I am goddamn well pissed-off because yet another one of these bloody spam blackmail emails hit a work account this morning, and thus the question posed above.
Why don't ordinary people accept that crypto is THE CURRENCY OF THE FUTURE? Why does it have a bad reputation? Don't they know something something blockchain contracts Satoshi Nakamoto computers something something means it's beans on toast all round?
Well, this is why. This is just another iteration of the kind of thing I see too frequently for my liking, and I'm quoting it in full because it'll be pertinent:
Hello there!
Unfortunately, there are some bad news for you.
Around several months ago I have obtained access to your devices that you were using to browse internet.
Subsequently, I have proceeded with tracking down internet activities of yours.
Below, is the sequence of past events:
In the past, I have bought access from hackers to numerous email accounts (today, that is a very straightforward task that can be done online).
Clearly, I have effortlessly logged in to email account of yours [deleted].
A week after that, I have managed to install Trojan virus to Operating Systems of all your devices that are used for email access.
Actually, that was quite simple (because you were clicking the links in inbox emails).
All smart things are quite straightforward. (>_<)
The software of mine allows me to access to all controllers in your devices, such as video camera, microphone and keyboard.
I have managed to download all your personal data, as well as web browsing history and photos to my servers.
I can access all messengers of yours, as well as emails, social networks, contacts list and even chat history.
My virus unceasingly refreshes its signatures (since it is driver-based), and hereby stays invisible for your antivirus.
So, by now you should already understand the reason why I remained unnoticed until this very moment...
While collecting your information, I have found out that you are also a huge fan of websites for adults.
You truly enjoy checking out porn websites and watching dirty videos, while having a lot of kinky fun.
I have recorded several kinky scenes of yours and montaged some videos, where you reach orgasms while passionately masturbating.
If you still doubt my serious intentions, it only takes couple mouse clicks to share your videos with your friends, relatives and even colleagues.
It is also not a problem for me to allow those vids for access of public as well.
I truly believe, you would not want this to occur, understanding how special are the videos you love watching, (you are clearly aware of that) all that stuff can result in a real disaster for you.
Let's resolve it like this:
All you need is $1450 USD transfer to my account (bitcoin equivalent based on exchange rate during your transfer), and after the transaction is successful, I will proceed to delete all that kinky stuff without delay.
Afterwards, we can pretend that we have never met before. In addition, I assure you that all the harmful software will be deleted from all your devices. Be sure, I keep my promises.
That is quite a fair deal with a low price, bearing in mind that I have spent a lot of effort to go through your profile and traffic for a long period.
If you are unaware how to buy and send bitcoins - it can be easily fixed by searching all related information online.
Below is bitcoin wallet of mine: 1Nx353jT8zZYaqmoMdMr2PRtdixStrDoZE
You are given not more than 48 hours after you have opened this email (2 days to be precise).
Below is the list of actions that you should not attempt doing:
Do not attempt to reply my email (the email in your inbox was created by me together with return address).
Do not attempt to call police or any other security services. Moreover, don't even think to share this with friends of yours. Once I find that out (make no doubt about it, I can do that effortlessly, bearing in mind that I have full control over all your systems) - the video of yours will become available to public immediately.
Do not attempt to search for me - there is completely no point in that. All cryptocurrency transactions remain anonymous at all times.
Do not attempt reinstalling the OS on devices of yours or get rid of them. It is meaningless too, because all your videos are already available at remote servers.
Below is the list of things you don't need to be concerned about:
That I will not receive the money you transferred.
- Don't you worry, I can still track it, after the transaction is successfully completed, because I still monitor all your activities (trojan virus of mine includes a remote-control option, just like TeamViewer).
That I still will make your videos available to public after your money transfer is complete.
- Believe me, it is meaningless for me to keep on making your life complicated. If I indeed wanted to make it happen, it would happen long time ago!
Everything will be carried out based on fairness!
Before I forget...moving forward try not to get involved in this kind of situations anymore!
An advice from me - regularly change all the passwords to your accounts.
Forget all the guff about "I saw you jerking off to kinky porn", this is an old work account that we only keep around because a few sites won't let us change to the new email address. There isn't any camera, mike, etc. set up and do I really need to say nobody here is jerking off to kinky porn during work hours?
Yes, they're trying to reel in people who are panicked and ignorant of what goes on with computers and just have vague ideas they've picked up from news headlines about large corporations getting hacked (such as happened in my own country to the national health service). I know it's trash and I regularly delete these and the more sophisticated invoice scam ones.
But.
This is the experience most ordinary people will have about bitcoin/cryptocurrency, and mostly what it says is true: I haven't the faintest idea how to start tracking these bozos down if I wanted to. They do have secure and untraceable anonymous transactions. Hackers do steal and sell on information.
So long as cryptocurrency is associated with criminals and fraud, nobody is going to trust it or touch it with a ten-foot barge pole. You don't want goverment interference and regulation? Then do something about these guys who are scamming and making money off scams.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
There's a big problem with crypto for regular use when you hear the creator of Ethereum, in a podcast, talk about the paranoid rampage he suffered for three days to make a transaction (albeit probably the biggest ever).
He inspected and coded his own library/script because he was so unsure of the inherent safety of the running environment for that virtual money.
This is the biggest problem with the "code is law" paradigm - we as humans are extremely shitty at making code. With law, we have thousands of years of experience how to deal with it, with code, we barely have 50 years, and we're not getting any better at it - arguably, worse.
As soon as we get withing sight of being good at one narrow section, they invent some new contrivance we all have to learn; despite the fact that all languages are just C or lisp. NO, I will not be taking any questions
All languages are actually just dynamic circuit mappings.
Please elaborate, I'd actually want to know more.
In short from someone who barely knows shit about fuckall bellow the assembly layer: computer languages are some level n of abstraction (eg, int x = 1; translates to mov r(n) #1 in ARM assembly; which is iteself an abstraction to some binary) away from machine code which is itself an abstraction of some sort of voltage difference (or some other difference in other media ) that actually physically exists in the logic gates and what have you in your pixie box.
So a given bit of code running on a given piece of hardware could actually be written out as a circuit diagram, because that's what it is.
Unless this is wrong because fuck learning about volts and shit. It's all just magic to me once you get smaller than .5mm.
Hmmm... I have some issues with this reductivism. To me code is a bit more platonic than that. Yes- code running on a specific architecture is reducible to logic gates, but if you run on a different architecture it may be reduced to a different set of logic gates. The standards for the abstraction level drive the architecture to meet those standards in order to permit the abstraction to hold a consistent meaning in the absence of consistent architecture.
Ultimately, a given language has a sort of categorical realism that emerges from the human choice to standardize the capabilities of different underlying structures to a single shared identity, a shared emergent structure. ie ECMAScript.
I still agree that its a series of abstractions- but it doesn't bottom out in a single circuit diagram, it bottoms out in the set of all physical systems capable of implementing the standard. And they will all share an isomorphism with one another, including the circuit diagrams. That isomorphism 'is' the standard.
That's why I qualified the statement so hard; but it is mainly a joke.
I'd argue circuit diagram is the bottom; but the graph looks more like a tree than a pyramid: Everything narrows down before spreading back out. Especial since all architectures share so much commonality. x86 and ARM have different assembly languages; but an ALU is an ALU and a register is a register.
Although I guess computers existed before ALUs, so I have just found another rabbit hole to fling myself down lol.
More seriously: IMO the important thing for people to remember if they want to write really good in any language is that silicone exists and all your shit is going through these little micro components on a chip somewhere, while also remembering that unless you are willing to put in a couple dozen extra hours; the compiler is better than you are.
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