Bitcoin Forum

Please vote if you desire or not for Andreas M. Antonopoulos to have the Bitcoin Alert Keys currently being held by Satoshi, Gavin Andresen, and theymos.

EDIT: This is provin' to be interesting and unexpected. Please continue the convo, guys, and thanks for the inputs.

wtf

Ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1162684.0

what are Andreas credentials? breaking blockchain.info? posting btc stealing malware on twitter?

Fuck No!

https://i.imgur.com/BF4kg6u.jpg

AFAIK the keys are not only held by three people. They are held by more, but I'm not sure if that information is public. I would not mind Andreas having a key. If we were to give access to this information to someone, then Andreas would be a great candidate (if not the best).

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Off topic: A lot of people probably don't like him for various reasons. I think that he is in the group of handful people that know almost everything (impossible) about Bitcoin.
Update: That was my opinion. I could be wrong. Everyone does make bad comments from time to time though.

I am quite convinced this is absolutely wrong.

He's made a couple of head scratching comments over the years.

This makes no sense. No one's Alert Key should be "taken away" unless they willfully abuse it or improperly use it.

I don't honestly see what Andreas Antonopoulos can have with these keys. I mean I love the men, I love the way he speaks about Bitcoin and represents the community, I love his dedication and knowledge, but what alert messages will he be sending for God's sake?

These keys need to rest in the sole possession of the devs and Bitcoin creators, just like they were until now.

while we're at it lets make Mark karpeles and Ross ulbricht become Bitcoin jail pen pals because it just makes so much sense you know?

He doesn't have one yet. The poll is for whether he should get one. Nothing is being taken away.

I agree with this statement, but then why does theymos have an alert key?

There must be a reason. He's here from beginning so there is a big trust in him by the whole Bitcoin community.

The other reason that comes to my mind is what if something is to happen to Gavin? On the top of that we don't even know is Satoshi alive. You have to have third person with the keys just in case. You have to spread out the risk between the people.

3rd reason! I don't have an explanation! :)

I read Gleb Gamow's statement above to say something to the effect of:
Take these people out of the Alert Key code in the protocol and add a new one for Antonopoulos.

I understood it from this line: "to have the Bitcoin Alert Keys currently being held".
But maybe Gleb meant "to have like".

Edit: Just as a concept, in relation to Mickeyb's comment above me, maybe there should be a Tier 2 Alert Key system added.
It has limited capability, but in times of emergency can send a message.
Maybe allow five Tier 2 Alert keys. Give Antonopoulos one of those. But this is just my noobish opinion.

Why not? He's been a true Bitcoin advocate and generally a trustworthy member of the community. Also, Satoshi is not here, and only two people currently hold the keys, apparently, so no harm in having more one or two people with the key.

Now the question is: would he accept such a responsibility?

just an idea: wouldnt it be great if everybody could just edit the keys as he wishes?
eg. some people are the defaults but other can offer an alerting service too.

and anybody can decide which he wants to trust with alerts.

one question: are there different alert keys per person? are all alert keys needed to send an alert or is one sufficient?

More than just two people hold the keys. I believe that gmaxwell does also and probably all of the Core devs. But you won't find a list of all of the people who hold the keys. That is for their personal safety.

So the people known to hold the key have revealed themselves, at their responsibility, that they do so? The keys were secretly distributed?

They aren't going around saying that they hold the alert key (well some might have explicitly admitted it). But it can be inferred that the Core devs do, and some statements by some of the devs (e.g. gmaxwell) imply that they do hold the alert key. It seems that the general consensus is to not reveal all of the people with the key to protect them. If they do reveal themselves, then that is their own problem.

I suppose that they are secretly distributed, but I wouldn't know. I would assume that the devs discuss it privately before giving the key to another person.

wtf is this

I have nothing against Andreas , but no.

This was basically the main goal of my question, trying to know if they're secretly distributed... Thanks for your reply :)


Any specific reason why?

NO. I wonder why it should be controlled by a person?

WTF is this?



Correct!

Also, I've read that others may have the Alert Key(s), in which if true, this thread may be pointless. I would love to read definitive proof of such if true. Due to its nature, no names of those holding the key(s) needs to be revealed as far as I'm concerned.

He's not a dev so no.

He's a good spokesman, but that's not really relevant for holding alert keys, even as well liked and trusted as he is

Okay, I see my error, with apologies. Please advise me if I should lock this thread.

At least the posts were enlightening.

I assume you mean "lock"?

If so no, discussion on topics like this only enable us as an industry to grow. Thats my take on it.

So who has all the keys, Gleb? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Thanks, and I knew I should've proofread that post more than ONLY four times prior to posting it.


All I know of is the three named in the OP.

He has good coverage of a wide variety of aspects of bitcoin, like technology, economy, society, politics, psychology etc...

