

 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.

melgross said:

 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.

Crypto technologies including cryptocurrencies are old technologies dressed for the modern age. They do and will make activities possible that are currently not and have huge potential for good, such as a means of personal privacy in public and corporate spaces that is currently not possible. NFTs have in many cases earned a justifiably poor reputation, however, they permit quite admirable use cases too. The cat is out of the bag and isn't getting shoved back in...

Received these moments ago and an alert popped up that an update to iOS 16 was required for full functionality to be enabled. My iPhone Xs Max is telling me that with iOS 15.7 I am up to date. Interested in experiences others have had of 16.

Still using my iPhone X. The battery health is at 84% and still supporting peak performance. The phone is unmarked, 'feels' new and hasn't disappointed over the past 5 years. Thinking going to the 14 Pro Max and using the X as my primary bike computer as it talks to my power sensing pedals and heart rate sensor. Unsure though about constant exposure to direct sunlight in the heat of our summers. I have been using it for years in this capacity but hidden away in a pocket out of direct sunlight.