... they are tied to a country which government can require them to put backdoors in software and hardware, and not to tell anyone about that. The only way to really get clean is really open the source/specifications of everything (including propietary firmware) and let people, companies and countries really be able to check that claims. Until then, you can't decide whether they are telling the truth or not. We already learned what happens when you put blind trust in something even bigger than IBM.

And if people start buying from that brand over rivals (or having country legislation forbidding not open enough and/or so backdoored hardware) it may move others to do the same.

Also, if a "hidden" functionality is exposed in major brands using that executable code to perform malware-like activities that brands should be punished in security aware circles. That won't reach the majority of people, but will be an start.

We were promised flying cars, home fusion reactors and hoverboards for next year. We already should had sent a tripulated mission to Jupiter, and the world should had ended 2 years ago. Sometimes our expectations have no grounds on the real world.

But anyway, maybe believing in some fantasies (like there is such thing as justice, and in this case, living forever) could improve things, maybe with that belief we could finally care about making our world to be sustainable in the long term.

Believing that movies are "real" make them enjoyable, but not true. All the crying, pain, emotion shown is just an actor in front of a lot of cameras and people, and probably a green screen behind, but still you feel like it is true, Do the same with religion, suppose that there exist a meaning, luck, justice, etc in life, even someone that you can ask for help and that you can see his hand through confirmation bias. But don't take it too seriously because you know its false. You don't do things that could put your life or of others at risk because you saw someone in an (obviously fiction) movie doing it, take the same attitude regarding religion. Neither you should follow people that claiming that that fiction movie/book was real do things that affect other people lives.

They must get to you somehow. Widespread use of criptocurrencies mean that with social engineering, fake/trojaned apps or even using nsa backdoors your wallet is exposed for all the world. Social engineering is a powerful tool with bitcoin stealing trojans. Things are not so easy with bank accounts, even with all the problems they have, and of course, not with cash.

Cryptocurrencies with no intermediaries can't become popular till we fix internet/personal devices security. If the intermediary is the government or banks then you are more or less in the same situation than with dollars, and if are thirdy party you will have the same problems that with bitcoin now, either they run/dissapear with your money or get hacked and stolen.

Even having nothing to hide, and guilty of nothing, you are still target to confirmation bias. And a private joke could put you in deep troubles.

And if you don't want to rely in third-party gatekeepers, how most people will use it? In your phone? in your (for the majority, windows) pc? You can't use gatekeepers because a lot got hacked or just run with the coins, and you can't have them yourself because the most used platforms are ripe for external exploit, either making the user do something or just making popular good looking trojans.

And if that insecurity is not enough, having over that government sponsored weakened encryption algorythms and mandated backdoors don't help a lot.

We are still not ready for a distributed digital money in those terms.

If you will ban contributors because their home country intelligence agencies may be trying to plant backdoors or weaken security in a way or another, you should start with the main country by far engaged in such activities, else would be meaningless or just following an unrelated agenda. But if you trust in contributors of such country, why not of others?

Oblig xkcd. He is the weakest link in the unbreakable encryption of his bitcoin wallet.

It goes to similar then. Your cable company is streaming movies to you.

The last visible reaction of a chain of events don't mean that the chain started there. Hit me in my knee and my leg will kick. That it implies more rational thinking don't mean that some rational reactions are as inevitable as that one.

Cheerleader effect. If well you don't see your friends in a photo with you, the basic principle is similar, we find attractive any mean to take part of a community.

Something like this document involving funding revolutionary groups? Or maybe could be explained with NSA/GCHQ manipulation in social networks? That the first report blames the owner of the site of the other report could give an idea of how complex is putting blame on someone lately, but in case of doubt, don't attribute to stupidity what can be explained with NSA's malice.

If you think that is bad enough that the government is doing it, think that in fact the ones doing it is the people of the government, the same ones that spied the conversation between US soldiers and their fiancees/wives when they were at Afganistan, and shared between themselves the hottest parts.

Probably the biggest repository of child porn of the world is in NSA servers for their "investigative" use. And we are speaking about people that have power over you and your family.