Token Daily

bleuvault 3 weeks ago

I'm gonna break down this article on stream Monday while I play Project: Gorgon. I'd love to get some people in there to discuss and have a dialogue. Come hang out twitch.tv/readscare

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RiichiRich 3 weeks ago

I bet he dislikes Schopenhauer and Nietzsche hahaha

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furisx12 3 weeks ago

politics is shit i learn it from eve online

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Ducktruck_OG 3 weeks ago

Mittani 4 President

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Forgword 3 weeks ago

Wall of text-itus...

Could someone do a TLDR?

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qayxswqasxy D&D Online 3 weeks ago

**tl;dr** As members of our community may know, Lessig is creating the political structure for Seed, our upcoming game in which players must collaborate to rebuild society on a new, untamed planet. Lessig sees similar potential in the next generation of MMOs, which enable truly massive numbers of users to participate in the same, evolving environment. The process, Lessig noted, "Evinced the deep infrastructural inequality built it into the system." He worried that these results would increase frustration with the selection process, which would only intensify with the Presidential race in 2020. "There's a deep need of the American system to resolve itself," as Lessig put it to me, "And I'm anxious that it will not resolve in time." Lessig's design for the political system in Seed, which will shape how the virtual citizens of the game go about running their colonial settlements, reflect his thoughts on the many models of governance attempted on our own planet. "I've basically been setting a framework of what a governing system would need to include, including an opportunity to select the basic system of government," he tells me. One challenge Lessig and Klang is addressing is how much the game's governance rules will be hardcoded into the programming, or get integrated into emergent gameplay. "I would like to see in games, at least, a wider opportunity to experiment with that system of election. I'd love to see people playing with that." And a system like this might be a good way to address the larger problem of democratic parties making choices based on vastly different news sources: "There's a real question about how to make sure people are living with a common set of facts so they're not living in epistemologically isolating universes," as Lessig puts it. **still** **tl;dr** The process, Lessig noted, "Evinced the deep infrastructural inequality built it into the system." He worried that these results would increase frustration with the selection process, which would only intensify with the Presidential race in 2020. "There's a deep need of the American system to resolve itself," as Lessig put it to me, "And I'm anxious that it will not resolve in time." Lessig's design for the political system in Seed, which will shape how the virtual citizens of the game go about running their colonial settlements, reflect his thoughts on the many models of governance attempted on our own planet. One challenge Lessig and Klang is addressing is how much the game's governance rules will be hardcoded into the programming, or get integrated into emergent gameplay.

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Forgword 3 weeks ago

TL;DR of your TL;DR: Pol Sci egghead thinks government is imperfect, now struggling (with pretty much no clue) on how to code a game where it is not.

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Reavx 3 weeks ago

No thank ye

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thinktank001 3 weeks ago

I don't think you would learn anything with the current crop of games. We don't have a game advanced enough where politics can play a huge part of the virtual world.

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slimegodmillionaire 3 weeks ago

I disagree. What it comes down to is that in order for a game to have meaningful decisions, there has to be meaningful consequences for your actions. Without meaningful choices and consequences, there's no incentive to take things seriously. There's this fine balance between the game being rewarding/punishing, while creating systems that encourage player cooperation or war(i.e. guilds) and still keeping it a sandbox. Most people don't want meaningful consequences in a video game (ie spending months of in-game time obtaining items/cities that you could lose to another player. Nor do they want the time it takes to develop sandbox worlds. The preferred method is an instanced battleground, where nothing carrys over. I've seen 2 open world sandbox games where the focus is completely player developed world centered around PvP, and they've had some of the best politics I've seen (EVE Online and Shadowbane). But they are/were brutal games that most people don't have fun playing. By bringing politics into a game you remove some of the joy out of it, and most people play video games to have fun and relax.

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furisx12 3 weeks ago

and others just want a game to f\*\*k them till they love it.

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The_R1NG 3 weeks ago

I play a few but they are old school, as in MUD oldschool

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localcoinatm 8 mins ago

Great share!

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diydude2 9 mins ago

He says Bitcoin uses too much energy. Hogwash.

You know what uses a lot of energy? Cars, especially manufacturing them. Rockets use a lot of energy too. And last time I checked, you couldn't dig a tunnel without expending a fuckton of energy.

Elon is the most overrated celebrity of them all. He's never had a truly groundbreaking idea. He's just a kid who got lucky with PayPal and (to his credit) used it to do the stuff little boys like to do -- cars, rockets, digging tunnels, etc.

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brutalmastersDAD 13 mins ago

But JPMorgan says.... oh wait!

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jellybro 15 mins ago

Wasn't it just on the front page yesterday that he said Tesla would never use cryptocurrency?

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Miffers 20 mins ago

I guess he is done buying btc

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DaveN202 48 mins ago

He also said it has problems like the energy usage...

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br0cket 56 mins ago

Funding secured 420 BTC

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CryptoKujira 1 h ago

Conspiracy theory time. Maybe he just bought a bunch of Bitcoin prior to that statement, and that's why it bumped up to 4k? Haha

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Jddcm 1 h ago

Tesla/ tezos do rhyme

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UpstairsAdagio 1 h ago

And then says the asics are bad for nature

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cheezbeans 2 hs ago

So why was he acting like he knew nothing and wanted no part of bitcoin for years?

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Ru9on 2 hs ago

A Tesla is way better than a regular car.

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volvo09 1 h ago

A regular electric car is way better than a tesla. I want an electric car, but I'll never buy into their Apple like repair system.

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Cryptolution 9 mins ago

> A regular electric car is way better than a tesla. I'm not sure how you have quantified this. As someone who owns an electric car I would strongly disagree. Tesla's have a good rep for a reason. The model 3 is the safest car according to the nhtsa who's authority it is to determine exactly that. did you know that Tesla also holds the number two and the number three spot for the model x and the model s? That's not some freakish coincidence that's called excellent engineering. When you are driving a zoomey deathbox around everyday I would say that safety is the most important factor of any vehicle. Besides that it drives like a Ferrari. Honestly I'm a little confused by your comment it almost seems like you have some hatred for Tesla that has made you biased and unaccepting of basic facts as they relate to this manufacturer. Did you have a pre-order for a model 3 and then got pissed over the long-range battery? Something obviously happened to you for you to have this altered perception of reality. Were you born a hater? Clearly you've never driven one and you probably have not driven other electric cars either. If you had you certainly wouldn't have this opinion. I've driven a variety of electric vehicles and nothing even remotely compares to a Tesla at this very moment. That will of course change in the future. as for the repair system I'm not too worried about it. there are already people teaching other people by the hundreds how to salvage and repair Tesla's. this information is coming into public domain and in the future when there are old Tesla's that need service I think that there will be a vibrant ecosystem to repair them. Competition in the market will also force them to be better in their business model. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/08/tesla-model-3-safest-car-ever-tested-by-nhtsa-how-did-tesla-pull-it-off/

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cfdeveloper 41 mins ago

I want a Tesla bad, but won't get one for the same "Apple" reasons.

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sexyama 51 mins ago

Tesla is the best but fair point about the repair system.

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therealzorek 1 h ago

You’re poor. Sorry about that

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Chamblissw 13 mins ago

Maybe he has a more expensive car Tesla’s are junk. The model 2 is about as “decent” of a rip off you can get for 80k.

