March | 2018 | Coldstreams Business and Tech

A very decent explanation for those not wanting to read the technical paper:

“There’s no easy way to explain Bitcoin, but let me wave my hands and try: When you go to the ATM at a store and get money to buy a six-pack, you put in your bank card. The transaction processor verifies it somewhere in the ether, takes a fee, and spits out cash. It’s all powered by software. OK, deep breath. Acquiring Bitcoin is like using an ATM, except instead of government-backed money you get proof that a computer somewhere solved an automated puzzle faster than other computers, and instead of using an ATM card you’re using an auto-generated token that only you have, and instead of connecting to a bank you’re connecting to a decentralized network of computers that collectively maintain and update copies of a massive historical database of transactions—and that also collectively validate transactions, using, well, math, and spit out new Bitcoins from time to time, to reward the puzzle solvers. Slow exhale. Almost there. And instead of buying a six-pack from someone behind a counter, you’re transferring some amount of Bitcoin to another anonymous token. Over time, all the transactions that people make get lumped into blocks and validated, and they get a special code that takes into account all the codes in the blocks that came before, and thus you have it: a blockchain. According to Bitcoin.org, the Bitcoin blockchain is about 145 gigabytes, though it will be bigger by the time you read this.”

Source: Bitcoin Is Ridiculous. Blockchain Is Dangerous: Paul Ford – Bloomberg

The author goes on to write:

“The current wave of coins will eventually ebb, because it’s a big, inefficient, unholy mess. It’s more ideology than financial instrument, and ideology is rarely a sustainable store of value. Plus, transactions are slow (everyone says they’re fixing that), and you shouldn’t have to use an aluminum smelter’s worth of power to make new currency.”

The article spot lights some very scary ramifications of blockchain technology, such as encoding a permanent record of allegations (not convictions) that would tarnish individuals for life as it could not be deleted.

Read the whole article to get an un-hyped perspective on bitcoin and blockchain technology.

The story of how that Sudafed ad got to me begins at Walgreens. As I bought tissues and Afrin, I keyed in my phone number so I could get loyalty points.

Source: Facebook Really Is Spying on You, Just Not Through Your Phone’s Mic – WSJ

Stores use your loyalty card to identify you and all of your purchases. Your purchase transactions are then sold to other marketing companies. This data, in turn, can and is matched to your Facebook account and other online data using the phone number that you gave to the store and to Facebook or Google.

Think about how Facebook, Twitter and other online services are constantly pestering you to give them your phone number. Once they have your phone number, anything else you do that is linked to your phone number – such as using a loyalty card when buying stuff at Safeway or Walgreen’s is then accessible.

Update: CONFIRMED. Facebook purchases your online retail store purchase data from companies like Axciom, Datalogix, Epsilon and others. FB even says so buried in their anti-privacy policy. Your email address, phone number and possible credit number are used to link your Facebook surveillance logs with your offline purchases.

Everyone is also using the tracking data that Google collects on your Android phone to monitor where you are. Remember, that too is tied to your phone number. As I described on my other blog, the Facebook dossier even tracks what apps you have on your phone and data mines that to identify potential marketing opportunities.

Google and Facebook are doing highly invasive surveillance and almost no one understands what is being done or what this means.

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