Bitcoin: Of Freemasons, Free Markets and Bill Cosby Related Investment Schemes

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Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Patter Song posted:

There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of different things that are wrong with Bitcoin, which is why you're probably going to get half a dozen answers.

1. It's inherently deflationary. What that means is that there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins. Therefore, if Bitcoins were an actual currency, their value would continue to go up due to scarcity and no one would buy anything because the price would be lower the next day. Bitcoins were designed by Libertarians with a deep, deep phobia of inflation or "fiat money's" ability to just print more bills, lowering the value of everyone's currency. Bitcoin overcorrects that to the point where its value is designed to appreciate like that 1911 baseball card in your dad's attic: you'll never want to sell it because it'll be worth more next year, etc.

2. Even though it's supposedly a currency, people trade it like it's a commodity. As mentioned before, currencies are not supposed to go "up, up, up," as our dear friend Bruce Wagner likes to say. Nor are they supposed to go "down, down, down" at a quick rate. A currency that has any major volatility is a dangerous currency, because if your bank account could double (or half) in a week, you have no idea of how much money you really have. Speculators buy Bitcoins anticipating that they'll go up to sell at higher prices, or "short" Bitcoins in anticipation that they'll sink. Unless you're George Soros, you don't do that with currencies. Thus, the evangelists of Bitcoin treat their currency like a commodity like gold or pork bellies or wheat rather than the currency they claim it to be.

3. Bitcoin's exchanges all have strict withdrawal limit to ~~conform with money laundering laws~~ prevent a run on the bank. That means that all Bitcoin owners are in a sort of Mexican standoff if they want to sell: they can only get so much of their money out at once, and if they sell too much, they'll start off a stampede and lose the rest of their investment. Therefore, everyone has a vested interest in keeping the price more or less stable while they slowly sell off and try to get out. This explains, in part, Bitcoin's slow, gentle descent from $17 to $14 this week: people trying to slowly, slowly get out. It also shows that there's no real confidence in the system, and fear of a panic is all that is preventing, well, an actual panic.

Even more Toddlerized: Bitcoins are basically like pile of marbles that kids found on the playground and decided to exchange for stuff like sweets and other toys. They've only got so many marbles, but the other kids want them so bad they keep offering more and more stuff for it, so the marble-rich kids have started to smash the marbles into tinier and tinier bits, which means that nobody can actually get a whole marble any more unless they manage to find their own in the sand pit. And because the sand pit is kind of small this is getting really hard, with only kids who own big sieves having any chance at all.

Eventually someone is going to notice that marble splinters aren't really any good for playing with and will start giving them away for proper toys. That's when the whole Bitcoin shebang will go belly up.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 04:49

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:22

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Rabid Koala posted:

Every home-schooled child I've ever met has been completely unable to function on a basic level in social situations. It's horrifically tragic. Not knowing how to spell English words in your teens is pretty pathetic.

I imagine Atlas is just as bad as your typical home-schooled kid, if not worse.

And yet he has the nerve to say that illiteracy "just doesn't happen."

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 06:38

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

max4me posted:

I will say this if you take a kid out of school and assign them one on one teachers, you could probable learn more in same amount of time or the same amount in less time.

Assuming that the teachers actually have any idea what they're talking about, anyways. I shudder to think of what would become of a child that was "educated" by my 10th-grade dropout cousin.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 07:08

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

kazmeyer posted:

It'd also be cool if everyone had their own jetpack.

Jetpacks are more likely than personal teachers at this point.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 07:44

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

We are all floating down here (in buttcoins)

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 12:27

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

ymgve posted:

I forgot to add that even when mining becomes unprofitable, people will probably still mine at a loss, hoping to gain it back when the coins reach like $10000.

Everyone who mines bitcoins is already doing it at a loss, because they're worth exactly nothing and everyone's going to sit on their coins forever in the hope that they'll eventually turn into real money by libertarian magic.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 15:50

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

The funny thing is, I think they're not just ignorant as seriously so absorbed into their grand bitcoinian efforts that they believe finance laws oughtn't apply to them in the first place. Especially the Tradehill guys look like they're thinking of themselves as some kind of financial Rosa Parks showing The Man what for.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 09:52

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

TheCIASentMe posted:

Well, yes and no. If you have 500k total coins, 400k have been hoarded since the beginning and 100k have been trading at $10 a piece this does not mean that there is $5 million in actual money in the system.

