My hero Vitalik Buterin, the 22-year-old programmer of Ethereum, explained what a smart contract is:

“In a smart contract approach, an asset or currency is transferred into a program “and the program runs this code and at some point it automatically validates a condition and it automatically determines whether the asset should go to one person or back to the other person, or whether it should be immediately refunded to the person who sent it or some combination thereof.”In the meantime, the decentralized ledger also stores and replicates the document which gives it a certain security and immutability.”

People that want more transparency and integrity in their transactions are jumping for joy. One example of this is in fractional co-ownership of commercial property. Smart Contracts are used to make ownership percentages of a property (like a new hotel project) transparent. Investors are given asset or ownership tokens that represent how much they have invested. When the property is sold profits are distrubuted via the execution of a smart contract that pays out the profits according to the percentage of investment or asset tokens owned. The contract is immutable so the investor is secure in the knowledge that the contract is safe from corruption and unfair modification. Commericial real estate law is going to dramatically change, in fact I think all business oriented lawyers will be impacted by smart contracts.

We all know there is great potential in Cryptocurrency but let’s face it our industry is so sleazy even the crack dealers are scared. It is the sleaze factor that is hurting prices and destroying potential. Just look at these two lists of hacks and scams:

Blockchain Hacks

Fake Coins

We have fake coins, drugs, ICO fraud, bitconnect, bribery of governments and a massive frenzy of mother @%$#%$ out to scam the public as fast and as hard as they can.

I remember this quote from wolves of wall street.

“First we pitch them the blue chip stocks, the stocks these people already know…once we sucker them in, we sell them the dogshit” -Jordan Belfort

When I look at some of the new coin fund offerings, I have my own version:

“First we get them into the cyrptos that these people already know Ethereum/Bitcoin, once we sucker them in, we pitch them the dogshit alt coins”

In fact if an ICO or cryptocurrency website starts off with the words “We believe in helping” it is probably a scam.

Right now we need:

*Security

*Accountability

*A way for low income people to take part in this wealth creation

*Governance

*Clarity

*Fairness

*Speedy regulation

*Speedy resolution

*Faster Transactions and currency stablization

*A few acceptable laws

As engineers that work with this technology we need to be like the scientists in Germany who refused to make poison gas. We need to be able to state:

“No I don’t want your money if there is blood on it”

There are a lot of honest people working in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain but we are all suffering due to the overwhelming stench of scumbags.

First I love IOT devices. They are helping many people and in general are taking the world forward. I have written code for smart watches and medical devices that are helping to save lives. The only problem I have with IOT devices is security. If I get the serial number of my neighbors internet connected garage door I can open his garage door from anywhere in the world. You might think it is neat to connect that thermostat or that coffee maker to the internet but what happens if a corrupted firmware update goes out and the device becomes the bridge to hack every computer in your house or business? Crap that is scary…a bad actor could hack a medical device and kill someone. My IOT coffee maker runs xwindows, it is a linux kernal so it would be a great platform for a bad actor to attack every internet connected device in my house. Using my wifi router I built a network to prevent this….do you have one of those?

“If your IOT devices are connected to your main wifi network stop what you are doing right now and pay attention.”

My solution is to create a third network on my wifi router (network segmentation) and use that just for IOT devices. You could also put all your IOT devices on your guest network and keep you sensitive stuff on your main network. Just don’t allow sharing between the IOT network and your other networks. Yes this is not perfect and one hack (you need good security everywhere)…the better long term solution is for vendors to secure their updates via blockchain technlogy to prevent rogue firmware updates.

Secure Your IOT