# Last edited on 2014-09-14 12:17:32 by stolfilocal
# NOT POSTED YET 

[quote author=macsga link=topic=178336.msg8677414#msg8677414 date=1409866011]
Measurement of bitcoin security vs fiat. The answer has a lot pros to bitcoin; I'll stick with the basics though:
1. Bitcoins are stored in YOUR wallet - Fiat is stored at someone else's wallet
2. Bitcoins need no trust to anyone but the internet to operate - Fiat needs you to entrust a third party for storage/supply/availability
3. Bitcoins are not subject to inflation (ie: someone decides to just pop up a couple of millions for his daily needs) - Fiat........
[/quote]

Those are the features that are SUPPOSED to make bitcoin safer than cash and banks.  Do they REALLY make it more safe, or less safe?   For example, what if version 123.56.92 of the most popular wallet software includes a bitcoin-stealing routine that is activated on all machines simultaneously on Mark Karpelès's birthday?  Would it do more or less damage than the analogous attack on credit cards and home banking?

[quote author=macsga link=topic=178336.msg8677414#msg8677414 date=1409866011]
Do you propose that you NEVER messed up copying your CC ID online? BTC has its QR code for that. Scan - Charge - Pay. Simple as that.
[/quote]

I was not thinking of entering addresses by hand; obviously no one will want to do that.  So I ask again: how do you make sure that the address that you scanned (from your computer screen, from the item's price tag, from the merchant's catalog, whatever) belongs to the merchant?  What will you do if the merchant (truthfully or falsely) denies having received the bitcoins that you sent to that address?

Sending money to the wrong bank account, or sending the wrong amount, is in fact a very common occurence.  But that is the point:  since such mistakes are unavoidable, banks must have the ability to undo them, at least within certain constraints.   Bitcoin does not have such mechanisms -- not just by design, but by a consequence of its goal of being an automated system that cannot be controlled by any human authority.

(Hm, come to think of it, that last phrase sounds like the plot idea for a 1960s scifi movie...  :))