Sinkhole Sucks Brains From Wasteful Bitcoin Mining Botnet 203
judgecorp writes "A sinkhole has taken a quarter of the bots out of the ZeroAcess botnet which was making money for its operators through click fraud and Bitcoin mining. This particular Bitcoin mining operation was only profitable through the use of stolen electricity — according to Symantec, which operated the sinkhole, ZeroAccess was using $561,000 of electricity a day on infected PCs, to generate about $2000 worth of Bitcoin."
RoI (Score:4, Insightful)
" ZeroAccess was using $561,000 of electricity a day on infected PCs, to generate about $2000 worth of Bitcoin/"
Just as with government spending, the important the RoI must take into account the origin of each money input.
i.e.: The $2,000 must not be compared to the $561,000, but to the cost of developing/acquiring the botnet.
Re:RoI (Score:5, Interesting)
It would if we were interested in the botnet owner' profit margin. However, we're more interested in what costs the botnet owner impose on society in comparison to his private gains. Someone who would smash a $1000 computer to gain $1000 for himself is deemed less contemptible than the one would do it for $1 for himself.
Re:RoI (Score:5, Interesting)
It would if we were interested in the botnet owner' profit margin. However, we're more interested in what costs the botnet owner impose on society in comparison to his private gains. Someone who would smash a $1000 computer to gain $1000 for himself is deemed less contemptible than the one would do it for $1 for himself.
I'm not sure about that. There was an article in a local paper about someone who did £1,000 worth of damage breaking into a soft-top sports car to steal a pack of biscuits on the seat. The general consensus was that he was a loser and a moron but he got a lower fine than someone stealing £1,000 worth of goods woula have done.
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Philistines (Score:2)
The account is that the Israelites received Divine Punishment For Something that the Ark of the Covenant was captured by their enemy, the Philistines.
Now the Ark didn't do much good for the Philistines either. I guess they took it as a war trophy or because it was kewl, but they didn't believe in the religion behind the Ark so their possession of it was a sacrilege. In the Hollywood movie, the Ark melted the faces of the Nazis, who coveted the Ark bu
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Personally I liken these muppets to the idiots who steal Henry Moore sculptures and melt them down for scrap!
Oh, I thought those people were called "Folks with good taste." :-)
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If I can reference fiction: Even Jean Valjean was sent to prison because he broke the window, not for stealing the bread.
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I'm not sure about that. There was an article in a local paper about someone who did £1,000 worth of damage breaking into a soft-top sports car to steal a pack of biscuits on the seat. The general consensus was that he was a loser and a moron but he got a lower fine than someone stealing £1,000 worth of goods woula have done.
Personally I think he should be punished ten times harder.
Re:RoI (Score:4, Informative)
The moron was the owner of the car.
Speaking as an old California boy, who has always had convertibles... anyone who locks the doors of a convertible deserves what they get.
Not necessarily in the UK, where leaving a car unlocked can be grounds for the insurance refusing to pay out if it gets stolen. -- ~~~~
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I have a difficult time believing that there are no special rules/exemptions for convertibles. They would seriously demand that you lock your doors to protect fifty bucks worth of groceries, AND be fully prepared to pay for the replacement of your top when somebody sliced it to open the door lock and get at those groceries?
I don't know about every policy, but this is typical [diamond.co.uk]:
What is not covered?
...
...
* loss or damage caused by theft or attempted theft or fire if your car has been unlocked and unattended or the keys have been left in or on your car
* property from an open and/or unlocked convertable car, unless the property was locked in the boot or glove compartment
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They would seriously demand that you lock your doors to protect fifty bucks worth of groceries, AND be fully prepared to pay for the replacement of your top when somebody sliced it to open the door lock and get at those groceries?
You have no idea how mandated insurance works, do you? They don't really pay for the replacement of your top. You and all the other insured do that. Since you're required by law to have car insurance, you're still going to get the insurance even though it's unfair. And because it's mandated, all the insurance companies can abuse you, because there's more money in it than being the one that doesn't — who will quickly find themselves put out of business by all the others one way or another. Maybe buying
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Right. Because there are no protections against price fixing ;)
In reality, if you have enough insurance companies to choose from, there is a competative market and the companies have to respond to market pressure. Car insurance is a pretty good example of this in most states.
