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Posts
12
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4,269
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • I think these guys are overstating things a bit. The whole reason technical standards exist is to facilitate interoperability, and in most cases this interoperability leads to increased trade. It's no accident that the first standards were developed during the industrial revolution, where we first started using machines to make parts, and they needed to fit together (like screws and nuts). Then, when the railroads came along, we needed new standards for things like track gague, because without it one countries' trains couldn't use the next countries' track, making cross-border commerce more expensive. It's also when we started to standardize time (because before the railroads, "noon" was whenever the sun was directly overhead, so varied by region).

    These standards weren't developed altruistically, they were developed to generate more trade. There is a cost to developing them, and companies spend that money in the hopes of making more later. In theory, anyone can access the standards that the ITU or IEEE create, but to participate you need to show up at their meetings, and there is a cost to that. Large companies can afford to send key smart people to those meetings, out of the profit from the products they sell. What is more capitalistic than that?

    The standards process is anti-monopolist, though. The reason why they are as "open" as they are is to prevent a single entity from patenting key parts of the standard and gate-keeping access. There have been patented things in standards, but the SDO mandates that the parent-holder disclose it up front, and will not let it in the standard unless certain terms are met (which vary by SDO). It is not anti-capitalist, though, but rather it is a cabal of companies agreeing they won't let any one of them gatekeep the rest.

  • I suppose there is one risk to using a cold wallet often: if your use if that wallet is normalized, then it can be harder to spot malicious things when they happen, if you are not diligent.

    Take that hack that happened last year on that one exchange (I forget which). It was reported in the press that their cold storage was hacked, but in reality what happened was an extremely targeted attack that redirected cold wallet transactions to addresses controlled by the hacker without the signers' knowledge. The same thing can happen on a hot wallet, of course, but you have fewer funds in that, don't you?

    So just to be safe, if you use a cold wallet for transactions like this, make sure to limit the number of devices you use it with, and practice good internet hygiene on those devices.

  • You all don't get it. He is absolutely going to do this, but only for people he doesn't like, and his fans will eat it up. Yes, the very same people who get all up in arms (literally) whenever a Democrat suggests that maybe there should be some restrictions on some weapons will enthusiastically cheer when the Trump government confiscates guns from people with too much melanin.

    "We know that good, honest, God-fearing folk know how to take care of their guns, so we're going after the Gangbangers first!" And you know he will say "gangbangers"....

  • For DOGE, it's much, much worse than that. In many government agencies, they seem to have installed Starlink-based back doors directly into critical systems. I would not be surprised at all to find out in a few years that foreign agents have thoroughly infiltrated Starlink (perhaps even on invitation from Elon), and every piece of classified and confidential information that DOGE siphoned away is in foreign hands.

    The biggest intel breach in history, perpetrated by the President's main advisor.

  • Of course judges that break the law should be held to account. But the Trump Admin is arresting judges who simply don't agree with them, and take (legal) actions they don't like. That is the critical difference. Trump wants the law to be whatever he says it is.