Can someone explain to me Bitcoins? [2013]

[MfA]

Ultimately it was the feigned respectability which caused the 2008 crisis. Everyone deep down knew the real estate bubble was (and is) unsustainable and most of the loans junk, but the rating agencies gave out AAA/AA marks like candy and there was money to be made (the asset bubble has as of yet not led to rating agencies dressing up junk as investment grade yet I think, so the collapse should be less dangerous).

Everyone deep down knows cryptocurrency is just tulip mania (with the exception of the full reserve national currency backed ones, which just use lax cryptocurrency regulations to do cheaper money transfer). But the media says it's okay and there's money to be made.

 

[green.pixel]

I think that ultimately bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are about the old story, creation of new markets and commodification of new areas of life, albeit fictitious kind of commodity in Polanyi sense. New lucrative human capital social impact markets that will securitize the lives of people as data streams.

 

[MfA]

What area of life? Malware?

 

[green.pixel]

No. Trust, recognition, identification, care, respect, translation and interpretation.

 

[MfA]

I'm not seeing it, seeing a lot of malware though.

 

[pcchen]

I'm not seeing it, seeing a lot of malware though.

Daily bitcoin trading volume is around US$30 billion in value. How much of that is related to malware?

 

[MfA]

I'd say about half a percent. Of course the financial damage inflicted is probably on the same scale of that daily bitcoin volume ... because that's orders of magnitude more than the actual ransom. I'm not a big environmentalist so the energy doesn't sway me too much, but the sheer economic damage incurred due to cryptocurrency facilitating malware is staggering. Someone needs to get some fucking balls and kill it, unfortunately only Trump would have big enough balls to do it if the fancy took him.

We're getting close to a whole percentage point of global GDP redistribution to criminals and malware damage repair AND global electricity use ... what do we get in return? A fucking lottery for nerds and gamblers.

Bitcoin is unconscionable for any reasonable thinking human being. Only the intentionally naive, the stupid and the evil support it. Take the blinders off and see it for what it is FFS.

Bitcoin is utterly fucking evil, not in intent but in results.

 

[pcchen]

Sorry,I don’t buy it. Half a percent of 30 billion is 150 million every day. That’s mean something about twice the level of the ISS World attack in Denmark (probably the largest in 2020, the cost of total recovery including cost of down time and overhauling the IT system to prevent future attacks was estimated at about 100 million) happening every day in total. I have to say that I find it unlikely.
Typical ransom ware costs are estimated in the tens to hundreds of thousand range.

 

[zed]

It may be higher than you think. Also theres 2 things. The actual ransom paid & also money lost because your organization was dealing with the IT infrastructure being out of order.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adambr...re-and-how-we-stop-paying-it/?sh=5fcf3a656e51

Taking all this into account, it comes as no surprise that our study unearthed some pretty stark numbers. First among this is that the costs associated with recovering from a successful ransomware attack nearly double if you have to pay the ransom, from £576,700 for organisations that don’t pay the ransom to £1.14 million for organisations that do.

Across all the countries surveyed, an average of 15% said that they had not been hit by ransomware and didn’t expect to be.

85% thats very prevalent
Hell thats far higher than I thought, I guessed ~1%

Ive been good at backing my data up online & offline with removable storage often. Reading this makes me think maybe I need to even be more viligant.
I know some individuals have been hit but I dont often hear of it, has it happened to anyone here?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The 2008 crisis had nothing to do with centralized money, but all to do with unlimited leveraging.

And unfortunately, they only took on riskier home mortgage loans because the government enacted provisions to guarantee loans to low income (IE - riskier) home buyers. Left to their own devices and without those government assurances. Fanny Mae's restrictions being relaxed in 2004 as well as Freddy Mac loosening restrictions in 2004 due to pressure to "do more" to help low income families buy homes.

Bleh. Banks were already doing the right thing prior to that in assessing risk and not loaning money to people at high risk of defaulting on their mortgage. Unfortunately, some sectors of the government in trying to make housing more affordable basically encouraged banks to lend money to low income households who are more at risk to default.

So, while on the surface Banks were at fault, they were only at fault by doing what the government wanted them to do. Make loans to risky low income families.

Regards,
SB

 

[Putas]

So, while on the surface Banks were at fault, they were only at fault by doing what the government wanted them to do. Make loans to risky low income families.