Sadly, market pressure usually involves everyone going straight to the bottom of the barrel, which is conducive to garbage service. (See Airlines)
That said, my experience with my car ensurance company has been quite equitable. My parent
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Only *third party* insurance is mandated. Someone stealing your car or someone damaging it to get to the contents is not covered by *third party* insurance. If you want these things to be insured, you need to get theft coverage or comprehensive coverage (which covers damage you do to your car which was your fault). So no, you're not necessarily going to get more than the minimum insurance if you're trying to save money.
In any case car insurance (at least in Britain) is a ruthlessly competitive market. There
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What country has requires insurance cover fro your own losses? Most* western countries mandate coverage for 3rd party losses, but not losses incurred by the car owner.
* Note. Many states in the USA require coverage, but the amount of coverage required is so low that the mandate might as well be removed.
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A friend of mine (In the USA) had his car window smashed in by someone stealing his GPS. It was January, and he had a very uncomfortable ride home that night. The kicker? The doors were unlocked. The jerk who stole the GPS could've just lifted the handle, but smashed a window instead.
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I don't see why that is. You're still costing someone $1000, theft, fraud, whatever you like to call it. What the thief makes in end effect should be irrelevant. It's not like Bernie Madoff is a better guy because he got away with only a fraction of what his pyramid scheme stole.
Cause property damage is not stealing. (Score:2)
Get little overexcited pressing that elevator button too hard and you can cause property damage that may end up costing the owner hundreds of dollars in repairs.
You may not have had that intention but they got you on camera and they're gonna sue.
On the other hand, if they got you on camera stealing money or goods of the same nominal value - they'll just call the cops on your ass.
Cause it's a completely different situation.
People tend not to accidentally steal other people's property.
But people tend to want
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No, the $561,000 should be compared to the cost of smashing the botnet. What the botnet arseholes make is of purely idle interest.
Re:RoI (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good illustration about how wealth transfer works, though. Each economic activity has a cost. Economic activities which are rent-seeking--which draw increased revenue without increasing actual value--are damaging in this way. Economic waste is also damaging in this way.
This is why, for example, overpricing the market by artificially limiting supply (labor i.e. electricians and plumbers, goods i.e. diamonds, etc.) makes some people rich but has a disproportionate cost--the profiteers gain $100,000, but the net economic impact is $150,000 or so, and so the economy is $50,000 less wealthy but these folks don't care because they're $100,000 more wealthy and fuck everyone else.
This is also how churn of goods works. Tearing down a bridge that needs $1M of work to remain viable for 10 years to instead rebuild a $100M bridge in its place doesn't make the economy stronger; it temporarily creates jobs at the expense of whoever's paying for the bridge (usually taxpayers), who end up poorer, thus don't spend as much in their local economy or in the wider (national, global) market, weakening the economy overall by reducing its ability to respond to new opportunities and instead diverting money to bridge builders.
Also like the bridge, buying a new iPhone every 3 months--a more personal decision, but one with the same impact, and one that's not "DEH GUBERMENT SHUDNT BE SO SOZIALIST!" Yes, we can have that same socialist wealth destruction in a completely capitalist free market by people being idiots. On the other hand, handing down that iPhone to someone who has less money and will get it free or at a discount will keep the wealth in society. That's why I encourage people to donate their old goods to i.e. Good Will or such, rather than trashing them. Those things still useful retain value, and passing them on at steep discount to those who cannot afford such goods will enrich society by retaining wealth that would otherwise be lost to landfilling or re-processing (recycling, etc., investing more labor) perfectly useful goods.
In this case, a lot of folks are poorer and a lot of resources are wasted; but power companies are a good deal richer, and the botnet operators have more money. Society is poorer, a few players are richer. The botnet operators are as a small boy who walks through the town periodically breaking random windows so that the glazier can retain his job... and he's coming to break your window, at $50 a pane to replace.
