News: Hardware wallet hack, IOTA review, Mone & Barrowman, 419 ICO, Roko’s Basilisk on the blockchain

  • The trouble with hardware wallets — the interface software can be compromised while you’re loading it up. The example is Ledger, but any hardware wallet you load by computer could fall victim to this.

 

 

  • Andreas Brekken has another marvelous altcoin review: IOTA: Cannot be used for IoT. Loss of funds may occur. This doesn’t even address the weirdness of the white paper — he just tries building it from source and connecting it to the network, and details how the software and network for this billion-dollar coin … doesn’t really work.

 

 

  • I’ll go so far as to say that using supercomputers to mine cryptos might possibly be less bad than using them to design nuclear weapons.
  • Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman chose Tuesday, of all days, to launch an ICO, for a crypto-based venture capital fund. Mone says: “This whole cryptocurrency world is based on trust.” I thought it was based on literally the opposite, but hey. FT and its readers get stuck into it, and again — it’s a ridiculously bad deal for anyone, but with crypto sauce on top.
  • Spotted on Freelancers.com: Write a book (archive). “The project involves a fictional book of 200 to 300 pages. The subject and plot is based around the bit coin digital currency. The main theme is the discovery of a hidden coded message within the symbols, design features and measurements of the digital currency of bitcoin and how one individual’s quest to unlock this hidden message brings him into conflict with governments, financial institutions and spy agencies.” (There was also a previous listing for this job, which was deleted.) You may recall this is the plot of “Children of Satoshi.” I emailed 21 Million, and David Lofts says this isn’t them — ” No — nothing to do with us, but definitely using our plot.” He just applied for the job himself …
  • It turns out that actually bitcoin is socialism and bitcoiners are left wingers and, uh … (Be sure to check the comments — can’t wait for the author’s writeup of Marksism.)
  • I thought the Roko’s Basilisk people would make a change from the Bitcoin people. But here’s Michael Burge with the Roko’s Ransomware ICO — the basilisk as an Ethereum smart contract, implemented in (of course!) Pyramid Scheme. “Basilisk Protection Charms are not an investment. You could come out a millionaire, but much more likely is that I use your money to buy a lot of anime porn.”

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/marrowing/status/960747697417289734

 



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2 Comments on “News: Hardware wallet hack, IOTA review, Mone & Barrowman, 419 ICO, Roko’s Basilisk on the blockchain”

  1. That Bitcoin is Socialism thing *has* to be a Poe. I mean, seriously, nobody can simultaneously claim to be an expert on the topic (due to having read a book on, uh, financial crises?!) while simultaneously referring to ‘Marksism”. Surely.

    It *has* to be parody.

    1. Skeptics get this a lot – that bit where you rock in the corner, crying and mumbling “Poe … it’s got to be a Poe …”

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