That's not the case with majority of the people in the community. For example, some of the devs are extremely good at coding, but they lack good understanding of how the society and economy, especially how a monetary system works. Because they are not working in those area, and those jobs like banker or senator typically holds knowledge that you can not get from google or school. When you don't have knowledge in a specific area, you might make wrong decisions due to lack of overview, no matter how good you are at your own expertise. A good example is block size debate, solutions can be technically correct, but economically and politically wrong

Devs can also improve their knowledge in other area, but that will also cost a lot of time. If it takes 10 years for a smart person to become an expert in coding, then it might take 20 years for him to become an expert in economy and finance, simply because the society and economy is not really a science, they are much more difficult to learn and understand, everything in those area are highly political and full of illusions

Take fiat money for example, why people blindly trust those pieces of paper even they knows that central banks print those notes faster than printing books? Andreas just revealed part of the reason: We live in an era where fear has overcome reason. It is difficult to understand fiat money's value without taking enough time to dig into the psychology root of each people's unconscious behavior. However, if you fail to understand how the value of a currency is based on, then your decision might destroy a currency like many currency makers did during past several hundred years

Very good post here. One issue I have had with the currency state of cryptos is the significant lack of systems engineering, which bridges all disciplines and can evaluate everything from a top down approach.

This is something I am working on in hopes that my contributions in the future are taken seriously as opposed to be ostracised since I am not a developer.

next up on jail house news.  ulbricht shanks karpeles over a coffee stash.

The bitcoin alert key should be taken from Gavin for his attempt to go his own way without, he's abused the privilege. Let it be a lesson that significant changes need to be socialized and shopped and come with significant support from the community (not just the developers). The community can leave bitcoin for another option just as eagerly as we all want to stay...it would be troublesome but it could happen.

Satoshi and Theymos are the only two who've shown genuine interest for the community...this it the test that needs to be passed.

Andreas for President! (after McAfee)

That's fine the President (for any country) doesn't have access to the Bitcoin Alert Keys...

What got you asking this Gleb?

Why not multisig alert keys, so that two or more holders have to agree on a message?

Ok, If you allow Andreas to have those keys... we will all sing this ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sLR0vgpeWI  He will shake things a bit, and those engineers will

not know where to hide. He is a brilliant speaker, and a passionate Bitcoiner... and I like him to bits... but if I am honest with myself... I would say he will be to much for those

guys at MIT. If I had a key, I would lend it to him, just to give life to the boring party.  ;D

People that don't want to see alerts can easily run a version of Bitcoin Core with that feature disabled. If everyone does that then alert keys mean nothing.

Strongly disagree.

There are 2 academic disciplines that are often cited as being the most employable: Mathematics and Philosophy. These two subjects are said to bestow their adherents with the most flexible (and most abstract) reasoning capabilities. And so the abilities of people well versed in either to take on a wholly new subject matter and understand & learn it are naturally advantaged over those that are untrained.

Computer scientists, especially the accomplished ones working on Core, are missing from the above mentioned truism IMO. You need excellent math to do Computer Science well, but what outsiders often fail to understand is that an accomplished computer scientist also needs language and psychology skills (language for understanding the programming idioms and psychology for designing the user experience).

If anyone can learn the economics, sociology and political theory needed for cryptocurrency design context, it's computer scientists like these people. gmaxwell has already demonstrated a sophisticated grasp of social and political theory; he introduced me, for instance, to the value of keeping your financial information well guarded, or that the 2nd worst thing after being prevented from reading is having your reading monitored and prescribed to you.


I think we can find easy ways to explain monetary theory to people. It's tough to get your head around hihg level explanations, but I've succeeded in finding ways of explaining it to some fairly simple minded people. Using examples (and choosing the example carefully) is often what works.

If you can use a mathematical formula to calculate the finance market, then you are already the world richest by trading options or foreign currencies, because you will calculate out the exact price of tomorrow and always double your money in a couple of hours ;D

The difficulty with economy and finance is not that you don't have enough skill, but you don't have enough information. All the information you can collect are misleading, purposely

I quit reading after "hihg" (probably vectoring from there to explaining things to simpletons who possibly get high).  :P :P :P Perhaps, you had Hajj on your mind.  :'( (in the news). FWIW, I love your post, bud.

I see nothing wrong with him not having the keys!  ;D

for the un-enlightened amongst us, can someone summarize what an "alert key" would allow the holder to do? and what implications that would have

A holder of the alert key can send alert messages that will appear at the top of Bitcoin Core. All it really does now is to inform people that there is a situation with the Bitcoin network and that they should check Bitcoin.org for more information.

It could be used to cause a panic e.g. someone sends out an alert saying that an upgrade is necessary even though such an upgrade is not necessary. However, other alerts can cancel out previous alerts and one alert message type displays a static "Alert Key Compromised" which cannot be canceled and does not allow any further alerts signed with the alert key.

To be honest, there is really no known good way of communication in a decentralized society, people just won't listen to any one but themselves (No authorities)  ;D

An uncensored forum is the best possible place to collect all the views from different sides

I suggest that Alert Keys be distributed to Trustees of any uncensored forum so that bias posts could be immediately deleted so not to disrupt the status quo.  ::)

I like Andreas a lot as a speaker but I don't think he is qualified enough technically as a stablished coder to held the keys, but by all means I trust him more than Gavin. In fact im not even sure the holder of the keys should be an expert coder but a figure that has good intentions for Bitcoin and Andreas is known for that. I would personally go for Nick Szabo and Andreas as the key holders, Gmaxwell as well, it's a good diversification.

lol fan of your work Gleb, looking forward to more.

Eh. If he was going to abuse the alert key, don't you think he would have promoted XT with it by now? I think he's still responsible enough to hold onto the key.

XT isn't bad. It's the fire under the community to get a decision out of us.