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Do you really think powerful men will allow someone who is out to decrease the money and power in the hands of powerful men to get into a position of power where he can decrease the money and power in the hands of those powerful men?
Politicians will always be able to win debates. Debates aren't about being correct; they're about gaining audience support. Aside from that, look at Ron Paul... remember the #1, #2, and #4 placers of the Republican Nomination or whatever in 2012? I'm not paying attention e
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You're looking at this like it was a legitimate business, rather than the thievery that it is. This is like coming home to find your central air unit ruined because thieves stole the copper. The thieves net maybe a hundred bucks, you're out ten times that much. It isn't like the bot herders PAID for the electricity and use of the machines, they broke in and stole that electricity.
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I played a bit with a miner on my computer for a while just to understand Bitcoin a little better. I calculated the difference in electricity use between my computer idling and mining. Even ignoring hardware cost (it was already bought for other purposes, after all) and only calculating the DIFFERENCE between idle and mining (the computer is always on), projected profits on the mining didn't even cover the difference in electricity usage, and my electricity costs aren't high.
Part of this has to do with th
Dissapointed (Score:3)
Being only vaguely familiar with hacker jargon, I was expecting an actual sinkhole: in the ground, into which computers were literally falling.
This is why I am unimpressed with BitCoin (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, as has been demonstrated here, the economics of producing bitcoins mean that there is a huge incentive to use stolen resources to produce them. Secure currency? No, just another incentive to create botnets.
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The introduction of ASIC mining have made botnet obsolete.
Is it relevant (Score:2)
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Except that it must still be profitable to do it with ASICS or whatever it is they're using these days. Eventually that will be a waste of time too.
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Bitcoins will only be desirable so long as people can get them for 'free'.
After that, what's the point? It's just another exchange medium. Not going to revolutionize anything.
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I believe he means scarcity of minable bitcoins. Once you can't mine them why would I or anyone not already in on the scheme want in?
They can be divisible to 1000 decimal points, if the only way in is to buy something you generated for a couple cents of power for real money I won't bother.
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Capitalism works because it is easy to convince people that they need/want to be exploited.
Well, it's even easier to convince a computer that they "should" be doing something.
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A few months ago I mentioned that botnets would be used for bitcoin mining and everybody was all over me saying it could never work because people would be suspicious of their machines running at 100% all day and start running scans. Yet here we are...
Re:In other words, mining for bitcoin is not at al (Score:5, Insightful)
A few months ago I mentioned that botnets would be used for bitcoin mining and everybody was all over me saying it could never work because people would be suspicious of their machines running at 100% all day and start running scans. Yet here we are...
No, no-one except for a troll was all over you, to everyone else that was obvious and they didn't care about your post.
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The assertion was that botnets were more valuable for doing other things, that drawing attention to yourself by mining (using 100% CPU) was counterproductive.
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That might be true - if they can get a binary onto your system that uses CUDA, that doesn't show up as 100% CPU usage at all. But you might as well use 100% of the CPU as well. Put it at the lowest priority but eat every remaining cycle. Look for taskmgr.exe and decrease production when that task is running.
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I'd notice the fan noise...
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Yes - and you probably would never get infected in the first place. We're not talking about people quite as smart.
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For that matter, any popular website could be used for mining via page hits e.g. a site could throw a hash computation into every page served, store the result in a cookie and return the result with the next request. It'd probably happen so fast people wouldn't even notice their CPU cycles being stolen. Perhaps some sites are already do this.
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Why don't people still not kill the zombie computers when a botnet is discovered and they have control over a Command Server?
In my perspective that would teach the people that security is more important than they realize.
And yeah i know that could kill some essential piece of hardware. And to that my response is. WTF. Why is an essential piece of hardware on the internet and not secure? This isn't 1970 when the internet was 2 computers and they had line of sight to validate trust.
