Recently was the attack on bitcointalk.org.

At same time, started receiving vague threats in email.  Message headers have not information to identify threatener. 

Now am being phished at, and often, by someone knows my address book contacts.  Spam filter before attack caught 150 or so spam a day; now catches 1500.  More getting through, too.  Legitimate mail sometimes getting caught in filter, hard to find in flood.

Anyone else experience this?  Or am I special?

Edward.

This is good news! 

Dope dealing scum deserve what they get.

And the rest of us deserve a stake in a legitimate currency.

Bitcoin wins because it makes online transfers cheap and easy, not because scum use it.

What countries do when they want to convert to a different money system is to announce, first, that they will accept payment of taxes in the new money.   They set exchange rates (floating exchange but not quite free-floating) so that it is just a few percent cheaper for citizens to pay in the new money than in the old.

Citizens seeking to save on taxes acquire the new coin on their own by international trade or by local enterprise if it can be mined or manufactured.  In doing so they will create demand for it, driving its price (hence value) up.

The government begins to acquire the new coinage as a result of collecting taxes.  Gradually they begin using it to pay some fraction of the debts they owe, again at a floating but not quite free-floating exchange rate, so they don't go broke.   They begin to reduce the production of the bills constituting the older monetary system, while carefully keeping demand for the old notes about sufficient to supply so as to avoid making sudden shock or implosion of old economy.  This is difficult; it is probably must be accomplished by having different departments of the government demand particular currency types for payment in a way that responds in a very carefully measured way responding to current supply of both money types. Finally old bills are mainly curiosities; the government ceases to print them or accept them, and those that remain acquire value as collectors items.

Above process works for anything.  Doesn't have to be something people were thinking of as money at start.

Bitcoin owing to its small and highly inflexible supply would make this very difficult.  Its adoption by any national economy would require deflating it by thousands of percent, creating speculative firestorm that would further complicate process. 

Currency conversion is difficult enough when adopting widely-used money of powerful neighbor state which speaks for volume of a large economy, has high availability and denominates already sufficient value that it won't be noticeably affected when you start using.  But when your use would multiply value for which a very limited supply of money must trade by a factor of hundreds,  is very nearly impossible.  To do so would make the exchange market too unstable during the transition, and cause too many people to lose too much. 

Short version, they won't do it.  Far better from their POV to simply use protocol, create their own cryptocurrency with big enough premine to allow them to bring coins into circulation at a rate that permits control of the exchanges to avoid ridiculous speculative bubbles. 

Also Bitcoin as such is not suitable for a national economy.  No one has any incentive to invest Bitcoin in any productive business, because in Bitcoin economy, with constant finite money supply, an investor can always do at least as good as an average business - with no risk - by simply sitting on money instead.  So there is no rational investment in anything.  This makes it completely impossible to build businesses or infrastructure without nominal 5% inflation rate or so.  Mild inflation is sort of a tax on letting wealth lie around being useless to everyone.

Edward.

Beware false profits!

Menswear designer at Ralph Lauren has same name. 

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/satoshi-nakamoto/8/3a/aa0

People I cared about lived there. 

Is nothing to do with ducks.

Futures-contract coin, call variety.
If spent before X time, can only be spent in transaction where it is exchanged with a single colored coin representing some particular quantity of a commodity.

Futures-contract coin, put variety.
Same as above but is a colored coin representing quantity of commodity exchangeable before X time only for single bitcoin of predetermined amount.

Tax covenant coin: Every time it is spent, one satoshi must be sent to address of bastard who imposed covenant, and largest txout of transaction must carry covenant forward.  Can also use to support charity or devs, I suppose.

All your key are belong to us coin:  Can only be spent with a proof-of-work hash -- some subsequence of which must match subsequence of private key.  Rude way to spank foolish people use same address more than once.

Lotto coin:  Each time changes hands, 1% of tx value sent to special address.  one time in thousands, gives spender key to that address and starts a new one.

Returning coin:  Each time spent, is small chance of it return to wallet of someone who spent it six tx previously.  (picture accountant trying figure out. )

Stable-value coin:  Txout of exactly equal value carrying same covenant must exist in any transaction where spent.  No divisibility or aggregation.

Amusing.

Excuse me for saying so but...

Want to start an Anarchy.  Reasonable thing to say if you crazier than dancing goat, don't want to outlive your hamster.

Plenty Anarchy to go 'round.  Just move to Somalia.  Or some other godforsaken hellhole where nobody has both will and ability to rule.

No rulers.  Means idiots with guns can just kick you out of house, shoot dog, rape wife, take food, kill only bull for meat, then burn your house down and laugh.  You can stop them for the price of bullet to your neck.  But no police, no rulers, no court to find them guilty.  Means no crime has been committed.

No rulers.  Means idiot with pair of pliers will go to cut down power lines for trade scrap copper for booze.  And another idiot with pair of rubber gloves will step over burnt twitching corpse and take pliers up pole again.  Nobody can get power.  If power available, nobody can pay for.  Go where might pay bill, some idiot with gun will just stop you take your money because you have it and he wants it.  Try send anyone bill for power, not work.  Mail not go through.  Can hire boy to run courier, but boy look like he have something to do, someone who pays him, will get robbed and shot.  Not long before money means nothing at all, no point even generating power. 

No police, but one in five work as security guard, for food only.  No other pay.  Until money, connections, whatever, to get food for security guards run out.  After that, gets really nasty.   Then you got bigger crooks, build organizations, lead many men with guns.  Most just by lying to them, some by feeding, some by letting rape all women in towns - have to destroy towns afterward, kill all the men, just the price of doing business. Otherwise someone will try for vengeance.

Want to start an anarchy.

You Americans got no fucking idea what anarchy is.

Alice and Bob (and Carol, and David, and Eunice, .....  and Zeke) commonly used name in description of cryptographic protocol.  Always appear in alphabetic order in protocol description.  Common to all crypto papers.  Gender alternate, first letter of name consecutive.

Are also several name reserve for specific type threat model. If protocol description require five honest actors (so require female E name), description use "Eunice" never "Eve" for E name; "Eve" mean something else.  Same with other special names.

"Eve" (for eavesdropper) can listen on lines.  Protocol often describe in term of what Eve know or can learn.  "Trent" (for trust) is trusted central authority or server.  Depending on protocol, subverting Trent may cause some breakage or total breakage.  "Mallory" (forget what English mnemonic was) is toughest opponent; can listen on lines or change messages arbitrarily in route, but has not infinite compute power.  Can usually launch man-in-the-middle attack, but can't decrypt with brute force in real time.  Protocol often described in term of what Mallory can know or learn from which transaction, or in term of what damage Mallory can do, or in term of what trouble Mallory must do to remain long undetected. 

Several others such name, but rarely seen because attack mode impractical.  Example "Brutus" (for brute force) is attacker with very large compute power.  Can defeat cryptography, in time period depend on protocol description.  Brutus usually work with Eve, record all transactions for decrypt later.  Protocol often described in term of what capability Brutus need for decrypt, or in term of time period secrets safe from Brutus.  Sometime Brutus work with Mallory, decrypt and re-encrypt in real-time.  Protocol described in term of what capability and acceptable communication delay Brutus need for fool anybody.  "Brutus" easy work in real-time with mild encryption such as password-protect zipfile, etc, work in near-real-time with medium encryption like buggy SSL.

http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt

This paper publish in 1998, propose protocol for cryptographic money much like Bitcoin.  In fact is clear elements of protocol design were adopted or adapted into Bitcoin itself.  Was initially published on mail list, call "Cypherpunks."  List still exist I think.  Don't know where now.

Wei Dai is paper's author, also is maintainer of very extensive cryptographic library which kept in public domain.  Many routine from Dai library appear in initial implementation of Bitcoin. 

Is clear Satoshi Nakamoto read this paper and used Dai crypto library in implementing Bitcoin.  Was probably on Cypherpunk mailing list in 1998.

This is interesting.

I think, "why was short textfile would have fit in post been faster to just read presented slow and wasting video bandwidth?"
I also think "damn all pretentious idiots want people read text while it wiggles."

Proof of stake is good idea.  Make 51% attack much harder.  But video not explain what is nor why better. 