Which did not cause the crisis. Why do you stop the story here?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Which did not cause the crisis. Why do you stop the story here?

But it did. While the government had no direct control over those entities prior to 2008, those entities received significant benefits from the government, and as such the government held influence on what direction those entities took WRT their rules and regulations.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, those benefits were worth approximately 6.4 billion USD to those entities.

So, while there was a misperception that the government guaranteed Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae loans, the government wielded considerable power in determining to whom those loans would be made available.

Of course there's always more to it, and private underwriters also contributed, but without Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae also lowering the standards for whom they would guarantee home mortgage loans, the market would likely not have crashed and if it did, it wouldn't have crashed even remotely as badly as it did.

But with them lowering their standards from a combination of competition from private underwriters and pressure from the Federal Government to ease restrictions on risk assessment for low income families, it was basically inevitable that the crash was going to happen.

Regards,
SB

 

[Putas]

Some small crash, perhaps, I can see such possibility if stars allign. But why do you avoid the big one though?

 

[Nesh]

Not completely independent institutions.

The Bank of England does what it is bloody well told, more or less and it will be the same in the US. The problem is that the politicians telling them to do what they are bloody well told are too often beholden to the financial sector.

The current useless Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, Rishi Sunak, worked for Goldman Sachs then became a hedgie before entering politics. Needless to say, he's not going to do anything which seriously impacts the power of capital in the UK. At least, not wittingly. He doesn't appear capable of thinking his way out of a paper bag.

This is not how it works. By default Central banks are indeoentent to avoid political cycles and partisan influences.

The Central Bank of the US was formed based on this idea and to "regulate" the banking sector so another financial crisis would never be repeated.

The tax payer/voter doesnt decide absolutely on anything related.

If the British Central Bank works differently its a peculiar outlier.

 

[Mariner]

The Governor of the Bank of England is appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is it, then, any sort of a surprise that the Governor of the BoE does pretty much what he's told?

It's something we do well, here in the UK. The board of the Office of Budget Responsibility, the 'independent' analyst of government economic policy, is also appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, oddly enough! Their forecasts always tend to match the budgetary claims of the Chancellor of the day, unsurprisingly.

The 'independence' of the BoE is a sham wrapped up in a facade, I'm afraid.

 

[pcchen]

85% thats very prevalent
Hell thats far higher than I thought, I guessed ~1%

The prevalence rate is 51% among the organizations surveyed, not 85%. The 15% is those either with very good security they are confident they won't be hit, or those with the false security that they won't be hit (more likely to be the latter, unfortunately).
Data leaks are probably more prevalent and likely more damaging to larger organizations though. Ransomwares are mostly random attacks. Targeted attacks are more likely from attackers who know what they are after (and can sell the stolen data for much more money).

 

[zed]

The prevalence rate is 51% among the organizations surveyed, not 85%

Yes its a bit confusing, its 51% globally in the last year and it seems as if the 85% is they have been hit by ransomeware sometime previously (actually rereading its very confusing its like theyve mixed up things)

Across all the countries surveyed, an average of 15% said that they had not been hit by ransomware and didn’t expect to be. This rises to 21% for the UK. In other words: more than one in five UK organisations believes ransomware won’t happen to them.

first half 'it has happened' and dont expect it to happen second half is prediction in the future
Amyways its a LOT higher than I thought it was

 

[pcchen]

Yes its a bit confusing, its 51% globally in the last year and it seems as if the 85% is they have been hit by ransomeware sometime previously (actually rereading its very confusing its like theyve mixed up things)
first half 'it has happened' and dont expect it to happen second half is prediction in the future
Amyways its a LOT higher than I thought it was

Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately the IT infrastructures of many large corporations still leave a lot to be desired. Of course, security is hard, but ransomwares generally don't use expensive 0-day exploits. Normal security practices should be able to mitigate most of them.

 

[Davros]

Their forecasts always tend to match the budgetary claims of the Chancellor of the day,

Maybe the budgetary claims of the Chancellor are based on the forecasts ?

 

[Mariner]

Maybe the budgetary claims of the Chancellor are based on the forecasts ?

Most of them seem to be based on excessive use of ketamine, if you ask me. Yes, of course we're going to have a V-shaped recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic!