Every time he opens his mouth, I understand why he so completely misunderstood the PRISM slides he leaked. The future of money isn't going to be based on a system that requires 7 billion people to set up a lightning channel at a throughput of 3 transactions per second, unless this future of money is ~100 years from now.
It's utterly naïve to expect that cross-border payments will remain unregulated on these networks, given how straightforward it is to regulate.
The Bitcoin base chain can handle about 7 transactions per second, lighting theoretical upper limit is up to 1,000,000 transactions per second. You can use lighting without managing a node yourself. There are even projects[0] in development that allows for community custody, so it stays trustless even when using a custodian.
I think what OP is saying is that onboarding all of humanity onto the lightning network would exceed the capacity of the Bitcoin network.
Yes, once everyone is onboarded onto lightning the 1,000,000 tps bandwidth would apply. But to benefit from that, at least one payment channel per person would have to be written to the Bitcoin blockchain—a process that would take at minimum 30 years if all of humanity is to be on-boarded—and would more likely take several centuries, considering that those payment channels would also be competing with other bitcoin traffic.
Also consider that the security model of the lightning network requires that fraud penalties need to be written to the blockchain within a certain time window if a fraud is to be reversed. A clogged Bitcoin network where transactions are waiting too long to be added to the blockchain—or where blockchain fees are too high to justify adding a fraud-penalty transaction to the blockchain—would result in the entire security model breaking down.
Most small transactions would be via lightning channels between exchange providers. Basically, whomever was running the backend of the wallet app would be an exchange provider. In an ideal world, people would keep their long term savings in other instruments like bonds or even gold and keep day to day cash in exchange providers. Yes, they would be trusted, but not a lot. I think the fees on the Blockchain would be substantial enough that most people wouldn't be using it for coffee and it would only be for bank to bank transactions of these exchange providers.
7 transactions a second would mean 604k transactions a day which is a reasonable number for major counterparties with more than about 35 btc each. (21M/604k)
The craziest part is that no other cryptocurrency has this problem. It is entirely self inflicted that bitcoin has 1 KB/s throughput for the entire world and everyone else just didn't cripple themselves.
There’s no theoretical limit to LN transaction numbers because there’s no shared global state. You could have many very high throughput channels processing payments in parallel.
Any transaction still has to make it on to the chain. A side chain would be like us playing catch in the back yard and thinking we will somehow be padding our major league baseball stats. It doesn't matter until something happens where it counts.
If you find someone to play catch with, that's great, but the whole point of a global transaction network is that anyone can send a balance to anyone else.
> I understand why he so completely misunderstood the PRISM slides he leaked.
I wouldn't hold it against him, most of the tech community completely misunderstood those slides, too.
PRISM was... A web front-end that would produce warrants, that would be served to the various internet companies, who would respond to them by providing the information requested. [1]
But half the people in the tech community seem to think that it was some magical all-seeing-eye-of-Sauron that had backdoors and zero-day-exploits embedded in every webservice we use, where some spook could press a button, and your texts and emails and photos would immediately appear for him.
The NSA also did things like spy on unencrypted cross-data-center traffic (SSL added and removed here ;-) ), and use zero-days against people and organizations, but that wasn't part of PRISM.
[1] There's a lot to complain about, here, but its all splitting hairs about particular legal questions (FISA courts, whether the firms in question were pushing back on these warrants enough, etc), and agency mandates.
PRISM wasn't even that. It was an ingestion pipeline for data that was collected by the FBI (which is shown right there on the slide, already having the systems integrations with the providers to collect this data for warranted wiretaps on specific Americans) via Section 702 orders for the data of specific accounts known to belong to non-US citizens living outside the US suspected of being of national security interest. Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody's email, which of course is nonsense. He insisted that Gellman print those slides immediately, thinking he had discovered something obviously illegal, but Gellman wanted to verify his understanding first (https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/11/2013-edwa...), causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald, who is prone to believe any conspiracy. In the meantime, his location had been discovered, so he shared information with the Chinese government about which Chinese networks had been compromised and when in a failed attempt to get asylum in Hong Kong (https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusiv...).
This peabrain now finds himself stuck in Russia because he couldn't understand basic concepts spelled out in the documents he had access to (and had failed a test on those concepts not very long before, so the fact that he didn't understand them wasn't news to him). Now he's here again telling us about the future of money without understanding how any of it works.
This is incredibly misleading. The NSA itself stated in the documents quoted in the Washington Post story you yourself link that PRISM was its number one source of reporting (“The subtitle of this slide deck called PRISM the source “used most in NSA reporting.”).
In a single year 702 was used to collect 250 million American communications (https://www.brennancenter.org/media/140/download). Yes individual foreigners and foreign groups are certified (in an annual hearing, technically for a bulk warrant, at a secret court no one is allowed to attend). But 702 goes hops out from the original target to people they talk to and the people those people talk to. “Incidental” collection on Americans is expressly allowed. The FBI routinely uses 702 collection to build cases against Americans. It is a staggering program.
>Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody’s email
- source please.
> causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald
First of all, the “undereducated” part is a strange assertion because it’s well established that Greenwald went to NYU law and worked for the prestigious white shoe firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz afterward. He had also at that point been writing (for the Guardian, Salon) specifically about NSA surveillance for many years. By what measure is an NYU trained lawyer with years of experience as a legal and surveillance journalist “undereducated?”
But also, the Washington Post has itself reported that Gellman’s contact with Snowden began in May 2013 - Greenwald has said his started in February. So the timeline does not add up here. Even in the piece you link he acknowledges working with another journalist Snowden worked with (Poitras) at the time he was trying to persuade his editor to publish the first story.
> he shared information with the Chinese governmen
This is false and defamatory (and invites a lawsuit, although you’re picking on someone who faces shall we say challenges defending himself this way). Snowden has repeatedly denied this (plainly baseless) assertion (eg https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/snowde...) and the article you link shows just the opposite - that he provided information openly to journalists (SCMP was famously independent at the time and routinely on the bad side of mainland government though that sadly changed years later).
> The NSA itself stated in the documents quoted in the Washington Post story you yourself link that PRISM was its number one source of reporting (“The subtitle of this slide deck called PRISM the source “used most in NSA reporting.”).
It turns out that data collected in targeted wiretaps of some non-US citizens living outside the US who are believed to have foreign intelligence value is useful for intelligence reports. Who'd've thunk?
That's not what that document says. It says 250 million communications total were collected (across all programs that use Section 702, not just the wiretaps that feed into PRISM). Section 702 allows collection of foreigners' data if they have foreign intelligence value, not Americans'. From the document: "However, a declassified 2011 opinion of the FISA Court notes that 250 million internet
communications were acquired the previous year under Section 702."
> But 702 goes hops out from the original target to people they talk to and the people those people talk to.
Not only does this misinterpretation of the phone metadata collection program have nothing to do with PRISM, but it's false as well. The government is not allowed to wiretap Americans even a single hop away from a foreigner with national security value without a warrant.
> “Incidental” collection on Americans is expressly allowed. The FBI routinely uses 702 collection to build cases against Americans. It is a staggering program.
This doesn't mean that Americans' communications are collected, as Snowden ignorantly claimed. This means that if a foreigner with foreign intelligence value who is being wiretapped under 702 authorization talks about an American who is helping them, that can be used to build a case against the American.
>> Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody’s email
> - source please.
I gave it to you in my previous comment. He told Gellman as much.
> causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald
> First of all, the “undereducated” part is a strange assertion because it’s well established that Greenwald went to NYU law and worked for the prestigious white shoe firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz afterward. He had also at that point been writing (for the Guardian, Salon) specifically about NSA surveillance for many years. By what measure is an NYU trained lawyer with years of experience as a legal and surveillance journalist “undereducated?”
By the measure that he knows absolutely nothing about computers and was widely derided on Twitter by people who know better but instead of educating himself, he doubled down on his claims. Later, the New York Times, CNET, and others reported on these programs accurately, even interviewing people who worked at the tech companies on how the data was sent, and Greenwald continued to not understand it.
> But also, the Washington Post has itself reported that Gellman’s contact with Snowden began in May 2013 - Greenwald has said his started in February. So the timeline does not add up here. Even in the piece you link he acknowledges working with another journalist Snowden worked with (Poitras) at the time he was trying to persuade his editor to publish the first story.
Poitras isn't Greenwald. Gellman and Snowden have both said that Snowden contacted Greenwald after being frustrated with Gellman's fact-checking pace.
>> he shared information with the Chinese governmen
> This is false and defamatory (and invites a lawsuit, although you’re picking on someone who faces shall we say challenges defending himself this way). Snowden has repeatedly denied this (plainly baseless) assertion (eg https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/snowde...) and the article you link shows just the opposite - that he provided information openly to journalists (SCMP was famously independent at the time and routinely on the bad side of mainland government though that sadly changed years later).
SCMP is in China and therefore its data is China's data. To say otherwise is to be as naïve as Snowden.
> PRISM was... A web front-end that would produce warrants, that would be served to the various internet companies, who would respond to them by providing the information requested. [1]
> But half the people in the tech community seem to think that it was some magical all-seeing-eye-of-Sauron that had backdoors and zero-day-exploits embedded in every webservice we use
Those two are literally the same. The former is worse even, since there is no escaping from it - one way or the other they will get your data over some service you used or had to use at a point in history. The latter can be avoided in many ways.
No, one of them is done through the framework of law, the other one is just banditry.
Like, you may not like the idea that the police can serve warrants, or that there are NSLs or a FISA court, but the agency was very much following the rules there. Rules can be challenged in court, rules can be changed.
Um.. I nodded with your first response ( zero days ) as it was accurate, but this may be taking it a little too far. If PRISM has nothing to do with mass surveillance, how would you define it?
A data ingestion system for targeted (not mass) surveillance of particular Internet communication accounts (on US service providers) belonging to non-Americans living outside the US believed to have foreign intelligence value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34510696
I am hesitating to make a guess, but given various existing public lists of 'bad guys', it would be silly of me to assume that the targeted population has a smaller head count than those lists combined ( if not drastically extended ). If that is the case, the sheer number of those likely caught in that particular surveillance would likely be categorized as mass surveillance as opposed to targeted. I get that each industry likes to play with definitions, but you don't get to throw a grenade into lake and call it traditional fishing as it was always intended.
Or are they are considered targeted, because they are on the list and the list just keeps growing?
The whole conversation is silly. If you even buy this particular story ( we only look at accounts of non-Americans ), it gets dismantled rather quickly the moment you try to go through a basic thought exercise of how you would sift that data and ensure no 'foreign intelligence of value' was lost. The how is simple. We take everything in. That is the definition of mass surveillance.
And before we get into 'well, none of that was ever disclosed', I would like to turn your attention to the one of those few times, when IC had a chance to come clean and chose not to[1] and lie in front of congress. Good times. In other words, I can't really take their words at face value.
All this is before we get to Snowden and his revelations.
> If that is the case, the sheer number of those likely caught in that particular surveillance would likely be categorized as mass surveillance
No need to speculate. The internet companies that provide this data publish transparency reports showing ranges for how many accounts are affected. It's a small fraction of a percent.
> The how is simple. We take everything in.
That is illegal, and there is no evidence of that happening. PRISM, the program that we're talking about in particular, explicitly isn't that according to Snowden's documents and the declassified documents.
> when IC had a chance to come clean and chose not to
He came clean right after and declassified a bunch of documents on that phone metadata program (https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-...). Remember, the line of questioning was about if the NSA builds dossiers on Americans, which it doesn't do. The questions then pivoted to whether it collects any information at all about Americans, which would include the phone metadata collection
> I can't really take their words at face value
You don't have to. There have been several leaks, including Snowden's massive leak, showing that the NSA doesn't do this. There is also the law, which says the NSA can't do this, and there is congressional oversight from the Senate Intelligence Committee, which ensures that the NSA doesn't do this. If what you claim was happening, leakers would be sure to leak that first over anything else because it is unquestionably illegal.
That guy is not objective as his life depends on good will of russian govt. I think he is playing "nicest" possible according to conditions he lives in, but at the end he has to "bend".
Russia have a lot of difficulties with transferring money to and from abroad so it is kind of "natural" way for them to go into "promoting" something that can't be that easily controlled and tracked (yet).
Eh. Sure, but do you remember why he was effectively forced to stay in Russia ( although with the benefit of hindsight, this may have worked out better for him than he initially anticipated ). Do you remember how US, allegedly, forced down an airplane over EU[1]?
None of this happened in a vacuum and while I do not automatically subscribe to this particular 'app', I do not dismiss it purely based on the messenger.
Eh. Right but in this case you still have to take into account the messenger. He lives in a sobering reality and I'm sure everything he promotes and communicates he knows must walk a certain line.
Reality is we are in a proxy war with Russia ( some would argue we are past that ). The same reality that guides his actions guide actions of many entities in US ( note recent discussion of banning TikTok, but not FB, LinkedIn or other social media ). Naturally, some would argue that the comparison is not apt, but I would invite those to indicate why the comparison fails to expose the hollowness of those arguments.
Naturally, others may feel a tinge of 'national fervor' and proclaim that no one tells me what to say, while immediately noticing that those that do not toe the official government line are brought to heel via more subtle means of coercion[1]. Those typically ask questions along the lines of whether I somehow equate US with Russia or China and suggest that , clearly, this is false equivalency. To those people I ask, how so? If we are all expected to toe the line, is it false at all?
In short, I am not dismissing what you are saying, but how exactly is it that different from US? There are topics that were entirely verbotten not that long ago ( Foreign Policy discussions were fairly carefully left undebated with exceptions of professional diplomats ) and even today there are topics you simply cannot discuss openly, because you will be automatically banned/shadow banned/restricted/ridiculed in the digital world if you are lucky and doxxed in real world along with other nasty real world consequences if you are not.
If anyone lives in a sobering reality, it is anyone looking at the world through the lens of an alien, who is slowly wondering if he belongs to the same species.
edit: changed professional diplomats line; reads a little better
Power centers have to contend with the largest source of power, the human population of the world. They go to great lengths to prevent it from being coordinated by dividing populations, and they do exercise true power, but at the end of the day they still have to react to what people want and do. If people begin to use bitcoin and the like, they'll find a way to preserve what they can of their power in that environment. They're not omnipotent, they don't win every fight they take on.
There are all sorts of ideologies (including the one you describe) contingent on the masses spontaneously, and effectively, coordinating in pursuit of a common goal.
However, they never describe how this will occur, except by some miracle. Practically, you'd need to control a sizeable chunk of the global media, internet, etc.
It's especially ironic coming from libertarian circles, because hyperindividualists pride themselves on not participating in mass psychology.
It's utterly naïve to expect that cross-border payments will remain unregulated on these networks, given how straightforward it is to regulate.