mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Administered by:

Server stats:

336K
active users

nixCraft 🐧

Poll: What is the worst scam in tech?

@Brynawel @nixCraft VPN is useful in certain scenarios but it is oversold.

@nixCraft Today, it's AI, with crypto a close second. I wouldn't keep ransomware in this list as it was explicitly made for extracting money illegally. It doesn't provide anything else.
Edit : precision, ransomware doesn't try to convince you it provide anything else. AI or crypto don't bring anything but try to convince you it does...

@Florian @nixCraft
LLM AI is inherently flawed but has uses in some limited contexts where it's acceptable that it is flawed.

Cryptocurrency has no legitimate applications at all.

I guess you're right that ransomware doesn't pretend, anyway.

@nixCraft I selected ransomware. Of course cryptocurrencies are the larger scam, but I would suggest that here, the scam is not in technology. The scam is good old real world scam. The tech ideas between crypto have shown to not have real world value, so without the real world scam, nobody would be talking about it anymore.

@nixCraft Cryptocurrency is a vague catagory. Bitcoin should be differentiated from shitcoins, because they're not the same thing. One is a scam, and the other is a consistently growing financial instrument, and definitely not a scam.

@slcw @nixCraft
"I have bought in to the scam, therefore it's not a scam."

@dougmerritt @nixCraft I bought in on 2011 when it was selling for $6.50. It just hit $100k. I'm not feeling particularly scammed. Is gold also a ponzi scam?

@slcw @nixCraft
I congratulate you on your investment, your timing was great, so for *you* I can see why it didn't feel like a scam. But yes, gold is *sometimes* sold as a ponzi scam; it has varied.

However gold has inherent value throughout history for jewelry, along with silver and platinum, and modern value for electronics, where it is sometimes indispensible.

I call things scams when they have literally no value whatsoever outside of being an investment.

@dougmerritt @nixCraft So you consider fiat to have no value as well, and hence a scam?

@slcw @nixCraft
Great question. However we know that people already have strong feelings on both sides of that, so it would be a big digression.

However I would say that, if something like bitcoin were adopted as a major fiat currency, by say the EU or US, then maybe it could be argued to have inherent value, for reasons outside of our current scope.

Short of that, it's just another investment, like the infamous tulip frenzy.

@dougmerritt @nixCraft It could never be a fiat currency. Fiat is issued by the government. It simply doesn't fit the fiat model. But I'm not sure why that matters, or how it would turn bitcoin from a scam into something you consider acceptable. Gold isn't fiat. Other legitimate assets aren't fiat.

@slcw @dougmerritt @nixCraft
Fiat is issued by private banks as debt (a very small part is government debt). And broad money then disappears when that debt is paid back, leaving just the interest which accumulates over time. So it's not a form of equity.

A primer from the BoE, IMF etc: infosec.exchange/@davep/113492

Infosec ExchangeDavid Penfold :verified: (@davep@infosec.exchange)@misterscience@mastodon.world @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green Growth is merely a requirement for our current fractional reserve / debt-based broad money system. Broad money is created by credit (mainly private) and destroyed when that credit is repaid. But once repaid, the interest remains, loading up ever increasing debt on companies, individuals and governments. This in turn requires yet more credit to keep paying off that debt. Only equity-based broad money can fix this. Here's a BoE overview of the money creation process https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf Note that the diagrams don't actually take into account the role of interest. And here's an excellent resource by IMF researchers into the pernicious effects of the current system https://www.imf.org/-/media/Websites/IMF/imported-full-text-pdf/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/_wp12202.ashx The introduction alone is enough to get a grasp of the issues and the benefits of an equity-based broad money system. Note that I'd add a fifth issue that wasn't on the radar of the Chicago Plan at the time, "planetary ecocide". Finally, here's a similar plan drawn up by Iceland after 2008 that they call a Sovereign money proposal https://bsd.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/monetary-reform-Iceland.pdf

@slcw @dougmerritt @nixCraft Fiat has value because you are required to pay your taxes in it. Right now, a dead rat has no value, but if the government passed a law requiring people to give them lots of dead rats, then hey presto, dead rats would have value.

