Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

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> We did not rally optimism and childlike curiosoty from the general public for HTTP or TCP/IP.

Yes we did! It took a lot to get people excited about the internet, and a lot of naysayers made it a dramatic feat. The difference is that I'm hoping not to find this kind of negativity and name-calling here on HN.

> you folks not only took on the technologically inclined people but dragged the unaware general public into the mud took their money and fueled your drug-induced, darkweb fantasies of lambos and Porsches.

Please show me where I did anything even vaguely resembling this. I assert that I've been a reliable, honest contributor and spoken with my code. I've never been part of a public sale, nor ever made any promises of any kind to anybody who was participating in a public sale. NuCypher will not hold a public sale until our network is ready for use by real application developers. Full stop. That is the opposite of shilling.

Why are you attacking me personally here?

Please at least add a HUGE disclaimer that all the NuCoin things are your own products and not some childlike curiosity. It's important that people understand that because HN doesn't allow ads without disclaimers.

I am unable to edit my comment at this time, but reading it, I think it's very, very obvious from my language ("If I am permitted to send one of my recent talks[0] back with this message about our progress at NuCypher...") that I work at NuCypher. It's not like I mentioned it in passing; I mentioned it specifically to talk about my own experience.

And what are "NuCoin things"? What are you talking about? Do you even have a sense of the technology in this space at all? Or are you just pointing at things about which you've never heard and throwing a tantrum?

Your accusations with the lambos and things are just truly over-the-top. You are targeting the wrong people. We have consistently put out top-shelf high-level cryptographic tooling. We have vowed not to do a public sale until our network is functional in sufficient measure to be worth what we ask for it. And we have made good on that promise.

If you have specific suggestions about how to be more responsible than we have, please offer them and stop with the melodrama.

> If you have specific suggestions about how to be more responsible than we have, please offer them and stop with the melodrama.

HTTP and TCP/IP do not provoke "child like" wonder and curiosity, because they can be understood by everyone. In other words, they provoke a more mature sense of wonder: one that is backed by a fundamental grasping of the technology, which means people also understand the challenges associated with the tech. The fun is in overcoming the challenge.

With shitcoin technobabble: little to no effort is made to explain the underlying tech with useful analogies (often times, because there isn't really any underlying tech, or because the tech is actually only going to benefit a small proportion of "users"). The obfuscation of the system is precisely what allows technobabble to "evoke a sense of child like curiosity", rather than a proper understanding.

This is an old and common tactic: most "financial instruments" are similarly obfuscated. You're not a newcomer trying to do well, but rather the same old salesman, pitching a new naturopathic solution.

> HTTP and TCP/IP do not provoke "child like" wonder and curiosity, because they can be understood by everyone. In other words, they provoke a more mature sense of wonder: one that is backed by a fundamental grasping of the technology, which means people also understand the challenges associated with the tech. The fun is in overcoming the challenge.

It's precisely the same with blockchain tech in every respect you've described here. And indeed many of us did (and still do) have a high degree of wonder over what's possible with HTTPS and TCP/IP more generally. The "child like" part comes from the realization that the species is indeed undergoing a rapid maturing process, and that the internet is a part of our collective childhood.

> With shitcoin technobabble: little to no effort is made to explain the underlying tech with useful analogies (often times, because there isn't really any underlying tech, or because the tech is actually only going to benefit a small proportion of "users").

Did this person just tell me that I have used too few analogies? I strongly suspect that you actually have no idea who we are or what we're about.

There is nothing about this part of the comment that reflects a mature and educated grasp of this topic.

The NuCypher has the Hallmark of a marketing website for ICOs and perfect whitepapers and awesome 'team' photos and other stuff that should raise a million red flags. I have seen this game a million times with so many ICOs with 'super nice squeaky clean websites' before.

I am sure there is _some_ technology hidden there. But to me it just screams money money money. Not technology technology technology. Have seen this game play a million times.

Really really would love to have SEC scrutinize all these crapshoot ICOs ( not accusing you). Have seen so much money swindling with fake whitepapers and promise of Alice and Bob in wonderland security whitepapers. Yours is probably legit but I have no idea. SEC should weigh in.

Alice wants to decrypt the rabbit hole. Bob wants to sell ICOs. Oh my

You said in a separate comment that your intention is specifically to inflame, so I don't care to respond to you anymore. However, I will take care to correct some of your misinformation just in case others are mislead by what you've said here:

> The NuCypher has the Hallmark of a marketing website for ICOs and perfect whitepapers and awesome 'team' photos and other stuff that should raise a million red flags.

1) As you already know but seem wont to pretend you don't: we are not having an ICO in the typical sense. We will not be having a public sale until our network is launched. There is nothing "ICOish" about our method. If people are interested in using our network, they can buy our token. And they can't even do that until we launch.

2) We have awesome whitepapers. We are leading the fields of proxy re-encryption and homomorphic encryption. I'm not going to apologize for the fact that we have published our whitepapers.

3) We have an awesome team. I mean, seriously, look at the team we've built. Working at NuCypher feels like playing at the all-star game. And yes, we all get along and enjoy traveling together. I'm not going to apologize for documenting that.

We are putting out solid code that runs. And it does things that haven't been done before. Ideally, I'd love for people not to have the kind of anxiety and discomfort living in the world today that is displayed by this comment. But I don't really know what more to do about it. I'll continue committing and releasing.

> I am sure there is _some_ technology hidden there.

Is that because you watched the live demo to which I linked you? Or because you looked at our repositories? Or because you have watched any of our recent talks at conferences specifically discussing our tech?

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