They're not being hassled because of what they have already leaked, they're being hassled because people think they're going to dish the dirt about the operation of a major bank.

Because the EFF knows tech-savvy lawyers who are familiar with disruptive internet technologies?

Obviously it's nothing to do with the EFF's own legal services remit. I just think that if you could get them to drop a name or two it might be useful.

OK, I see the misunderstanding. I thought you meant "have" as in the amount of CPU power that you own or control, but it makes sense if "have" means the amount of CPU power that you devote to mining.

The EFF might be able to recommend someone.

Whether Satoshi is Japanese or not, it's pretty obvious that he doesn't wish to do interviews. When he's ready to step out of the invisibility cloak, I'm sure he'll make it known.

You say that as if everyone's CPU power is pre-ordained.

The system is "fair", in that each person has the choice of how much CPU power they wish to devote to bitcoin generation.

There's no enforced cartel, no generating license needed, no official that needs to be bribed, no extra taxes for generators in some states, no need to "know the right people", no pre-booking needed. It's about as fair as anything could possibly be.

Not me. Roll it over into the next hacker charity.

The hair and face are looking good. Here are some things you might want to consider.

The USB stick still looks like a cigarette to me. Maybe if she had the plug end showing, instead of being in her mouth?

The upper arm still looks a little like it's coming from someone behind her. I think it might look better if the lower edge of the arm ends in a curve that marks the start of her elbow, instead of going on in a long straight line as if the elbow is far away under the cloak? But I'm lousy at drawing, so I don't know.

By the way, I love the way the socks/tights reach different heights up her legs. All the best nerds are disorganized in some way about their appearance.

Thank you, da2ce7, for that explanation. If that blocks man-in-the-middle attacks, I guess my question is why we're not already putting a hash of the public key into regular DNS records (particularly as signing of the DNS system is currently being implemented).

But yeah, I think a lot of people would like to be able to bypass their CA if there was a way.

Indeed. For example see:
"Doubt over integrity of half of offset credits ever produced"

Burning transactions sound like a useful mechanism, apart from the fact that they would require changes to Bitcoin. I keep wondering whether there is a way to take the burning mechanism outside of Bitcoin itself, I can't think of a good way to do so.

I also wonder whether it would be a good thing to turn all Bitcoin transaction fees into burning ones, to spread the benefit of processing a transaction beyond the immediate generator.

PS: I don't understand the bit about doing away with Certificate Authorities for secure internet connections, but if this is possible it would be a very popular fringe benefit.

Option 2) might be the most fun though.

If people let these certificates expire, won't the authorities just increase the issue of allowances in the future? Government schemes always seem to be redesigned or tweaked every few years anyway.

It's a cute idea though. Kind of like buying up and burning BTC.

Let's consider the long-term, where we will need a smaller unit. I think it's best to have a separate name for this, rather than messing with long decimals like 0.00000247. For the purpose of this discussion, suppose a millionth of a bitcoin is called a satoshi. Then it makes sense to choose a letter symbol that comes in a "B" form and an "S" form.

Here's how it would look for large-to-small transactions, using circled-letter symbols. It might be worth seeing how other schemes would deal with the huge range of transaction sizes.

ⓑ24700 (twenty-four thousand seven hundred bitcoins)
ⓑ2470 (two thousand four hundred and seventy bitcoins)
ⓑ247 (two hundred and forty-seven bitcoins) [omit "and" in the USA]
ⓑ24.7 (twenty-four point seven bitcoins)
ⓑ2.47 (two point four seven bitcoins)
ⓢ247000 (two hundred and forty-seven thousand satoshis)
ⓢ24700 (twenty-four thousand seven hundred satoshis)
ⓢ2470 (two thousand four hundred and seventy satoshis)
ⓢ247 (two hundred and forty-seven satoshis)
ⓢ24.7 (twenty-four point seven satoshis)
ⓢ2.47 (two point four seven satoshis)

Something to consider is character code 164 (hex 00A4) which will display on virtually every computer even if there is no Unicode font installed.

The name of this character is "currency symbol", and it was intended for use with any new currency. It was never used much because new currencies such as the Euro designed a new character.

Here's the symbol: ¤.

I don't like the look of the symbol myself, but I'm throwing it in for discussion.

Exactly. Unless it's something with enormous monetary value (say, the Beatles back catalog), a simple one-sentence dedication to the public domain works perfectly in practice.

A committee could never have made a design so well-thought-out, with so few rough edges. Also, committees don't format their white papers using LaTeX. Nor could a committee show so many signs of caring deeply about their project.

I have no doubt that Satoshi is one person.

Satoshi's released his logo as PD. The Ubuntu font can be used in PD projects (because you're just using its letter shapes as intended, not redistributing it as a font).

For all practical purposes, PD works well and allows the graphic to be used everywhere else. Just posting a message that says "I release this to the public domain" is fine.

It's only for major works that something more formal serves any purpose.

There are only about 50,000 blocks generated each year. So if bitcoin gets a million users, there's no way the average Joe can generate a block once a year.

Collaborative mining is the way forward for the "little guy". Very small payouts, but reasonably regular.

Well he initiated this bounty. That's good. And he hasn't seized the money. That's good. So as far as I'm concerned he's not disqualified in any way.