@tokensane @dougmerritt @nixCraft It's even simpler than that. Something has value when people find value in it. If people suddenly didn't find value in fiat currency, it would by definition, cease to be valuable. It's ultimately arbitrary and subjective. People find value in Bitcoin, and so it is valuable. How valuable? Well, they're currently willing to pay $100k for one, so that's the measure of its value.

@slcw @tokensane @nixCraft
All true. But that's not *all* there is to this and related subjects.

@dougmerritt @tokensane @nixCraft Obviously there's more to the specifics of any given instrument, but this is the general explanation for how value works. The specific details are a sort of "fill in the blanks", and explanation of the mechanics of what forms the underlying basis for the value of a specific instrument or asset. But from 30k feet, value is essentially the collective agreement of what something is worth.

@slcw @tokensane @nixCraft
Sure. And linguistics is about words, and physics is about particles and forces :)

Something being true doesn't necessarily mean we've really captured the topic.

@dougmerritt @tokensane @nixCraft This is very true. And it's only thorough good faith discussions like this that we can really tease out the whole story. 😁

@dougmerritt @nixCraft Anything can be used in a ponzi scheme. That's different from what you're saying about bitcoin. You're saying IT is a ponzi scheme. And that's simply not true. It's an asset and currency, just like gold. The only difference is that goal is backed by its intrinsic value and utility, and Bitcoin is backed by the energy used to mine transactions. And its growth is as a result of its inflationary nature stemming from scarcity. Who, exactly, is being scammed?

@slcw @nixCraft
Ok. I can respect your argument without going so far as to be convinced by it. This gets into some deep issues about economics.

@slcw @dougmerritt @nixCraft interesting discussion 🙂
I'd suggest anything can also be used as a currency. It's legitimacy comes from public acceptance of it's use in this way, perhaps also by it's enforcement through governments/taxes?
(See: David Graeber, Debt the First 5000 Years.)
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_

To judge if an activity is a 'scam' perhaps we should look for people losing wealth to others? In this sense, most cryptocurrency trading activity does look like a Ponzi scheme to me.

en.m.wikipedia.orgDebt: The First 5,000 Years - Wikipedia

@Slash909uk @dougmerritt @nixCraft A ponzi scheme involves the scammer convincing investors to invest by promising amazing returns, keeping the money, and then paying those investors back with money from new investors. Rinse and repeat until it collapses. In what way do you believe bitcoin aligns with this model?

@slcw @dougmerritt @nixCraft I'd agree the concept of bitcoin (and other cryptocurrency) is not of itself a 'scam'. It's the activity of many cryptocurrency traders that I am suspicious of.

The same risk applies to all fabricated financial instruments in my opinion; crypto trading is merely a modern twist on scammers making inflated promises to tempt the unwary into losing their money later. Like the 2008 market crash built on inflated CDO trading?

@Slash909uk @dougmerritt @nixCraft I think you might be conflating the hijninks surrounding altcoins, shitcoins, and memecoins with Bitcoin. The questionable and overtly scandalous antics inherent in these secondary cryptos don't really exist in the context of Bitcoin.

@dougmerritt @slcw @nixCraft Why is gold still used for jewellery? After all, we can now make stuff from shiny yellow plastic. Answer: nobody wants cheap plastic trinkets, they want "real" jewellery. Conclusion: gold is used for jewellery because it's valuable, not the other way around.

Not to mention that a lot of gold "jewellery" is actually bought because owning gold bullion is illegal or restricted.

@tokensane @slcw @nixCraft
That's a logical line of thought, but your conclusion is overly hasty: gold colored plastic jewelry is vastly lower quality by any number of metrics.

So it's not *just* because it's scarce and therefore valuable, although that's not entirely false, either.