MtGox has been making money, don't get me wrong. But the actual value of the entire BitCoin market is a bit difficult to determine. You can't assume that all bitcoins are worth the current value and you can't assume enough actual money has been injected into the system to account for the total value of all the coins.

To say it in different words, those 400k bitcoins are only worth what you can actually get for them. The whole bitcoin market taken together doesn't have a value of $100 million, so even if you tried to sell them all you wouldn't possibly get that much out of it. That number is completely theoretical and only exists because of the artificially limited amount of bitcoins in circulation.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 16:52

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Atlas posted:

They say you can't move matter faster than the speed of light. However, you can move the space around an object as fast as you like.

The secret to faster than light travel is giving the whole universe a kick so that it moves in the other direction. What.

That kid seriously gets stupider every time he opens his mouth.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 11:09

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Jombo posted:

I was finally intrigued enough to look up Satoshi's original paper (http://www.vsewiki.cz/images/archive/8/89/20110124151146!Bitcoin.pdf) through google scholar - looking for what journal it was published in, and which research institution he works for.

What should probably come as no surprise at this point in time the only contact details for Mr Nakamoto are an anonymous email address from gmx.com, and the bitcoin.org URL (proxy registry contact details from Helsinki of course). The paper itself is hosted on http://www.vsewiki.cz/index.php/Hlavn%C3%AD_strana which if someone can speak czech it would be nice to know what this site is.

What I find strange is his whole bitcoin concept and implementation is rather interesting and if he cleaned the paper up a little it would probably get published in a half reputable journal.

Just some articles about project management in information technology and some random stuff about dealing with personnel. The links you can see are all that's on there, nothing that is related to economics or cryptography.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 14:38

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Doc Hawkins posted:

Yeah, that's Star Trek and Futurama science. It's close to the actual truth though: the expansion of space does let the distance between two rapidly moving objects increase at a rate greater than c. I wonder if he read a book and didn't understand it, or if he just stole an "everybody knows" from a cartoon.

That's... still about as far from "move the universe a step to the right = FTL" as you can get. So probably the latter.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 18:51

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

And this is why I never buy used hardware. Is this better or worse than the guy who ripped pages out of textbooks and sold them back to the store?

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 23:42

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

I swear, if Bitcoins weren't an obviously dumb idea already I'd dismiss them simply on the grounds of how many completely horrible people they attract.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 12:46

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

I'm honestly tempted to start up that smartphone porn applet she described, if only to prove those 'tards wrong. That actually sounds like a really clever idea, sort of a mobile EBay for camwhoring. "Download our free app, take off your clothes and make money now!"

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 16:32

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Four levels. Scam retailers out of hardware, open a business to scam people out of their Bitcoins, use Bitcoins to scam people out of their money, scam the government out of tax money by not declaring this revenue.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 18:14

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Doc Hawkins posted:

Actually, if I wanted to hugely over-rate my ability to guess at these things, I'd say that very low status is probably part of what makes them susceptible to the promise of risky get-rich schemes: they literally have less to lose.

Smart and already successful people don't tend to get into skeezy get-rich-quick schemes in the first place, so I'd say you've nailed it right there.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 00:03

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

I'd guess there probably wouldn't be. The only way way I can see to really lose at short selling from a lender's perspective is through the price rising so high that the short seller can't afford to return the whole loan and leaves you to pick up the deficit. There's no way any true believer would speculate on Bitcoin value NOT rising that much over the duration of the loan, so from their position they can only lose.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 18:29

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Jalumibnkrayal posted:

Oh hey, a bitcoin vag tattoo:

Probably NSFW http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=27958.0

I shouldn't be surprised, but somehow I still am.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 21:41

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

ChubbyEmoBabe posted:

She was paid or is promised to be paid?

I hope she gets paid (and can cash out). Well if she doesn't it's entertaining but sad.

200 bitcoins is what, 4000 dollars, slightly less? I don't think that will even pay for the tattoo removal, once she decides that having an advertisement on your snatch forever wasn't that great an idea.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 21:58

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

arioch posted:

A combination of characters thought up and used by even more spergy spergelords than the current spergelords calling the pound symbol the hash symbol.

Hey, it's a completely legitimate scripting function, and it has been called the hashbang since the 70s. :colbert:

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 09:53

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

A rich idiot with a bunch of competent accountants could probably take full control of the whole bitcoin market over a single weekend and manage to make some money despite himself.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 14:26

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

bewbies posted:

"Fiat" is just a fancy way of saying "because I said so" (in other words, money has value because someone says it does). Usually with currency the only entity that has any authority to "say so" is a government, but I suppose that might change someday.

And the irony? The dollar's value is backed by the whole economic power of the USA. Bitcoin is backed by exactly nothing whatsoever.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 22:32

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Lolie posted:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=28323.0

Well obviously she isn't twelve so this wouldn't count as displaying obscene images to minors, duh :rolleyes:

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 22:46

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Dre2Dee2 posted:

The best part will be the obligatory fight, where Vegetta curls into the fetal position and is pummeled by the crazy porn lady

I'd pay good money to see that Vegetta dick pummeled with a giant black rubber dildo.

Also, not accounting for the bitcoins, the porn lady is the least crazy person in that discussion. It doesn't get much more telling than that.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 19:18

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Serious question, does anybody have an idea how the police would deal with this sort of stuff? It's not even proper bartering, because there's no actual thing being exchanged. It's basically like drug dealing on the honor system. How would you even go about seizing something like that, legally speaking?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2011 00:37

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Cream_Filling posted:

Do you mean specifically for drug dealing, or generally for BitCoins?

If you mean for something criminal, then you would seize their assets. For the BitCoins themselves, you would probably just take away their computer and order them not to transfer their BitCoins. If they do, then you throw their asses in jail.

Honestly, it's not too hard once you seize the person.

I meant for Bitcoins generally. They're not actual things like cash money or jewelry, and they don't legally represent any value like money stored in a bank account does. I guess they'd seize your computer, because that's what those Silk Road people use to make their deals, I just don't know how they'd deal with the Bitcoins - because they're basically valueless nothings it's really more like those people are "gifting" drugs to each other instead of buying them.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2011 13:27

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Man, that thread JeffK is trolling is pure comedy gold. Everything Vegetta says is completely hilarious.

"You really have no idea what your talking about. You are arguing with an industry expert here bud. :reject:

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 21:29

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Private social security has never worked before and will never work in the future. Go check your history books again and pay special attention to everything involving the industrialization of Europe.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:22

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Chaos Motor posted:

You mean when governments protected the rich as they inflicted violence on the poor? That's exactly what I'm arguing against, how is that useful?

You don't even know what you're arguing, do you? The idea that private charity could ever replace nationalized social security is completely absurd exactly because of that. It has never managed to do so before social security and will not do anything when social security is gone again. Instead we'll have children working in coal mines because it's still better than starving, again.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:36

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

spidoman posted:

I wonder if anyone has ever done studies on this?

http://www.nrchmi.samhsa.gov/Resour...lems-45696.aspx

Stupid social safety nets. Helping the dirty homeless alcoholics fight their addiction while saving the public money. What a terrible idea.

In Libertopia there would be no crisis services to overtax, duh :rolleyes:

Chaos Motor posted:

Now there's a program that has always worked as intended, and is not completely bankrupt, and actively bankrupting our nation.

Not my nation. But then we didn't recently spend trillions of dollars to invade a foreign country either. Gee, I wonder where all of America's money is going? Must be those drat poor people!

