Topic: Western Union to begin accepting Bitcoin (WSJ) (Read 8141 times)

Yay, spooky stories!
Also google 'Liberty Reserve complaints' and read about how LR is 'stealing peoples money.'
Also google 'Egold complaints' and read about how E-Gold exists only to support ponzi schemes.
Also google 'Bitcoin complaints' and read about how Bitcoin was 'hacked' and how some transfers 'never confirm.'

You can find some person that feels like complaining about anything.
This is pre-bitcoin technology. You know, when there are people doing work, not computers, and where those people occasionally make mistakes, and where money takes time to transfer (time, as in days, not minutes). Just because they haven't adopted Bitcoin technology that will solve these problems yet doesn't make them 'evil' it just means that they haven't used Bitcoin yet.

You don't 'have to' rely on WU any more than you 'have to' rely on MTGOX. WU will (may) provide an easy way of exchanging to/from BTC, as well as potentially instantly-confirmed transactions using BTC. If you don't want to use it, then thats fine. I fail to see how WU getting involved is any different than, say, Microsoft implementing a new proprietary Bitcoin wallet in Windows Blue or any other corporation trying to make money off of bitcoin. They are corporations, they try to make money. Bitcoin is a good opportunity for them to do this. If you want to use their services, and pay for them, then thats fine. And if you don't, then I dont give a fuck TBH.
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Only if the thieves are stupid. A smart thief would collect private keys as long as possible and wait to transfer any bitcoins at all until the vulnerability was discovered.

The fact that you so readily downplay the motivation and ingenuity of thieves and scammers in the bitcoin community, after history has shown us such an ample supply of both, does nothing but make me suspect you of being one.

Read this if you still think WU is awesome
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/warning-western-union-125257

Also google 'western union complaints' and read about immigrants having no money because WU held their transfers for 60days, even after WU screwed up and gave people the wrong MTCN (it happens). Agent fucks up, wait 60 days for refund, and everytime you phone you get a 3rd world call center rep who knows nothing except scripted responses.

WU should die, Bitcoin is perfectly suited to kill them and all the other money transfer cash rackets who've been fleecing us for decades. I thought that was the point of decentralized currency so we don't have to rely on these asshole payment corporations telling us what we can and can't do anymore.

EDIT.. offtopic, javascript browser encryption is not secure whatsoever. don't believe me, believe Moxie Marlinspike
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/01/21/researchers-warn-megas-new-encrypted-cloud-cant-keep-its-megasecurity-promises/

This is also why FireGPG was abandoned because it was found to be junk

Oh my goodness, talk about a conspiracy theorist.

Its open source. When money randomly disappears, people will notice "hey, wtf, my money disappeared, maybe I aught to look at source." Then they will see the fact that it is a scam, and nobody will use the web-wallet or software any more.

Furthermore people are very slow when it comes to switching to new software (http://www.ie6countdown.com/). The bitcoin community being what it is, people would probably find a change like that in less than a few days. The scammy developers would thus lose much more than they gain.

Yes, that's exactly right. There are known failure modes via which they can get access to your private keys. Those failure modes are not as easy to trigger as a typical hot wallet theft are, but sooner or later the economic incentive to make the attempt will exist.

Nothing. That's one reason I tell people to use an offline Armory wallet for their savings and why that recommendation will probably change to some kind of hardware wallet once those become available.

The issue here is, obviously, that they CAN'T STEAL FROM SOMETHING THEY DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO. How exactly are they going to go about stealing from your wallet that only you have the encryption key to, huh? About the only thing they could try is to get you to pass to them your key by modifying the JS upon login.

Laiki Bank was a honest company too.