You could invest a ton into security, have a competent security team, follow best practices, set up lots of security appliances and software, have lots of analysts monitoring and responding to alerts and actively hunting for threats and writing custom SIEM rules etc., and there could still be one small mistake that lets a sophisticated attacker in.
As the adage goes, the defenders have to win every time and the attackers only have to win once. A group of sufficiently motivated, dedicated, resourceful, and talented attackers who face zero risk of any sort of repercussions will very likely get in if they put enough time and effort into it.
This isn't just old-school ransomware that merely tries to infect as many computers as possible in general and just happens to land on a corporate machine and automatically spreads from there. These are trained, experienced red teams manually targeting companies and everyone who works at them. In many cases the victims do indeed have poor security, but a company doesn't necessarily need to have poor security to fall victim to ransomware.
Which is what exactly? Speculation? And...
1. Store any amount of money easily and securely
2. Transact quickly, easily, cheaply, globally, limitlessly
3. Nobody knows your balance
4. Nobody knows transaction amounts, senders, receivers, history
5. Nobody knows about anything you do
6. Nobody can randomly freeze your assets
7. Nobody can move those coins without the key
It doesn't matter how much energy it consumes or how much crime it enables. If it allows us to escape government stupidity it's more than worth it.
It’s like replacing the local police with the Sicilians. They even have a comparable customer service policy, i.e. SFYL.
[1] https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...
Monero currently has all of these properties.
> You get to escape government stupidity into the open arms of criminals and scammers.
This is does not justify sacrificing everybody's financial privacy and independence. The police should track the criminals via other methods. They shouldn't be able to surveil everybody's transactions at all times or freeze people's accounts over the slightest suspicions until they prove their innocence. It's better to let some criminals escape than suffer these injustices.
Agree to disagree haha. Financial records are private unless revealed to authorities in a 4th-amendment compliant probable-caused based warrant. Seems like the right place to draw the line.
> The police should track the criminals via other methods.
Why? I mean it's pretty easy with basically every crypto other than Monero, and Monero is basically Narco-dollars, which are unlikely to find any acceptance.
> They shouldn't be able to surveil everybody's transactions at all times or freeze people's accounts over the slightest suspicions until they prove their innocence.
You mean... probable cause? And offer due process to resolve? Some would argue that's the foundation of the criminal justice system.
> It's better to let some criminals escape than suffer these injustices.
You're just subbing one kind of criminal for another.