New Rule: Crypto Mania! Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

[nycbos]

[empedocles]

1. TY

[Fritz Walter]

2. For once, I totally agree with Bill

My only experience with crypto-currency was an emailed blackmail threat I received last year. Apparently someone had cracked my email address and a decades-old (and long-discarded) password. The sender claimed he had hacked into my email account (where he allegedly found my address book), and had actually broken into my desktop computer where he claimed to have found video footage of me enjoying online porn. If I didn't send him 2,000 via Bitcoin, he would publish the naughty stuff, including broadcast emails to all my contacts. He even included a link to a Bitcoin for the payment.

Just a couple things wrong with that threat:
1. I do not watch porn. Period.
2. My desktop computer doesn't have a camera. Never has; never will.

However, I did double-check all of my passwords to make sure the obsolete one wasn't included. Then I set up on-line accounts' security to notify me if anyone attempts to access them from a un-recognized device. Also ran a deep virus-scan on all devices, and re-scan every week.

Thought about reporting this situation, but... to whom? Local or even federal law enforcement? The ISP whose domain appeared in the sender's (most likely spoofed) email address? In this case, it was Microsoft Office's Outlook.


But otherwise, I ignored the threat. And the extortionist apparently moved on to other hacked accounts.

Hope this never happens to fellow DUers! Be alert and careful!

[ancianita]

3. Agree with him. Cryptocurrency mining is a huuuuge energy user & CO2 emitter on the planet.

Bitcoin now produces as much CO2 each year as a million transatlantic flights. So yeah, Bitcoin is humans' reminder:

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) we -- meaning all humans on Earth -- now have 9-10 years to cut our CO2 emissions in half.

If we had started global decarbonization in 2000 when Al Gore got cheated out of a presidency, we would have had to cut emission by only 3% per year to safely stay under the 2 degree Celsius threshold. If we start today, when global emissions are still growing, the necessary rate is 11 percent. If we delay another decade, humans will have to cut emissions by 30% per year.

That's why Biden says our emissions cut rates are important NOW.

[nycbos]

7. Re: produces as much CO2 each year as a million transatlantic flights.

At least transatlantic flights provide some value. They take people around the world. You get a chance to experience new cultures see new places. Travel brings a lot of joy to a lot of people myself included.

[ancianita]

8. Re Re:

Absolutely. Which makes the Bitcoin CO2 emissions all the more harmful to Earth and earthlings.

[kellytore]

4. "an economy solely based on people believing in it"... yeah, same as every cash economy.

The worth of anything is relative.

[Wild blueberry]

5. Giant Ponzi scheme

The only value of crypto aka imaginary money is what the next sucker is willing to pay. Eventually the well of suckers will run dry.
Thank you for posting this.

[Warpy]

6. It is now. It might have started with lofry ideals

like hiding your daily life/money transactions from The Man but it very quickly devolved into a way for bad guys to move money around anonymously and now it has become a gigantic Ponzi scheme, people getting into it now are going to lose, bigtime.

[SunSeeker]

9. My kid's soccer coach just invested in Bitcoin. I figure the end must be near.

They are picking up ordinary guys as "investors." When the bubble finally bursts, it will be ugly. But it can't happen soon enough for this environmentally disastrous scam.

[Bucky]

10. As an economics teacher, I've been trying to figure out BitCoin for years. Maher nailed it.

One computer makes up a number (feigning a renewable resource) and other computers try to guess it.

That's the activity people are buying into. It's gonna turn into the biggest bubble since the Dutch discovered tulips.

I think Congress needs to tax the fuck out of cryptocurrencies while the money's still there.