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pointlessarguments3 1 h ago

Or maybe he is just frugal. No need to be an asshole

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WVoro 3 hs ago

I am glad that unique visioners like r/elonmusk starting to realize the inevitable truth, that digitally native money is the only logical direction for the digitally native products, including robots and autonomous vehicles. r/tezos network with the environmentally friendly PoS is, of course, a more logical fit for the companies promoting and standardizing sustainable energy sources, including r/teslamotors. I hope that very soon, all vehicles will be not only able to store and transfer value, but will do it with the only right way, by utilizing blockchain and cryptocurrency tech.

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ThisIsHugeGuy 4 hs ago

THIS IS HUGE

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alluva redditor for 3 months 5 hs ago

Musk has been voicing his interest in crypto for a while. There were even some rumours that Tesla will have something to do with cryptocurrencies. But in a recent podcast he said that Tesla will not be getting involved with cryptocurrencies, primarily due to their dedication to sustainable energy.

Edit: link to the podcast

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wolfwolfz 5 hs ago

Tesla tokenizing on Tezos? 😍

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jaysun13 6 hs ago

Elon Musk probably low key invented bitcoin. My reason behind this theory is he hates what became of PayPal after he sold it.

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togetherwem0m0 1 h ago

Hal Finney was the person who successfully brought together the precursor concepts and created bitcoin. Other people like Nick Szabo and others contributed massively to the precursors.

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bearCatBird 59 mins ago

S.atoshi N.akamoto (SN) N.ick S.zabo (NS) Hal.Finney Halv.ening You do the math.

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outofofficeagain 5 hs ago

Name 2 things he has invented?

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tawperson 16 mins ago

Name 2 things you haven't bitched about? How have you contributed to society? When you walk out of a room, do people (who have had the displeasure of knowing you) bitch about you too because all you do is bitch about things to them?

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3deToast 5 hs ago

What have you invented?

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55555 55 mins ago

deez nutz

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ryt3n 43 mins ago

Gotem

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newbrict 5 hs ago

CARS HOLES SPACESHIPS

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ThisIsHugeGuy 4 hs ago

CAR -> HOLE -> SPACESHIP -> SPACE

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outofofficeagain 5 hs ago

Cars already existed, as did Tesla motors, he came in as a VC, rockets already existed too, he was lucky to get a great rocket designer who is a former lumberjack to start the company with him, his name is Tom Mueller. As for the invention of holes.... yo mamma

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newbrict 3 hs ago

On a serious note though, all inventions are build upon previous inventions. If he had created the car you would have said "engines already existed, so did wheels", etc. Regardless if he did all the work by himself or through others it was his vision, his money, his invention.

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cornelius_z 4 hs ago

using the term 'lucky' is a tacky way to dismiss peoples success.

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etmetm 7 hs ago

LN torch to the test

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souspeed 8 hs ago

Unfortunately he doesn't realize yet that crypto can significantly contribute to the use of sustainable stable energy sources.

Crypto mining tends to move to where there is abundant and excess cheap energy, such as hydro-plants.

New hydro-plants are always developed based on future demand, meaning there is a large surplus of abundant energy at start. This energy can be used to mine crypto, hence adding an additional revenue stream from the start to make the business case for a new and/or bigger hydro-plant more economical viable.

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kritap55 1 h ago

What a fuckload of bullshit. As if there weren‘t better use cases as wasting energy on Proof of Work.

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togetherwem0m0 1 h ago

It's a difficult nut to crack. Bitcoins proof of work implementation is successful in securing the chain because it creates a competitive marketplace that is immune to attacks because of its size. it's difficult to think of an alternative method of securing a block chain that doesn't rely on centralized authority that could be anywhere near as secure as the bitcoin proof of work method.

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Nactusdurrelli redditor for 2 weeks 4 hs ago

This... ⚡ https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/02/13/asic-chip-technology-is-renewable-energys-future/

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Hanspanzer 6 hs ago

I think it's rather a marketing topic which is dependent on public perception, which is that Bitcoin is an environmental desaster

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asherp 16 mins ago

Public perception changes with the winds. A green gold Rush works whether or not the public gets it.

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tafjangle 7 hs ago

All good - except hydro plants are devastating for the ecosystem - down and up stream. I always wondered if you could mine bitcoins from a satellite running on solar power? You’d have 24 hour intense sunlight to power it and cold environment to run the rigs.

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Utoko 57 mins ago

ofc you could but ofc it isn't economically viable.

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BBA935 2 hs ago

It’s not cold in space if you are in direct sunlight. It gets over 200C if I remember right.

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BECAUSEYOUDBEINJAIL 1 h ago

Wut

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55555 57 mins ago

It's only cold in space when the sun isn't shining on you. There is no air to dump heat into so you have to dissipate it radiatively which is way way slower.

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BBA935 58 mins ago

My bad. It was 260F on the bright side of the moon, so 127C. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/18175-moon-temperature.html

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thebawller redditor for 3 months 3 hs ago

It can basically just be water turning a wheel it doesn't have to harm the environment at all. That's the whole point

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eridrivic 5 hs ago

Heat doesn't transfer well in space, because of the absence of air.

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AlcherBlack 2 hs ago

\^ This guy is correct, it's insanely difficult to get rid of heat in space \^ Ever noticed those things on the ISS that look like solar panes but ain't? [Radiators](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/International_Space_Station_TCS.png).

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majestic_12inch 5 hs ago

Solar power = light, not heat.

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the_zukk 4 hs ago

Miners = a lot of heat

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RedditTooAddictive 6 hs ago

Damn, never thought about it Many hurdles to overcome (no maintenance possible, debris around the planet, no upgrade of the rig possible) but it could be legit at some point Maybe propagation speed would be too slow though?

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Hanspanzer 7 hs ago

sure. you'll have a problem with maintenance and installing next gen miners though ;)

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ruralkite 2 hs ago

You can use FPGAs, so you can always just upload the latest mining algorithm

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55555 58 mins ago

The algorithm doesn't really get better. ASIC hardware gets better.

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ruralkite 34 mins ago

With FPGAs you do hardware programming. You can do a better hardware design for an FPGA in a similar way as you design a new ASIC.

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55555 6 mins ago

FGPA isn't as performant or energy efficient. But there are like 100 other reasons not to mine bitcoin on satellites. The primary one being that the cost of launching everything required for 100 space ASICs would be like $100,000,000, and you would never ever get an ROI.

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Eislemike 4 hs ago

You don’t need next gen miners if you can automate maintenance it won’t go out of profitability. Problem is inventing a heat sink that’s feasible and economical.

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suender90 8 hs ago

He should accept BTC to buy a Tesla.

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I-am-the-noob 2 hs ago

This is going to happen sooner or later. Will be best for the first big company. Accepting bitcoin without middleman like bitpay would be great. @elon I highly recommend btcpayserver.org

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bluetrevian 3 hs ago

Won't work. Contacted their legal team about it years ago and was forced to use an in-state fiduciary to complete the transaction. Might budge if they were willing, but in 2013--they would not.

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Aenyrendil 1 h ago

2013 was 6 years ago though.

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ToBitOrNotToBit 48 mins ago

That's like a hundred in your good ole times!!!

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WobblyScrotum redditor for 2 months 3 hs ago

We're not in 2013 anymore Toto.

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wesmokebitcoins 2 hs ago

I bless the rains down in Africa! Gonna take some time to do the things we never haaaaaaaaaaaad

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The_Goat-Whisperer 31 mins ago

da da dada da da daaaaaaaa

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lazarus_free 6 hs ago

Let's continue bashing him on Twitter he may eventually give in.

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Bendertheoffender69 25 mins ago

😂😂😂👍

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Akoustyk 8 hs ago

He thing is "paper" and "fiat" are not the same. And fiat is less and less being transferred with paper money.

Bitcoin is not an alternative to paper. It just doesn't have a paper version of itself like fiat has, due to its fundamental nature.

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varikonniemi 5 hs ago

It most certainly has. Physical Bitcoins. Paper wallets. Your ignorance is astounding.

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Prelsidio 8 hs ago

By paper he meant the days it takes to transfer something overseas. He was talking about transfer of value.

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nanophilatelic redditor for 2 weeks 9 hs ago

OH WOW This is great for Bitcoin! Do you happen to know what McAfee has to say about Bitcoin?

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Prelsidio 8 hs ago

Did you just compare Elon to McAfee?

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nanophilatelic redditor for 2 weeks 7 hs ago

McAfee is like the Edward Jenner of computers.

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cruz878 5 hs ago

Isn’t McAfee more like the Bruce Jenner of computers (he ate his own dick if I recall).

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BakedLaysPorno 23 mins ago

For more information on 51% attacks watch the HBO docuseries, “Silicon Valley se05 ep08”

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Sololoquor 38 mins ago

Ethereum CLASSIC NOT Ethereum.

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Mnementh2230 42 mins ago

Yyyyyyyup, saw it coming. There's an XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/2030/

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Average_Manners 43 mins ago

Basically if 51% of the computers submit the same wrong answer, the majority wins.

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SnapshillBot 1 h ago

I want to be a part of those people who are going to stand up and fight for the right of Bitcoin.

Snapshots:

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Saigot 2 hs ago

51% percent attack is hardly a 'hack' and was somewhat inevitable as a shrinking crypto population is spread over more and more currencies.

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ChocolateSunrise 1 h ago

I kind of agree, but regardless 51% attacks are a known vulnerability and low hash rate, pow blockchains are the most vulnerable networks to attack.

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ScriptThat 1 h ago

Wait, it's just a 51% attack? Isn't the whole *point* of blockchain that when the majority decides that [This] is what is the truth, then it's the truth?

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user5543 1 h ago

Yes, however Ethereum \*Classic\* is a fork that's slowly dying, so not that many people/orgs run nodes any more. Apparently, it came to a point where it was feasible for an attacker to overpower the network long enough to execute payouts through various exchanges. Once they turn off their servers, history gets reinstated, but the fiat that the exchanges paid out is gone.

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ScriptThat 20 mins ago

Ah! Gotcha.

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ChocolateSunrise 1 h ago

Depends on how you define “majority”. If it is one entity with 51% of the hash rate is a majority? For me, they are just the majority of a hash rate, not of the end users. In other words, this is poor design and these blockchains deserve to die.

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ricardoschiller 2 hs ago

The word hacked needs thorough definition here.

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annonimusone 1 h ago

How is the article using it?

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twitch1982 1 h ago

51% attack on a dying fork.

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FauxShizzle 1 h ago

Incorrectly. They should be using the term "exploit".

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Pulaflat 42 mins ago

I thought taking advantage of computer exploits was hacking

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FauxShizzle 36 mins ago

It's a larger umbrella which includes hacking, but in this case I wouldn't apply that specific term here. They are working within the very rules of the system's consensus, not using a coding flaw.

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mwthink 3 hs ago

Blockchains are still unhackable. Blockchains that aren't using proof-of-work algos are obviously just centralized BS.

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Digging_For_Ostrich 3 hs ago

Nobody with sense ever thought they were unhackable. Block chains rely on the trust and security of the organisations and protocols running them

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KrishanuAR 2 hs ago

So... like a central bank?

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bountygiver 2 hs ago

Not at all, a central bank can decide to change the records if they want, not in blockchain.

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KrishanuAR 2 hs ago

But if they want to radically change the algorithms underlying the currency, it’s their prerogative. It’s the same problem dressed up differently.

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bountygiver 2 hs ago

Unless the miners are blindly following, you cannot just change the algorithm, it will cause a hard fork.

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patrikr 3 hs ago

Bullshit.

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opackersgo 3 hs ago

Excellent evidence based counterpoint there genius.

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patrikr 3 hs ago

Just calling a spade a spade.

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bundabrg 4 hs ago

Working as intended. Two block chains sharing a common mining algorithms will be in competition and the weaker chain will be in danger of being destroyed (or should be, ETC is still around amazingly and holding value)

It's surprising it's not happening more. Some of the alt coins can be 51% attacked for only a few hundred dollars and most can be shorted at an exchange.

However a strong chain like BTC would cost significantly more and you can't simply hire enough hash and would need to purchase the mining hardware. As there are not any other valuable chains sharing it's mining algorithm the attacker also risks trashing their hardware investment should they succeed.

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losh11 4 hs ago

The author of the Bitcoin white paper was aware of 51% attacks - and Ethereum Classic is not the first example of this attack to ever occur. This is not what was meant by people claiming Blockchain is 'unhackable'.

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0xf3e 2 hs ago

*Ethereum Classic

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losh11 2 hs ago

Sorry, blame autocorrect.

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Arkache 5 hs ago

It seems that the articale is only speaking about public blockchain, what's for the other private blockchain? Are they going through the same problem?

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tokenware 5 hs ago

It is developing more and more with every new day, and it gets harder and harder to hack it.

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Mohkale77 5 hs ago

This doesn’t feel like block chains fault. Flawed implementations on various different portals is to blame. The concept of block chain is still sound, but just like any other program it can have vulnerabilities depending on who built it and how.

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losh11 5 hs ago

It's a bit like someone calling EC flawed. Mathematically it's fine, but you can't really trust NIST to not insert backdoors.

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we_are_all_bananas_2 5 hs ago

"Sure, they can make it hack-proof. But that doesn't mean we're not going to hack it"

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suspexp 1 h ago

Somewhere beyond the sea..

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FeedPlusPlus 5 hs ago

So 51 percent control of the ledger seems like something you might want to take a look at coding in some safety from sudden chain authority shifts

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0xD153A53 5 hs ago

How would you contend with nefarious actors? If anyone can add themselves as a node, it's just a matter of resources to take over 51% control of the ledger. If there's a set nodelist, or a process by which to join it, the benefit of ledger transparency disappears.

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nannal 17 mins ago

Disallow blocks which don't originate from a whitelisted IP address, it's not hard to lock down a chain.

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steamruler 4 hs ago

You could limit the ability for people to add to the chain, but that obviously breaks for anything that requires everyone to be able to add stuff to the chain.

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esquire0 5 hs ago

Presumably it's a few thousand sock puppets that collectively control 51%, as opposed to a single miner.

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MJBrune 6 hs ago

I might catch flack for this but if you ask any software engineer if we should have software based voting they all scream "NOOO!" (relevant xkcd lying around here somewhere...) When at the same they were all like "oh hmm this block chain thingy seems like a decent idea to put all your currency into. What could do wrong?" I never fully understood that because while the logic of the blockchain was sound at the time bugs and issues always exist.

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FunkyFarmington 4 hs ago

Silly rabbit, elections are hacked by using social media. No need whatsoever to get technical about it.

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Irythros 4 hs ago

There's reasons why it's fine for currency but not for voting. Ask the same engineers and they'll even say no to electronic voting which then by your reasoning "Why would I do any banking or personal things on a computer?" The risk is minimal and the usability is amazing, but for the voting it's the exact opposite.  First issue: Lack of anonymity. Voting on block chain would give specific point in time reference to a vote. I'm not sure what info is given for tallying but if it includes location it would be safe to assume to the blockchain version would too. This would allow buying of votes and providing a guaranteed way to see if the person voted your way.  Second issue: Security isn't guaranteed. With paper ballot you have to physically go to the voting place, receive a physical ballot, physically fill in the form and then hand it in. Recounts are first done automatically with scanners (I think) and then if needed by hand. With blockchain you have to trust that it's correct. This is a minor problem because money can do minimal damage and there's tons of checks along the way. Voting requires the highest scrutiny but all you can do is trust that the X votes from Y polling place was correct.  Third issue: What does blockchain solve here? Blockchain is a distributed ledger to ensure safety by numbers. You would either need to pay people to run the blockchain software or run it entirely by the government which would make it pointless and be an append-only ledger.  Fourth: It solves few issues and makes many more. What is the issue with physical ballots? They can be lost/undelivered and that's about it. You could go with an electronic assist where you put in the ballot and it fills in the spots for you so but still retain the upsides. Blockchain solves nothing. Just like many blockchain projects, they solve no issue but still exist for some reason.  Fifth: Kind of an add-on to the third, but you typically need a 50%+1 stake to control what is accurate and not. The government would need to convince enough legit citizens to run the software to prevent state-level attacks. Alternatives would be staking of course, where you go to an office to verify you're a person and then you receive a small portion of the networks currency/trust. That seems unlikely though and you'd now have to audit who gives out that stake to ensure they're not selling to foreigners.  There's more but I'm tired of typing.  \--  TLDR: Blockchain is acceptable for currency, it's not acceptable for voting due to a myriad of reasons. 

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Arb404 3 hs ago

I often wonder if it might be a viable solution for democracies in less developed countries. Assuming that they're using a large decentralised block chain you could avoid vote manipulation and it would probably be cheaper to implement.

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steamruler 4 hs ago

> First issue: Lack of anonymity. Voting on block chain would give specific point in time reference to a vote. Only if it's published when you make a vote, otherwise you'll just be able to deduce a before/after relationship with other votes. >Second issue: Security isn't guaranteed. With paper ballot you have to physically go to the voting place, receive a physical ballot, physically fill in the form and then hand it in. You can provide the same security with a blockchain system. Everyone can get a random public/private key pair used to sign their vote (only the public key is stored to allow validation that it's allowed to act as a vote), you could be forced to do it at voting places like today too. You can really do exactly the same work, but digital. >Third issue: What does blockchain solve here? > >Fifth: Kind of an add-on to the third, but you typically need a 50%+1 stake to control what is accurate and not. This is the bigger issue, blockchain doesn't solve much here. However, what makes a valid chain is quite flexible, and Proof of Work and Proof of Stake are only two of millions possible proof methods. For example, you could have it so that a valid block requires a hash of the previous block, as well as a public key signature from a set of trusted parties, say the government and an independent observer, which prevents either of them from forging blocks on their own, and prevents outsiders from creating blocks. There's also chain selection, i.e. what constitutes a valid chain, which is usually the longest chain without invalid data, which allows you to declare a chain invalid even if all blocks in there, individually, are valid. One example would be if people started voting before a special "voting started" block or something.

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Majromax 2 hs ago

> Only if it's published when you make a vote, otherwise you'll just be able to deduce a before/after relationship with other votes. That's a weak form of anonymity: without a voter's cooperation, proving their vote is impossible. Secret ballots, however, offer a stronger form: a voter themselves cannot prove whom they voted for. It's this latter property that makes vote-buying impossible, since a would-be voter could falsely claim to have voted for the paying candidate. In an electronic voting system, however, either the voter retains the ability to prove their vote was counted or the system is not auditable.

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LandOfTheLostPass 2 hs ago

> You can provide the same security with a blockchain system. Everyone can get a random public/private key pair used to sign their vote (only the public key is stored to allow validation that it's allowed to act as a vote), you could be forced to do it at voting places like today too. You can really do exactly the same work, but digital. This sort of unsolves any solution to anonymity. Who is handing out the keys? The obvious answer is: a government entity. We now need to trust that they are not logging who owns what keypair. That's an OK idea until we get another Joseph McCarthy running around. Imagine the fun he would have had with a complete ledger of every vote every American made. The other issue becomes the ease of vote buying and coercion. You see, Ivan here is just really curios about how you voted, and since you can use your key pair to validate that, Ivan thinks you should show him that you really did vote for President Gorsky. On an unrelated note, Ivan would be terribly upset if you fell down the stairs and broke both your legs. Granted, the second issue is why I'm not a huge fan of voting by mail. Also, see [North Carolina](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/north-carolina-election-fraud.html). Though, that at least has the advantage of not being verifiable after the fact.

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steamruler 1 h ago

You could just be handed a key out of the pool as you enter a voting booth, similar to how they check you off electoral roll, and have the machine wipe the key after it's produced the signature. None the less, the real issue is that a pen won't check someone else's box, but a computer might, and the only way to verify that the computer hasn't tampered with your vote is to be able to verify that your vote is for the person you voted for, and that requires you to be able to identify your vote in the chain.

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Sjoerder 4 hs ago

[xkcd: Voting Software](https://xkcd.com/2030/)

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translunarinjection 3 hs ago

Obligatory r/relevantxkcd

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The_Sly_Marbo 6 hs ago

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html

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pineapple-leon 5 hs ago

So blockchain is useless because of software bugs/insecurities and "transactions are irreversible." What a joke. This is the second time I've seen this article posted and both times I've had to ask myself who actually believes this? The EXACT same argument could be used for literally any piece of software. Fuck his money example, what about the almost countless number of slightly automated vehicles currently in use, susceptible to hacking, and could cause more irreparable harm than an empty bank account? So, in short: what a crock of shit.

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laforet 3 hs ago

>what about the almost countless number of slightly automated vehicles currently in use, susceptible to hacking, and could cause more irreparable harm than an empty bank account? Which is why all L2 automated cars still require a human driver behind the wheel ready to control.They are simply not good enough to be trusted without manual oversight. Besides, unlike blockchain, nobody is seeking to create a permissionless car that will not deviate from the route once programmed by anon. As for permissioned private/federated blockchains, Schneier made a good point that they are even more pointless solutions looking for a problem to solve.

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pineapple-leon 1 h ago

> Which is why all L2 automated cars still require a human driver behind the wheel ready to control.They are simply not good enough to be trusted without manual oversight. Besides, unlike blockchain, nobody is seeking to create a permissionless car that will not deviate from the route once programmed by anon. Yea, that's cool and all but you missed the point. Using your example, a self driving car can he hacked and has security bugs similarly to block chain. So why can we trust self driving cars with our life, but not block chain with our wallet? This arbitrary line being drawn is hilarious to me. I just can't imagine writing off a whole branch of computing, still in it's infancy, using "but we can't trruuussssttt code" as the reasoning. Seriously? Your life relies on software constantly. How can you just choose when to pull out the security card? Edit: Im really objecting to whoever wrote the article's points ffor uselessness. I don't understand how bugs make something unusable when they happen to every piece of software in existence. Using his same metrics, we shouldn't be using a lot of software. If you want to give more points similar to "its irreversible", go ahead. I can handle those. They show atleast some incompatibilities between block chain and current banking that would hurt adoption of blockchain. It's a great point, just would like more before calling something as novel as blockchain useless.

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SuperNoEntiendo 5 hs ago

I'm reminded of the Rick and Morty episode where the value of the intergalactic Currency is set to zero.

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pineapple-leon 5 hs ago

Never seen it. Care to explain? Edit: and just to be clear with my previous post: I'm not a proponent of cryptos. But saying block chain is useless because of the given reasons is a long shot.

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SuperNoEntiendo 4 hs ago

The value of the intergalactic currency is intentionally changed from being worth "one" of itself to being worth "zero" of itself. (Which is a reflexive logic and divide by zero error joke.) The Intergalactic Government immediately implodes. Violence and destruction.

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HN_bot 7 hs ago

Hacker News discussion

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iikra 8 hs ago

TLDR this shitpost with clickbait title :

1/ shitcoins (with low hashrate) get 51% attack ( a risk known since satoshi's whitepaper )

2/Exchanges hacked (not related to blockchain tech at all

3/smart contract may be buggy / getting backdoor (again when a hacker is profiting from a buggy smart contract, the security of the blochain is not involved).

Thanks to downvote this very low quality article

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jonaemahina Redditor for 4 months. 8 hs ago

Zcash is open source.

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iikra 7 hs ago

You are right, my bad for Zcash

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klaysDoodle Yesterday

But the only people who said they were unhackable are people that didn't understand how a blockchain works.

Even BTC used milestones when it first came out to avoid the 51% attacks and it didn't really avoid them just give you good grounding that everything before that time was 'safer'.

You can still 51% attack BTC and override all other nodes, you'd just have to spend so much money on hardware and computing that it wouldn't be worth it for the little BTC you'd make. Same as encryption, you can absolutely crack any encryption scheme like AES. I can write code in 5 minutes that'll do it, but you'll just be dead before it finished or broke, making it impractical.

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nyhmbus Yesterday

Clickbait

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huntercryp Yesterday

is it still safe? hopefully yes. those hacking are in craze right now

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laurence_francisco Yesterday

Should this update instill fear to us btc investors??

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bushwacker 8 hs ago

The btc price trend should be sufficient.

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laurence_francisco 1 h ago

Yeah, I agree that the latest btc bullish trend should suffice. Yet still, this news perhaps might cause alarm too to other investors. Anyway, I'll continue to monitor its development. I better calm myself and return to my [blackjack](https://to.crwd.cr/smtm) session. Cheers!

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Remarkable_Basket 10 hs ago

no, we already know that blockchain can be hacked. The thing is it shard to do.

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25 7 2

Romarion 1 h ago

Quite the debacle. I guess they didn't get the memo; sending uranium to your enemy is perfectly fine (as long as the appropriate parties reap appropriate profits), nuclear power technology to your allies is bad.

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becauseiwantedto 3 hs ago

Just fucking wow, treason much? All for weapon sales.

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HoomanGuy 3 hs ago

What's the worst that could happen? The saudis supporting terrorist groups with that tech?

I laugh just at the ridiculousness of the thought!

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Dodge1992 3 hs ago

So sad that I read this post and immediately thought “fake news.” I really wish the msm hadnt jumped the shark with TDS. The MSM has cried wolf for so long that Trump could do anything now and it would just read like another daily tds headline.

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TrumptraintoDC 7 hs ago

These stories against trump are absurd

Who cares Obama give Iran 200 billion in cash

Russia gave Clinton’s 140 million for our uranium to Clinton’s foundation

Go deal with that first

1

CaptG33ch 9 hs ago

Saudi Arabia funded and pulled off 9/11. Always forget....

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creature666 7 hs ago

more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMkX5uemLyk

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manster62 8 hs ago

They also increased production of oil at the request of the state department to destroy the Venezuela economy. One big ultra right happy family.

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SuperNinjaNye 9 hs ago

Im waiting for conservatives to Lauren Southerns style support Saudi Arabia. Seeing as seriously criticising Trump is the last thing they want to do.

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xjohnmcclanex 9 hs ago

Nope. Your TDS is showing. Take trump out of the equation for 30 seconds

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apatheticjester 9 hs ago

Trump could fuck a kid with a condom and they would be arguing that it was thick enough latex that it wasn't really pedophilia.

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Dodge1992 3 hs ago

They? MSM? Anderson cooper? Who?

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7hr0wn 9 hs ago

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mohammedbeensalmon 10 hs ago

jesus fucking christ

i'll assume if they can enrich for reactors they can enrich for bombs?

LKY said its fine for large pwoers to have nukes, but its dangeorus for small actors to have them.

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killingzoo Chinese 10 hs ago

more like a Dr. Evil movie.

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BrassBelles 10 hs ago

And yet I'm not concerned. Now why would that be do you think?

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LlfeLibertyHappiness Constitutional Conservative 10 hs ago

Jesus.

The amount of “conservatives” in here trying to draw anything from this is hilarious. Bring proof of this kind of stuff or fuck off.

Why?

Because as the “Russian conspiracy” hysteria showed, you only need enough talking heads and momentum to make something out of nothing.

You dont even give credence to that shit unless you’re retarded or a ShareBlue shill.

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window-sil 10 hs ago

Is he trying to arm terrorists with nukes or a dirty bomb?

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BaddestHombres Untied Marin Crops 11 hs ago

Saudi Arabia as it stands today, is definitely one country who does not need their own nuclear weapons.

Prince Salman referred to below, is the current King of Saudi Arabia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_High_Commission_for_Aid_to_Bosnia

was a charity organization founded in 1993 by Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz

Among the items found at Sarajevo premises the Saudi High Commission when it was raided by NATO forces in September 2001[1] were before-and-after photographs of the World Trade Center, US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole; maps of government buildings in Washington; materials for forging US State Department badges; files on the use of crop duster aircraft; and anti-Semitic and anti-American material geared toward children. Among six Algerians who would later be incarcerated at the Camp X-Ray detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for plotting an attack on the US embassy in Sarajevo were two employees of the Commission, including a cell member who was in telephone contact with Osama bin Laden aid and al Qaeda operational commander Abu Zubayda.

Additional article - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/feb/23/davidpallister

More context - http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=khalil_ziyad_1

By 1996, NSA wiretaps reveal that Prince Salman is funding Islamic militants using charity fronts

A 1996 CIA report mentions, “We continue to have evidence that even high ranking members of the collecting or monitoring agencies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan - such as the Saudi High Commission - are involved in illicit activities, including support for terrorists”

One file released by Wikileaks from Guantanamo Bay includes the text:

Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz paid for seventy percent of detainee’s travel expenses to Afghanistan.

Who is this detainee? Glad you asked.

Executive Summary: Detainee is an admitted member of al-Qaida, a close associate to Usama Bin Laden (UBL) and has expressed his intentions to harm US citizens. Detainee admitted he swore bayat (oath of allegiance) to UBL, was a bodyguard for UBL and served as UBL’s personal secretary. Detainee has repeatedly stated he is a terrorist, a member of al-Qaida with leadership responsibilities, and an enemy of the US, and has acknowledged multiple ties to the 11 September 2001 attacks.

https://wikileaks.org/gitmo/prisoner/39.html

That's just the current King of Saudi Arabia! We haven't even touched on Royal Family member Prince Bandar, the former Saudi Ambassador to the United States yet!

Just a little info on him - His wife sent money to the 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego , California.

"On at least one occasion," the documents show, "Bassnan received a check directly from Prince Bandar's account. According to the FBI, on May 14, 1998, Bassnan cashed a check from Bandar in the amount of $15,000. Bassnan's wife also received at least one check directly from Bandar."

Bassnan and Omar al-Bayoumi, another Saudi living in San Diego, "provided substantial assistance" to two of the hijackers — Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — the documents said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/15/28-declassified-pages-911-commission-report-released-public/87134942/

There are still an estimated 80,000 pages on Saudi Arabia and 9/11 that the FBI is refusing to release....

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/12/the-fbi-is-keeping-80-000-secret-files-on-the-saudis-and-9-11.html

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SwineZero Yesterday

Russian and China have nukes. One tells us what to do and the other sells us stuff because American manufacturing and paying a decent wage cuts corporate profits.

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big-galloot Yesterday

Flynn describing the nuclear reactor project as "good to go." According to the account, the whistleblower didn't see the substance of the text but recalled seeing a 12:11 p.m. time stamp. At that time, Flynn was on the dais during Trump's inaugural address.

source:

Traitors could wait to sell us out. I'm all for the death penalty if this is all true.

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Houptie Yesterday

Saudi Arabia is the overseer for American made terrorism. For them to receive nuclear capabilities means that the world of terrorism is becoming nuclear capable itself. This is probably in response to Iran developing weapons.

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mrmattolsen IHeartNoahSmith Yesterday

but but but uranium wun

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political Yesterday

Is there anything this administration does that doesn't set off some kind of alarm?

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ElginPoker60123 11 hs ago

If this administration sneezes alarms go off ...

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political 10 hs ago

If this administration sneezes Putin calls to say prosit.

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pingveno Yesterday

Like any administration, >99% of activity is business as usual that gets little to no coverage, so yes.

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dumpotrumpo Yesterday

Sure doesnt seem like anything has been business as usual.

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pingveno Yesterday

Only because the government does a lot of things quietly and without a lot of fuss. It only gets a lot of attention when something majorly screws up.

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dumpotrumpo 11 hs ago

Im 42. Ive watched our government for decades. And Ive never in my life seen things so screwed on multiple levels.

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sickofaltspin 9 hs ago

You've never seen a full court press by a bought and paid for media.

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thegreenlabrador 55 mins ago

Yes... media is paid for by ad revenue and subscriptions.

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oh_my_freaking_gosh 1 h ago

Bought and paid for by whom?

1

DDaTTH Yesterday

This was reported last year. It was nuclear power for producing electricity.

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Palladium1987 Yesterday

As yes Saudis, paying so much for US military gear and in military spending, can't beat a puny Yemen and gets backstabbed by the U.S anyway.

I can't decide which one is the better joke.

1

Eywadevotee Yesterday

Just enough rope...

1

lurker4lyfe6969 Yesterday

US-Saudi relationship is hilarious. So I guess this move was a result of Saudi moving toward Russia and China geopolitically as a result of that whole Kashoggi affair

Turkey must be laughing their ass off.

But this isn’t the way to make up Trump. Give them flowers, a new car at the most a house but don’t give them a damn weapon of mass destruction. The fuck? The pussy isn’t that good.

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JanSolo - @JanSolo Yesterday

Try to imagine the list of countries that you LEAST want to have nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has got to be up there along with North Korea, Iran and Syria. Who ever is trying to share this nuclear tech is taking a huge risk with everyones safety.

hiyer - @hiyer 9 hs ago

Pakistan - a nearly bankrupt, terrorism-infested, Islamic country - has had nuclear tech for decades. I'm pretty sure if Saudi Arabia wanted to buy nuclear tech from them it would only be a phone call and a few billion $ away.

brundolf - @brundolf Yesterday

The best we can hope for is to weather the next two years without suffering damage to our nation that's truly irreparable, and that the brazen cronyism on display will be a reality-check for all who would otherwise dip their toes into casual corruption. God help us all.

tomp - @tomp Yesterday

Can someone explain how this would work? I'm rather certain that noone in the White House doesn't actually know how to construct a bomb... So, they'll have to order someone else (presumably someone in the military) to transfer those secrets. Why would that person listen to the executive branch, if what they would do would be illegal?

kuwze - @kuwze Yesterday

This seems like a misunderstanding more than anything else. The cofounder of IP3 is a four star general in the US Army.

http://ip3international.com/member/general-ret-john-m-jack-k...

batbomb - @batbomb Yesterday

The Times submission around this was flagged. Considering this particular issue actually does have a few overlaps with tech, given the nature of Saudi investment/Softbank and the tech transfer (which often stays on the front page when it’s China), as well as nuclear (which also tends to stay on the front page) - it would be nice if this isn’t flagged and there could be a substantial discussion on it.

kadendogthing - @kadendogthing Yesterday

* Watergate

* Iran Contra (does history repeat itself, or do we just like making the same mistakes?)

* 5 million emails "deleted" under the Bush administration

* The Iraq War

* DNC Hacking Scandal

* Use of executive emergency powers to bypass legislation based policy purely to inflame racial sentiments and dog whistles.

* Transferring nuclear secrets to a foreign government illegally <--- You are here

Just a short timeline of events under Republican/conservative U.S. administrations. There's definitely not a pattern or anything though.

Show all comments on Hackernews

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7 17 2

mapp92 Yesterday

https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/media-center/mckinsey-statement-on-new-york-times-article-on-mio

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PacificaDogFamily 9 hs ago

This should be higher up

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gotamd Yesterday

I find it hard to believe that MIO can possibly act as a blind trust when it's owned by McKinsey and--in at least the instance covered in this article--shares some leadership.

In Virginia, the judge ordered a reopening of the bankruptcy case of Alpha Natural Resources after an official with the Justice Department’s Office of the United States Trustee argued that the hedge fund was not a “blind trust,” as claimed. The Justice Department pointed out that the head of McKinsey’s bankruptcy practice, Jon Garcia, sat on the fund’s board. Until he stepped down in 2017, Mr. Garcia received regular reports on the fund’s investment decisions and ratified them, the official said.

I don't believe there's anything illegal about this as long as investment decisions are not made based on non-public information McKinsey consultants are privy to due to their work, but it's not far to leap from McKinsey to MIO and the investment returns quoted as well as some of the investments mentioned certainly raise some questions.

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DrBaus Yesterday

SketchKinsey

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qznc_bot Yesterday

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

1

9_11_did_bush Yesterday

This seems like this was included solely so they could mention Enron:

By October 2015, as Valeant’s share price was falling after reports about its undisclosed relationship with a mail-order pharmacy, one research firm described the company as the “pharmaceutical Enron.” Enron, an energy company and McKinsey client, collapsed in 2001. Its chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, another former McKinsey partner, was sent to federal prison.

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zlwang811 Yesterday

Agreed. Heres my 2 cents: * Using tax haven (Guernsey): not a good look, but legal and standard practice * Having consultant serve on MIO investment committee: bad governance, but not clear if he was on IC * Unethical consluting advice: fair critique if you have the full deck Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with having an in house HF. It seems like the NYT is just trying to find ways to remind us of the questionable engagements (Valeant, Enron, etc.) For example: "Very few documents link Barfield Nominees to McKinsey’s hedge fund, but when they do, MIO money can be traced to unusual places like a casino in Kathmandu, Nepal, called the Millionaire’s Club." - in other words, no evidence yet. (then why publish?)

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brown_burrito Yesterday

> Unethical **consluting** advice That's my new word for the month. Back off, man. I'm consluting. #\#consluting

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aalabrash still filthy, no longer accountant Yesterday

It's already a sub lol

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nebolo Yesterday

Same thing with Guo Wengui. > His name is Guo Wengui, though he also goes by Miles Kwok. He is China’s highest-profile fugitive, and for years McKinsey was, through PAG, one of his creditors, a fact hidden through Barfield Nominees. There is no evidence that McKinsey knew its investment would find its way to Mr. Guo, with whom the firm said it had no direct dealings. The guy is a creditor of a PAG, "PAG is one of Asia’s largest alternative investment management firms", and McKinsey had a stake in several PAG funds.

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FlemBreh Excel Jockey Yesterday

Starting to think there might be some questionable business practices in the consulting space. At least all other professional services are on the straight and narrow!

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virtu333 Yesterday

Begs the question why other consulting firms don't have an internal investment fund. Probably be not a talent issue?

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marekstopka Strategy in Pharma (Business) Yesterday

Some firms let everyone benefit, other firms just senior partners and other insiders...

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mediaentertainment12 Yesterday

You are right, there is not an issue having only four real companies perfuming auditing services...

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gotamd Yesterday

> perfuming Nice.

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brown_burrito Yesterday

Grant Thorton would like to have a word with you.

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johnrgrace Yesterday

People who know use some company named CBO, CDAO, CDO; I saw an ad in an airport once

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HN_bot Yesterday

Hacker News discussion

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b_tterc_p - @b_tterc_p Yesterday

Seems highly unlikely that there’s any actual secretive insider trading happening here. It would be a HUGE risk for practically no gain, distributed across many individuals, committed by primarily people who wouldn’t stand to benefit. The firm should probably switch to vanguard or whatever... but the existence of this hedge fund does not mean the firm is using its insider knowledge maliciously. Most consultants won’t even know what other people on their team is working on, and most are in and out after 2 years.

The article buried the mitigating factor in the middle of the article. Hedge fund managers don’t coordinate with consultants, and 90% of MIO’s capital is managed by outside funds, including this one the article is about.

The problem mckinsey faces is that they consult for everyone.

takinola - @takinola Yesterday

I am a beneficiary of this hedge fund so I may be biased, but I feel pretty confident that there is not much conflict of interest going on. As has been attested to by multiple people on this, and other, threads, there is very little proprietary information sharing between teams at McKinsey. In fact, once you work for certain clients, you are automatically barred from working for others. I was once privy to a situation where a consultant working with a different client, unknowingly, shared some proprietary information with the team I was working on. I saw the extent to which the partners freaked out and tried to correct the situation. Of course, there are examples of people violating this trust (people will be people) but there have not been any examples of structural violations (ie the firm designed processes that encouraged or tolerated unethical practices)

It does McKinsey, as a firm, very little good if their clients' business goes down in flames. They, obviously, cannot bet against their clients (it would be catastrophic to their core business if this was ever publicly disclosed) and so they can only bet with their clients, even if they (unethically and possibly illegally) used their clients proprietary information to trade.

It feels to me that there are some corporations that newspapers can just bash confident that most of their readers will nod along without applying much critical thinking. I understand the skepticism. I used to share it before I got to see the inner workings of organizations like this. There is much to criticize about organizations like McKinsey but violating clients' trust is not one of them.

One last argument against the insider trading inference, the results I have seen, while good, are not indicative of what is possible if smart people were truly trying to take advantage of their knowledge of the inner workings of the largest corporations in the world.

tribune - @tribune Yesterday

From Matt Levine of Bloomberg:

Here is a New York Times story about the “McKinsey Investment Office, or MIO Partners,” the in-house hedge fund of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., which invests employee money, including in companies that McKinsey advises. “That web of relationships underscores the unusual nature of McKinsey’s hedge fund, and the potential for undisclosed conflicts of interest between the fund’s investments and the advice the firm sells to clients,” says the Times, and I suppose there are some shady elements: When McKinsey advises on a bankruptcy, for instance, and its hedge fund owns one or another slice of the capital structure, then there’s a clear potential for conflicts of interest.

Mostly, though, it’s hard to get too worked up about this. For one thing, most of the fund’s money seems to be run by outside advisers, and even the stuff run by McKinsey employees seems to be mostly walled off from the consulting business. For another thing, the incentives are mostly good: McKinsey’s consultants are trying to make the company better, and its hedge fund is invested in the company and wants the company to get better, so there is no problem here. “The firm’s partners stood to profit from their own advice,” says the Times about McKinsey’s indirect investments in Valeant Pharmaceuticals, but why would that be bad? If they do stuff to make the stock go up, then they make money, but that is also what the company wants. (In the event, Valeant’s stock went down, which was bad for both Valeant and McKinsey.) Really companies ought to demand that their consultants buy some of their stock, so they have some skin in the game with their advice.

Of course, what would really be scandalous is if McKinsey’s hedge fund shorted companies that the firm advised, and then the consultants tried to give those companies ruinous advice. You couldn’t advertise that strategy, but much of the Times story is about how secretive MIO is, and if you can be secretive enough then maybe you could pull off this trade.

samfisher83 - @samfisher83 Yesterday

Goldman Sachs did the same thing. They told their client to buy subprime loans while shorting it on the other side.

JaakkoP - @JaakkoP Yesterday

As giving and receiving advice is fundamentally based on trust, it strikes me as odd why anyone wants to do business with the likes of McKinsey or Goldman Sachs who have repeatedly shown a pattern of screwing over their clients.

This is not a generic "all I-banks or management consultants are evil" - there are still plenty of specialized firms out there without these anti-patterns.

ackbar03 - @ackbar03 Yesterday

I always get the feeling that the whole white collar capital game is all about skirting conflicts of interest and doing it in a legal way. It's like pretty much what the entire industry is abput

tripnine - @tripnine Yesterday

This is interesting because McKinsey alumni and consultants at Nielsen seemed to be shopping an insider trading scheme around the time that they got involved with Equifax. The partnership was leaked way before it went public and the stock subsequently popped. This was pre data breach.

phantom_oracle - @phantom_oracle Yesterday

Maybe someone familiar with securities law can chime in here.

Isn't this something similar to insider trading?

They provide a service that is supposed to improve some aspect of a business, then they can internally do predictions on how successful they think their services will benefit/harm the firm and then make a bet either for or against that firm.

nimish - @nimish Yesterday

Well I guess this beats the time that a McKinsey partner gave insider tips to his hedge fund buddy, but frankly not by much.

leroy_masochist - @leroy_masochist Yesterday

Former investment banker here with lots of experience consulting for professional investors.

The substance of the article strikes me as, "potentially really bad, but no obvious smoking gun".

MIO is a special situations hedge fund, meaning that it looks for companies that desperately need capital for one reason or another, and who have been poorly served by the market for capital because some aspect of their story is messy and/or tough to understand, and provides them capital on terms that give MIO a lot of upside if the company gets back into good shape.

An important thing to understand about special situations investing is that it's usually very active relative to other types. That is to say, I can run a successful long-short equity fund and literally never once interact with any of the leadership of any of the companies in which I take positions; I can, for example, go long Verizon and short T-Mobile and never have to deal with either of those companies' management teams. For special situations on the other hand, the entire value proposition of the fund manager is what they can deliver through their active involvement with the portfolio company that takes the fund's money. So, you'll see special situations funds get super involved in issues like renegotiating long-term leases, or investing in sales teams, or reconfiguring operations to run on a single ERP system, etc -- activities which are right in the wheelhouse of former Big 3 consultants, whose work consists of bouncing from tough problem to tough problem at high-paying clients.

So it's not hard to understand why McK made the decision to found MIO. It kills multiple birds with one stone:

- Makes partners more money through an asset class that tends to post good returns

- Helps their recruiting pipeline because it makes it easier to capture aspiring buy side bigwigs out of college (perennially McK's Achilles heel vs. i-banking)

- Provides outgoing partners with something to do in semi-retirement; MIO employs a shit-ton of semi-retired McK partners to do deep dives on various topics. This importantly has the positive effect on McK's culture of helping clear out the top of the pyramid so young partners don't feel like their career is going nowhere

Anyway, much of what's in the article sounds concerning. For example, the still-serving head of McK's bankruptcy practice was on the board of MIO when it was considering an investment in a coal company that was going bankrupt. On the one hand, this raises hackles; on the other, it's really only a PROBLEM problem if McK was advising that coal company, or had advised them recently prior to the MIO investment. And that might have been the case, but the article does not say whether it was.

The description of the McK's interactions with Guo Wengui is....I'm not sure what point they're trying to make? And similarly, with Valeant, the NYT's gripe is that another fund in which MIO invested went long Valeant at the same time that McKinsey was advising Valeant to increase the price of certain medications.

If I had to guess I'd say that McK has advised 90% of the F500 at one point or another and is actively advising about 30 or 40% of the F500 on something at any point in time. So, I really don't think that McK giving Valeant pricing advice through a consulting project at the same time that a fund MIO invested in was buying Valeant -- with both parties expressly prohibited from communicating with each other and no evidence they did -- as incriminating, though a multiple-hundred percent increase on pricing for any drug is obviously icky.

Anyway, there could be other shoes to drop here, and they could be really bad (e.g. if there were secret backchannel communications regarding the coal company). But I don't see anything in this article that's incriminating on its face.

And the attempt to make Guernsey look like some shady nefarious offshore destination that confers fishiness on anyone whose business dealings go through that jurisdiction? GIVE. ME. A. BREAK. Probably almost half of the hedge funds in Europe are domiciled there, it's like the Caymans or Delaware, talk about a red herring.

code4tee - @code4tee Yesterday

The New York Times has been running a whole series now on McKinsey with a new article about once a month or so highlighting example after example of alleged serious ethical lapses at the firm. Have things really gone downhill or do some journalists just have an ax to grind with McKinsey?

tyingq - @tyingq Yesterday

I don't know that their clients really care. The real motivation for bringing in these firms is having a credible scapegoat if things don't pan out for your project.

samstave - @samstave Yesterday

Duh, this is the goldman sachs model.

randyrand - @randyrand Yesterday

Isn't that normal? How strange would it be for me to tell my friends "this stock is going to skyrocket, buy some!" without owning any myself? Anything otherwise would come across as extremely disingenuous.

This is a non-issue.

theNJR - @theNJR Yesterday

Man, the NYT really has it out for McKinsey. Anyone know why?

mruts - @mruts Yesterday

I highly doubt that there’s any impropriety going on besides the lack of disclosure. Investment banks have been dealing with conflicts like this for a long time and the market has never cared.

Bucephalus355 - @Bucephalus355 Yesterday

A few years ago I think the classic example of an embarrassing company to have on your resume was Yahoo.

Now it’s McKinsey.

Yahoo source: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/technology/yahoos-in-of...

Show all comments on Hackernews

11

acrual - @acrual

Excellent rebuttal although I doubt @davidgerard will understand any of it. https://t.co/RXdlE820k7

0 0

George Kikvadze ⚡ - @BitfuryGeorge

RT @gladstein: My response to the latest mainstream media attack on Bitcoin, this time in @ForeignPolicy. Experts and the establishment keep missing the point. Here’s why. https://t.co/d5iUIg2g9M

77 143

Jill Carlson - @_jillruth

Cryptocurrency as a tool of freedom. Calling it now: this is going to be the theme of 2019. https://t.co/JE9uPXwfNg

0 5

Christopher Wheeler - @Stocktrader

A Human Rights Activist’s Response to Bitcoin Critics by Alex Gladstein https://t.co/phWW7G3Kfb

0 0

Peter Todd - @peterktodd

RT @danheld: Fantastic rebuttal of a poorly researched criticism of Bitcoin "A Human Rights Activist’s Response to Bitcoin Critics" by @gladstein https://t.co/sPYV39FL1b

34 77

Andreas M. Antonopoulos - @aantonop

RT @danheld: Fantastic rebuttal of a poorly researched criticism of Bitcoin "A Human Rights Activist’s Response to Bitcoin Critics" by @gladstein https://t.co/sPYV39FL1b

24 44

Wong Joon Ian - @joonian

RT @gladstein: My response to the latest mainstream media attack on Bitcoin, this time in @ForeignPolicy. Experts and the establishment keep missing the point. Here’s why. https://t.co/d5iUIg2g9M

0 20

Dan Held - @Dan-Held

Fantastic rebuttal of a poorly researched criticism of Bitcoin "A Human Rights Activist’s Response to Bitcoin Critics" by @gladstein https://t.co/sPYV39FL1b

1 1

Dennis Parker⚡️ - @Xentagz

RT @gladstein: My response to the latest mainstream media attack on Bitcoin, this time in @ForeignPolicy. Experts and the establishment keep missing the point. Here’s why. https://t.co/d5iUIg2g9M

8 30

Pierre Rochard - @pierre_rochard

RT @gladstein: My response to the latest mainstream media attack on Bitcoin, this time in @ForeignPolicy. Experts and the establishment keep missing the point. Here’s why. https://t.co/d5iUIg2g9M

6 29

Neeraj K. Agrawal - @NeerajKA

RT @gladstein: My response to the latest mainstream media attack on Bitcoin, this time in @ForeignPolicy. Experts and the establishment keep missing the point. Here’s why. https://t.co/d5iUIg2g9M

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