Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by tptacek on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @08:33PM
(#11250231)
Lots of things have utility but no liquidity.
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Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by bcook on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @09:43PM
(#11250517)
The info is useful, but not sellable? The two seem deeply intertwined. If I can prove usefulness, I can sell it.
Actually, you say the info has "a use"... does that not directly imply worth?
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by Tiksi on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @12:52AM
(#11251188)
The info might be useful to someone, but not to the people who are buying vulnerabilities on the black market.
Imagine going to a tech trade show and setting up a stand for your lumber business. What you're selling has value and is useful, just not to the people you're trying to sell it to.
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by bcook on Thursday March 10, 2016 @12:49AM
(#11257552)
Let's assume the position of a spammer or ~0-day blackhatter... access to the accounts of the most popular website in the world are not of interest? (You could post a URL and have millions of people click it because they trust the poster.)
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by tptacek on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @10:33PM
(#11250712)
That's an especially ironic argument to try to make on this particular site.
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by bcook on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @11:28PM
(#11250926)
Is that a retort or simply an unrelated observation?
Edit: My intent was to understand your perspective (and argue...), but this comment goes over my head, and it seems as though it was a thinly veiled insult.
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by statictype on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @12:21AM
(#11251090)
What I'm understanding here is, that while it might be profitable to someone to have an exploit on hand that they can use, the actual work that goes into turning a profit from the exploit may be me costly enough that its not worth pursuing.
Not sure if you read Cryptonomicon, but there's a part there where Randy Waterhouse finds a crap load of gold in the middle of a jungle and then rationalizes that there's no easy way to get it out of there, making it worthless at that moment. That gold has value, but no liquidity.
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by vinceguidry on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @12:27AM
(#11251104)
This is a forum focused on the startup community. The difference between the merely-useful and the truly-marketable has been discussed ad nauseum on these pages, as that difference makes and breaks many startups.
Re:How I could have hacked any Facebook account
by tptacek on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @11:41AM
(#11253954)
Not an insult. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11251104