So what you are saying is that you deserve to be punished every time you accidentaly hurt yourself?
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if that hurting yourself brings other people in danger, yes.
Some people are that stupid that this is the only way of learning from their mistakes.
I can go and discuss a lot of reasons why this is off course stupid but if people already read my post that means they probably are smart enough to see that this is not realistic with current laws and consequences but hell, somebody had to say it.
Re:Kill the zombies (Score:4, Informative)
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DUI, per se, that is, driving with a BAC over a certain number, is not harmful. Getting into an accident is harmful. And there is some evidence that people who DUI have a higher chance of getting into accidents.
Of course, there is just as much evidence that being fat/out of shape due to poor eating/exercising habits is harmful. For instance, it takes real time and money to send an ambulance out when you get a heart attack (caused by cholesterol caused by poor eating). Government mandated diets and exercis
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No, but they do revoke your privileges to drive...
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There's no license required to drive on a private road, either.
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On the uni network I was plugged into some years ago infected machines were redirected to a quarantine page that said "You are infected. Fix it and tell us about it. After that we'll restore your normal access to the network". I think the quarantining was automated, the unquarantining was not. This could go a long way without breaking machines.
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So what you are saying is that you deserve to be punished every time you accidentaly hurt yourself?
Infected PCs are not just hurting themselves. They're putting an uncessary burden on the PC, potentially compromising any other PC on the same network, and potentially compromising any other person the owner has a relationship with.
At the very least I think ISPs should be well within their rights to disable access to the subscriber if there was cause to believe the machine was infected.
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That's like arguing that the solution to a 'flu outbreak is to just kill all the people with 'flu. The benefit gained is small compared to the cost.
Re:Kill the zombies (Score:5, Funny)
To be fair, killing people with flu would reduce healthcare costs, and would increase the number of jobs available (or reduce the state pension costs if the person is retired). The undertaking business would also boom during Winter months, and inheritance tax income would be higher because people would be more likely to have higher savings due to dying early. Of course it would increase training costs for companies whose employees have been killed, so it's not all good news. Also, it might upset some family members.
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What a modest proposal.
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What a modest proposal.
Just like the proposal to institute "daylight saving" time... and we all know how that joke turned out.
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because it would jail them in prison.
simple.
legally it's pretty iffy, since if you said that it was ok to hack command&control and then to do anything you want with them.. would be akin to hacking steam servers and using all the steam clients to do whatever you want.
Re:Figured it out yet? (Score:5, Informative)
What is it with Slashdot and people using the phrase "Ponzi scheme" to refer to anything they think is a scam?
Yes, Bitcoin mining becomes less profitable over time, because the goal of the system is not to make people money, but to create a sustainable currency. The "gold rush" was engineered in to build up the basic level of hardware needed to make the system useful, and now that there are a lot of bitcoin machines doing transactions we no longer need to hand out a reward for showing up.
Re:Figured it out yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
If all of the bitcoins have been mined then surely either the currency will collapse, or inflation will be rampant. If inflation is rampant then people will just hoard the coins and the currency will collapse. Also I'm guessing bitcoins will be 'lost' in the same way that gold or paper notes are lost, so long term without the ability to mine new coins the total number is gonna go down.
I might be missing something but I have a feeling that a proper currency probably needs new money. A proper useful currency anyway.
(deflation) (Score:3)
You're thinking of deflation [wikipedia.org], not inflation which is the opposite.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Figured it out yet? (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with Fractional Reserve Banking is that there is no real money. Fiat currency is by nature imaginary; but in this case fiat currency isn't printed and spent into the economy, but rather loaned into existence. That means every piece of currency in existence is basically owed to someone else, with the caveat that it's probably not in the hands of the debtor who owes it to said creditor.
On top of this, loans necessarily incur interest, meaning more money is required to pay off the loan than borrowed, meaning inflation, meaning that every piece of currency that comes into existence causes inflation and immediately creates a need for more currency to come into existence at a later date. It's not that predictably later we will need more currency because of another action, but that the event of currency becoming accessible creates the situation that more currency needs to be made accessible.
In essence, each unit of currency loaned into existence causes inflation by increasing the money supply ("printing money") and by increasing the amount of money owed (monetary demand to pay off the interest). We operate on a negative currency system, where the system becomes more and more poor as the amount of currency increases. Our entire economy is continuously indebted, and the growth of the money supply is accomplished by the growth of debt and the continuous loss of wealth.
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In essence, each unit of currency loaned into existence causes inflation by increasing the money supply ("printing money") and by increasing the amount of money owed (monetary demand to pay off the interest).
Maybe it does cause inflation, and maybe it doesn't. The key factor here is that currency is the medium of exchange of wealth (goods and services). If the interest rate is less than the growth of wealth, you get a situation where the goods per dollar rises - deflation. If the interest rate is higher than the growth of wealth, you get a situation where the goods per dollar falls - inflation.
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If the economy tries to grow 10% in a year, and would under normal circumstances, assuming there's not already slack in the monetary base, there will not be enough Bitcoins to cover the increased commerce.
It's not the amount of currency in circulation which needs to increase, just the value of the currency. If the economy grows 10% in a year and the number of bitcoins is fixed then each bitcoin will be worth 10% more at the end of the year. The people who saved their money—who deferred consumption, and thus helped the economy to grow by 10%—have 10% more purchasing power, corresponding to the 10% increase in available goods.
None of this has anything to do with Fractional Reserve Banking, which, a
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"Deferring consumption" is what makes economy grow and that's why you deserve a bigger slice of pie for doing nothing, really now? Silly me, I thought things like building plants, mining ore, growing wheat and making inventions is what makes economy grow.
You already did all that; it's why you have money in the first place. You can offset the positive effect of that production immediately through consumption, or you can leave a surplus for a time (deferring consumption). That surplus—not the money, which is only a proxy, but the goods produced to earn it—can then be invested by yourself or by others in profitable ventures which fuel additional growth. If you simply hold on to your money rather than purchasing something with it, that gives others
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Spent money _IS_ the economy.
No, goods and services are the economy. Money is just a placeholder, and the act of spending money is merely a rearrangement of goods. Neither are essential; the economy can exist without money, albeit less efficiently. But before you can spend, both you and others must have produced and saved in order to have goods to trade.
It is consumer demand, the desire for consumption, which drives the economy, not consumption itself. Between desire and consumption lies production. Production exists in response to dem
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virtually all the people who seem to be obsessed with Bitcoins really, really, really, don't like FSB, considering it a form of fraud. It isn't, it's a quirk of accounting
What's the difference?
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Re:Figured it out yet? (Score:5, Informative)
This crap is so old it's actually mentioned in the bitcoin FAQ:
http://bitcoin.org/en/faq#wont-bitcoin-fall-in-a-deflationary-spiral [bitcoin.org]
There is lots of academic research that indicates the "deflationary spiral" doesn't happen like that.
Bitcoin having a fixed final size is just fine - it means when the economy grows, everyones money becomes worth a little bit more, i.e. prices fall a bit. Things get cheaper. That's sort of what you expect from progress, isn't it?
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You'll forgive me if I don't take the word of bitcoin.org when discussing problems with Bitcoin.
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Yes, that's an issue they'll have to face that fiat currencies do not. It'll be interesting to see what happens, if it lasts that long.
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Bitcoin uses a different philosophy. The below is pretty rough, as I've just started to understand it all myself.
Fiat currencies as we have them right now are unlimited money related to limited resources. If the number of goods in the economy grows, the money can grow as well, keeping it balance. But it doesn't have to, it can also grow slower or faster. In general, it grows faster, creating inflation.
Gold or other backed currencies were limited money related to limited resources. They would grow if the amo
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Interest is the only thing saving your day.
It also sucks money out of local communities. Put your money into the local S&L for community lending paying 1.5%? No way - with real inflation over 6%, you send your money to Wall Street (either directly or with a 401(k)) or you're going to lose money every year. S&L paying 4.5% while inflation is under 1%? Sure thing, that's an easy way to park some cash. ... and "somehow" there's no money for loans to small businesses anymore.
Running the printing pr
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Tell me, would you take out a loan of, say, 100 bitcoins?
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By that definition any currency which undergoes deflation at some point is a ponzi scheme.
Or really any currency. After all, if no user B ever shoes up to take those dollars from you in exchange of wares, they are worthless.
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if no user B ever shoes up to take those dollars from you in exchange of wares,
The issue with deflation is that YOU wouldn't give away dollars in exchange for wares. If you know your dollars will be worth more in the future, there's no reason not to sit on them and do nothing. (e.g. why invest and take risks when your dollars [err...bitcoins] are worth more every day without you doing anything!?).
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The issue with deflation is that YOU wouldn't give away dollars in exchange for wares. If you know your dollars will be worth more in the future, there's no reason not to sit on them and do nothing.
Here's one reason: you need the wares now, not later. We've had continuous price deflation in the area of electronics for decades, and it hasn't prevented people from buying the new iPhone 5 just because they know there will be an iPhone 6 next year for the same or lower cost.
As for investments, sure, some ventures with a positive, but below-deflation, return will be unlikely to receive funding due to deflation. However, that's a good thing: such investments are really malinvestments, diverting capital away
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If one entity was marketing and selling all the bitcoins and claiming the returns were generated by something else, then sure.
But since that isn't the case it's just a normal bubble. Or just a normal reasonable increase in asset valuation. Depending on whether you think the actual asset in question justifies the increase in value.
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By your definition, all startups are Ponzi schemes. To make the necessary correction:
A Ponzi scheme is a system where only the revenue added by new subscribers pays the return on investment of early investors.
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I think this chain of jokes has jumped the shark.
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Do you know anything about what you're talking about? Facebook is not pyramid-shaped. The one group at the top makes all the money - no promises of money for anyone else. Yes, the everyday user of Facebook is not the customer - they are the product. But that's only a small change to advertiser-supported content going back to the golden age of television.
Akamai is hired to help distribute data. If you feel "invaded" by being directed to Akamai for faster content on Facebook, then your blame should fall
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Isn't the idea to use it as currency?
There is no 'making out' involved in exchange of currency, just a transfer of values.
The whole printing money out of cpu cycles thing was odd anyways and seemed more like a built in fundraiser/motiviation to get the thing started in the first place.
Re:Figured it out yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire Bitcoin concept is a shiny, hi-tech Ponzi scheme. Those that "invested" by spending CPU cycles (electricty) early made out. By design, no one else ever will unless, of course, they can steal the resources necessary to do the mining.
For some reason, you seem to only look at BitCoin as some kind of an 'investment' tool.
No wonder you see Ponzi schemes everywhere if fast buck is all you care about.
Re:Figured it out yet? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it doesn't have most of the characteristics that make a currency work, the main one being that it's inherently deflationary. This is a terrible thing for a currency, due to this psychological phenomenon called money illusion. This makes the monetary base shrink over time, instead of grow, turning said prospective currency into an investment vehicle. It's just natural behavior when something increases its value when you hold it. This makes most of the currency be there as a holder of value than as a method of exchange, increasing the demand of money over time.
Just pick any model of a currency that we have, and insert the parameters required to make it behave like bitcoin, and see what it does. It's not pretty.
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Bitcoin is a new age democratic, decentralized... (Score:2)
currency that free the civilization from the scam master that is the Federal Reserve.
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The rest of us upgraded to computers that use more power when they work harder than when they are idle long, long ago.
And thus if something causes my computer to do any extra work that will result in more power consumption than otherwise. It doesn't make a different whether that also slowed down the work I was doing on it or whether the machine was completely idle at the time (well the former case may cause even higher power consumption if it triggers lots of swapping, etc).
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When will we see a postive story about Bitcoin's usefulness? Oh right, there really ISN'T any news on that front.
There is news on that front; it just doesn't get reported here as often.