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:42

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Libertarians are morally bankrupt cuntrags who think that when people suffer, somebody should have to help - just not them. Nationalized social security IS private charity, by everyone who has to pay taxes. If Libertarians actually cared, they wouldn't even consider it a "right" to not help other people in the first place.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:54

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Chaos Motor posted:

You have not made a case for why someone should be forced by threat of violence to help someone else, especially if that person has put themselves in that position through their own malfeasance. Furthermore, there is a huge difference between willingly providing aid, and doing so under threat of violence. Why would you ever want to accept help from someone who had been threatened with harm if they didn't provide it? I would think in that situation I would work with the person under threats of harm to remove the person threatening to harm them.

Yeah, I'm done derailing. PM me if you really care about this.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:59

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

AuMaestro posted:

I think every stupid utopian ideal should get an island on which to test it out and show how unworkable it is. The wonderful thing about libertarianism is that it can be tested out on the internet with phenomena like bitcoin, so nobody has to die (except from heat exhaustion) to demonstrate how bad it is.

Wouldn't really do much. The problem with most utopians is that they think everyone will consistently treat everyone in society the way they treat the ~100 people their primitive monkey brain can accept as "real". If you actually got them to run a commune on an isolated island there's a good chance even the dumbest dogma would work out. It has created a pretty stable society for the Sentinelese, after all.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 01:30

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Cream_Filling posted:

I fully support firing all libertarians into space. No need to wait for the habitats.

Looks like we have the plot of Bioshock 4 down pat.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 03:22

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Atlas does it again. Well, at least we got promoted from mere parasites to dissident rogues. I feel very swashbucklerish now.

quote:

They already destroyed their once funny comedy forum and have now turned it into an overly PC killjoy of a site where transvestites, furries, overly emasculated men and adult male My Little Pony supporters dwell.

I take offense to that. We kicked out the My Little Pony fans ages ago :colbert:

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 02:35

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

TheBandOffice posted:

Placing my bet on the libertarians winning by drowning out opposition with stupidity.

Furries versus Libertarians? That's gonna be a close one.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 03:37

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

AuMaestro posted:

Trojans that are bundled with pirated games. That's what's left to develop.

It does fit amazingly well into the lolbertarian mindset, though.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 15:37

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Patashu posted:

What if you truecrypt the part of your hard drive containing bitcoin/drug information as a hidden volume, with something not technically illegal also truecrypted as the decoy? Can they arrest you for 'having something to hide'?

Yes, they can put you under court order to reveal the passwords to any hidden volumes they detect and put you into a cell until you comply. "Plausible deniability" as Truecrypt presents it is kind of a legal joke.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 02:25

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

mobn posted:

Isn't the whole point that there's no way to prove that there is a second volume? A truecrypt volume is totally filled with random bits anyway, so there's no evidence they could possibly use to compel you to even tell them there's a second volume, much less what its password is.

No, not really. Encrypted space looks random, but it really isn't, there are underlying patters that any well-equipped forensic IT department is able to detect. It's not enough to prove anything by itself, but can provide enough probable cause that courts may decide that something is there after all. That whole plausible deniability stuff only carries as far as people are willing to believe your bullshit.

There's also a whole host of other ways to prove that a hidden volume exists, some of which you can find here.

evilweasel posted:

There is actually (you can do entropy analysis on the hard drive) but more importantly you just know anyone using truecrypt has a second volume.

And then there's that, obviously.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 05:30

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:22

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Patashu posted:

Wow, I had no idea there were so many potential holes. With so many things you have to keep in mind each and every time you use what's on the hidden volume, how's it supposed to keep anyone secure?

It isn't, the whole "hidden volume" thing is really people either not understanding cryptanalysis or not understanding laws (small wonder the bitcoin community loves them so much). Per-file encryption is supposed to protect important stuff like bank information and password files and such from being stolen when someone either gets physical access to your storage media or remote access to the encrypted files. If somebody only has the encrypted volume and nothing else, they're stuck until they can brute force the password within half a million years or so. Open encryption standards like AES have no other (currently known) reliably exploitable security flaws or backdoor, so they're secure in that sense. Just don't expect people to believe no hidden data exists in the first place.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 08:58

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Bitcoin: Of Freemasons, Free Markets and Bill Cosby Related Investment Schemes

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