BTW here in the U.S. restrictions on private ownership of gold bullion were lifted long ago. They were still in effect in the 1960s, but I forget precisely when they were lifted after that. (It would be the day when the value went from the artificial $35/ounce to $500/ounce or some such :)

@dougmerritt @slcw @nixCraft What metrics are those?

Yes, the US did lift control of bullion. India didn't.

@slcw when all those crypto investors want to cash in on their profit now, who's going to pay all that? With what kind of money will it be paid and where will that money come from? @dougmerritt @nixCraft

@karelbrits @dougmerritt @nixCraft It's just like the stock market. Shifts in trading volume impact the price. So if people started simultaneously selling large amounts, it would cause the price to drop. This is a basic fundamental of securities trading. The fact that the security is bitcoin or some other crypto is irrelevant to market dynamics, and the way price changes.

@slcw with the difference that buying stock adds some kind of value to the company, it adds money for them to work with, which can add a kind of value in return because they can invest with it. And there's still a risk you end up with less than what you invested with. What's the countervalue of Bitcoin? It adds value as long as more people buy than sell it. So what's the difference with a Ponzi scheme? I don't see any difference. @dougmerritt @nixCraft

@karelbrits @dougmerritt @nixCraft Please check the thread. We already had this discussion, and you can read all the comments and arguments in the replies. 😁👍

@slcw @nixCraft A ponzi is a scam whether you're the one committing the scam (duping enough other ppm & getting out early enough) or the victim.

@nixCraft I chose cryptocurrencies first before LLM because I think we can ultimatly see that what LLMs produce is cooked garbage, it's only up to people to see it and it's still too shiny trendy today

@nixCraft c'mon why llm and cryoto so hated in this poll. Both makes sun in my life 😄

@nixCraft cryptocurrency and LLMs are very close, but the other 2 do have uses. they may not be legal in some cases but they do a job

@nixCraft What it looks like now will not turn out to be what it actually is.

@nixCraft Ransomware doesn't pretend to be useful, so that's not a scam. VPNs are genuinely useful, although I realise you mean "you need a VPN for all your internet use," not for connecting to a LAN over the internet.

Out of the others, I picked AI because normal people can just ignore cryptocurrency; whereas AI is being pushed _everywhere_ as the one thing that will fix every human problem ever, if only we squint harder at the sentences it makes up

@nixCraft I was extremely conflicted between AI/LLM and cryptocurrency, but I had to go with crypto, since it only seems to have a single functional use case, for money laundering.

@nixCraft I'm still trying to wrap my head around what's the difference between cryptocurrency "investment" and glorified gambling. I mean, the concept of cryptocurrency has potential in its technological sense, but investing it only to hope that it'll go viral is what I can't find the difference from gambling.

@nixCraft Stock markets, which I also think have a gambling factor obviously, contribute to the firms that do the real things (regardless of whether the "real thing" is nice or evil). What does the cryptocurrency investment do in that regard?

@freevolt24 @nixCraft NFT investments is like investing in CS:GO skins with very little utility to sell later at a higher price or because you like the way it looks. Mainline crypto is like the stock market but everything is written in Latin so no-one but the "well educated" actually know what they are buying. Memecoins are penny stocks you buy hoping they go viral.

@nixCraft I think "in tech" it is AI. Crypto is a bigger scam, but that is not specifically a tech scam.

@nixCraft tbf vpns are pretty neat when it comes to things like censorship and geoblocking.

@nixCraft I will say GFW (Great FireWall)

@nixCraft this should be a multiple choice question

@nixCraft ransomware doesn't seem to belong in this list.

@nixCraft

Crypto: you have to be dumb
VPN: you have to be slightly dumb
AI/LLM: you have to be too enthusiastic

Ransomware: you can be the smartest person in the world, but there is always a friend on your local network that is dumb

@nixCraft Crypto, some kinda cool (Minero)
AI/LLM may help someone in desperation
VPN some have good services and don't lies (afaik)
Ransomware does no good

@nixCraft Ransomware
Due to the fact that it's associated with both AI/LLM and Cryptocurrency. The worst of all the worlds. :welp: