This is reminding me of the crypto self-custody problem. If you want complete trustlessness, the lengths you have to go to are extreme. How do you really know that the machine using your private key to sign your transactions is absolutely secure?
But it's actually a tremendous amount of friction, because it's the difference between being able to let agents cook for hours at a time or constantly being blocked on human approvals.
And even then, I think it's probably impossible to prevent attacks that combine vectors in clever ways, leading to people incorrectly approving malicious actions.
Yes, because the upside is so high. Exploits are uncommon, at this stage, so until we see companies destroyed or many lives ruined, people will accept the risk.
Posting this because it's a grim glimpse into what the present looks like for people in countries that do not permit dissent. Imagine what could be done with the cooperation of software companies.
Even worse was Google Wave. Totally unusable from the start, which is when I tried it, due to all the hype (by them) about it. Probably too JavaScript-heavy, was the reason, I think, back then. I remember reading reports confirming my guess, at the time. I was on an average machine. I bet the Google devs had quite more powerful ones, and in their infinite wisdom (not!), did not trouble to test, or even think of testing on average machines that most of the world would have.
Google Wave worked fine for me, as I recall. I remember being really impressed on one level, but I also couldn't figure out what to actually use it for.
A couple weeks ago, I thought about diving back into demos to reacquaint myself with it. It's possible that it was ahead of its time. Or maybe it was a solution in search of a problem.
> And this has to be at the White House specifically because location determines oversight. When infrastructure is part of the Executive Office of the President, when it exists at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it can be classified under executive privilege. The East Wing sits directly above the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the bunker where Dick Cheney sheltered during September 11th. By demolishing the entire East Wing, you create space to expand that existing secure facility, integrate new infrastructure, go deeper underground. All protected by the classification that covers anything related to presidential security.
reply