As a hacker and security guy, I can only say that doing research and "attacking" something is good. How else would you find out if something is broken? And if you don't find out somethng is not secure then the goventments and some even more nefarious entities will and they will abuse it without us knowing.
Sure, we would live in a blissful ignorance ... but I'd rather be sure that I am protected as well as I can and that governments, companies, etc. can't spy on me too easily.
Its not about finding out if something is broken of living in blissful ignorance. There are many very talented developers working on the Bitcoin code and testing it for vulnerabilities all the time. It's not an all or nothing contest and we all want to be protected.
I am saying I don't want a treasure a hacker treasure hunt out there because it promotes hackers and creates a competition. I would rather see those coins go back to their proper owners.
See, and there you are contraciting yourself.
You would need a skilled hacker to do that. An altruistic /ethical one but still a hacker.
And there will always be people trying to "get around the system" and make some quick buck,
Not sure what you mean about "creates a competition". Can you elaborate?
Also, from your perspective, wouldn't it be actually better if hackers focused on "defeating Alcatraz", basically something deemed undefeatable and waste their valuable time and resources on trying to break that rather than stealing from regular Joe's as me and you?
I actually don't know :). But that's one side of the coin :). And there are always two.
What I mean by competition is that when ever there is a real competition with a massive potential pay off, people go crazy trying to get it. I have no problem with some hackers trying to work the system here and there to try and steal a bit. You are right about incidents like that promoting overall security and helping seal up vulnerabilities.
But where there is a potential of millions of dollars as a pay off, then its not just one hacker trying to get in, its potentially hundreds of hackers. We have seen what a single group of hackers can accomplish when they attack an exchange. Now imagine 10 or even 20 groups sending out attacks every day for weeks or even months trying to break in. What will that kind of series of mass attacks do to the network?
And if you read the white paper I referenced earlier, you will see why they are very likely to succeed.
PS I do want hackers to succeed in some areas. There is a lot of work for hacktivists out there, I just don't want all the attention on Bitcoin.
That's a very good point :). I will read the white paper in week or three or four weeks.
Though here's another thought. Hackers don't want to break BTC as then the price would go down and BTC and other Crypto Currencies (XMR) are great store of value.
If I was evil, I would steal 10 BTC and fucking retire. (Okay, maybe I'm not that evil if I'd just want 10 BTC :D)
Haha, lol.
I just realized this is not even your post that we're discussing on :D.
Though I'm relatively sure that I follow you. Or at least saw you around.