Cryptocurrency: Perry "The Censor" Metzger Appoints "Libertarian" Self To Define Word "Crypto"

[grarpamp]

Matt Blaze sells out crypto.com, approves Tor Project Inc's
Censorship Regime via his position on their Corporate Board.

Cockroaches scatter, Closeted Fiat holdouts and
apologists exposed, GovBankCorp panties all in a jam,
Censors abound.

Crypto is working ;)



https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cryptocurrency-cryptographers
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/05/crypto-com-mco/


Cryptographers are not happy with how you’re using the word ‘crypto’

The renamed Crypto.com Arena is a win for cryptocurrency fans but
strikes a blow against the word’s original meaning
Construction workers put the finishing touches on the Staples Center
sign outside the arena in downtown Los Angeles on 16 September 1999.
Construction workers put the finishing touches on the Staples Center
sign outside the arena in downtown Los Angeles on 16 September 1999.
Photograph: Xerro Ryan Covarrubias/AP
Matthew Cantor
@CantorMatthew
Thu 18 Nov 2021 16.14 GMT

Last modified on Fri 19 Nov 2021 20.13 GMT

The stadium that is home to the Los Angeles Lakers is getting a new
name: the Crypto.com Arena. The name reflects the arena’s new
sponsorship agreement with a Singapore-based cryptocurrency trading
platform. That may be good news for cryptocurrency fanatics – but
perhaps not so much for another faction within the digital landscape:
cryptographers.

Look up the word “crypto” in Webster’s dictionary, and you’ll see it
refers to cryptography, which in turn is defined as “the computerized
encoding and decoding of information”. Search “crypto” on Google,
however, and you’ll see a host of top results pointing to
cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

This lexical shift has weighed heavily on cryptographers, who, over
the past few years, have repeated the rallying cry “Crypto means
cryptography” on social media. T-shirts and hoodies trumpet the phrase
and variations on it; there’s a website dedicated solely to clarifying
the issue.

“‘Crypto’ for decades has been used as shorthand and as a prefix for
things related to cryptography,” said Amie Stepanovich, executive
director of Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado Law
School and creator of the pro-cryptography T-shirts, which have become
a hit at conferences. “In fact, in the term cryptocurrency, the prefix
crypto refers back to cryptography.”

    Why yes, I do have a picture of myself in one of my favorite tees!
pic.twitter.com/EaK17c8zOC
    — Lea Kissner (@LeaKissner) November 17, 2021

It’s often a losing battle, and that appears to have played out in the
case of crypto.com itself.

Beginning in 1993, as the Verge reported, the crypto.com domain was
owned by Matt Blaze, a cryptography expert who repeatedly rejected
would-be buyers – even as the rise of cryptocurrency meant he could
have made millions of dollars.

“I think calling cryptocurrencies ‘crypto’ is a poor choice, with bad
consequences for both cryptography and cryptocurrencies,” he tweeted
in 2018. Ultimately, however, the domain was sold, and now if you go
to Crypto.com you’ll see a giant video of Matt Damon indicating that
investing in cryptocurrencies is roughly as courageous as scaling an
icy cliff or blasting into space.

Yet there remains an internecine feud among the tech savvy about the word.

As Parker Higgins of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who has
spent years involved in cryptography activism, pointed out, the
cryptography crowd is by nature deeply invested in precision – after
all, designing and cracking codes is an endeavor in which, if you get
things “a little wrong, it can blow the whole thing up”.

There are global debates over both cryptography – for instance,
questions over whether chat services should offer “backdoors” that
skirt encryption – and the regulation of cryptocurrency. “There is a
need to distinguish between those two areas to avoid absolutely
foreseeable confusion,” Stepanovich said, a particular issue when it
comes to “legislators and regulators who are not always subject matter
experts in these areas, even if they are charged with overseeing
them”.

Higgins agreed. “Crypto as shorthand for cryptography really was in
widespread use. You could talk about crypto even on Capitol Hill and
people would know what you were talking about – that really did hold a
lot of, forgive this, but currency.”

And at a time when many still aren’t sure what cryptocurrency is, the
confusion over the terms just makes things muddier. “Strong
cryptography is a cornerstone of the way that people talk about
privacy and security, and it has been under attack for decades” by
governments, law enforcement, and “all sorts of bad actors”, Higgins
said. For its defenders, confusion over terminology creates yet
another challenge.

    PSA: Crypto means Cryptography. #usesec18 cc @mattblaze
@astepanovich pic.twitter.com/E5WTIanwCE
    — Kurt Opsahl (@kurtopsahl) August 15, 2018

Stepanovich acknowledged the challenge of opposing the trend, but said
the weight of history is on her side. “The study of crypto has been
around for ever,” she said. “The most famous code is known as the
Caesar cipher, referring to Julius Caesar. This is not new.”
Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, is a relatively recent development,
and she is not ready to concede to “a concept that may or may not
survive government regulation”.

She remains invested in the linguistic debate because it’s so closely
linked to policy. “Allowing people to develop and use encryption is
hugely important in protecting human rights, privacy and protecting
the basis on which cryptocurrency has been built,” Stepanovich said.

“We all have hills we are willing to die on – this might be mine.”