Reward received.  Thank you kindly, enough for groceries several months.  :-)   Also, now feel good about work;  definite not wasted effort now.

Edward. 

Considering implementing a special-purpose wallet with API work with other program.  Would needs separate wallet, using bitcoins in longer-term protocol that user could cause fail costly if accidentally spends wrong coins. 

Can multiple wallets work from same data directory?  Blockchain, index, etc?  Without fight over file locks? 

Edward.

Ooooh, I never turn down money.     Thanks, makes me feel less like waste of time.  1MhzpSt9NwjGejwAyZpX2GwTssYYdhPRZn is a nice addy if you want to reward. 

Already sent sneaky asm modules to antivirus contractors; got 3 on my client list as consultant. I tend to be vindictive when someone tries trojan me. Like I said, funny game.  It was my move.

Some I bought them from Bitstamp.  And moved them the instant they showed up in Bitstamp account, to my private wallet.  

Some I got for pay - made machine parts for someone. She wanted pay me in Bitcoin, I said sure.

Some others I got for pay - wrote code for somebody wanted special exclusive super-secret software analyze enormous big pile of data, paid Bitcoin to keep private from someone else looking at bank account.

Some others I got for pay - Main job, security consult.  I look at malware, see what it does by read machine code, figure out how to clean infected machines.  Clients implement, or I implement, cleaning software, clients then sell.  Pays well.  Twice now I asked pay me in Bitcoin, they said 'sure, whatever'.

A couple I bought direct in person, smartphone to smartphone, from speculator got nervous back when price was USD$60.

People keep putting Coins into online wallets whose security they don't know crap about!  WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN?

Okay, final update. 

Is definitely remote desktop exploit.  Finally found path connect to outside.  Very sneaky.  Remote desktop get raw bytes from outside over network, but do nothing with.  Fake windows update is pretend part of 'operating system' and have access low-level memory.  Can finds 'magic numbers' in remote desktop client code, get offset to buffer, use pointer to read buffer.  Then fake windows update transform raw bytes in buffer into UI events from virtual second screen and keyboard/mouse in remote desktop. 

Oy.  My head hurts.  Remember I said way second keyboard/mouse was connected made no sense?  Driven by reads from buffer never allocated or written, not memory mapped to any hardware or interrupt service.  Pointer to buffer calculated from random-looking computations in assembly language.  On other side, was network channel remote desktop part just read mysterious bytes from, then did nothing with bytes.  This is why.

Does English have word for something which one feels both proud and ashamed?  I feel this, over figuring this out.  Left horn, satisfied because finally understood code.  Right horn, feel like stupid OCD wasted effort; already knew it was malware.  Right thing to do is still same. 

Is some truth in idea that high-speed stock trading has some benefits to the instant-auction marketplace.  By playing speed against bid-ask gap they keep bid-ask gap smaller than would otherwise be, so better liquidity, good for if want to buy or sell one or two shares.  But not better than shrinking bid-ask gap to zero.

Is also some truth in idea that high-speed stock trading causes some problems in the instant-auction marketplace.  By playing speed against the bid-ask spread, thins the orders around the gap on both sides.  This force any larger trade to shift market more than otherwise would.  Causes market to shift down faster when someone tries to sell a large order or up faster when someone tries to buy a large order.  Eats into profits of anyone trying to make reasonable-size trades, whether buy or sell, meaning market is LESS liquid for trade larger blocks.  Drives the size of trades always smaller as traders try to avoid making panic or bubble or unduly large loss due to market 'twitch' in presence of flash traders, making it very hard to make a large simple transaction.  Occasionally destabilize market entirely by reacting (wrongly) faster than humans can correct, causing 'flash crash' or 'insta-bubble.'    Increases tendency for the market to respond more to market dynamics than to anything about companies the assets represent.   Finally, tends to cause unfair treatment by brokerages and exchanges; big volume speed trader get good deals smaller traders frozen out of.

Also, is no end to it.  If trades can execute in millisecond, speed trader make more by trading a thousand times a second.  If trades can execute in microsecond, speed trader will make more (tiny tiny percent more) by trading a million times a second.  All problems cause get worse, and only benefit is bid-ask spread shrinking asymptotically toward zero, but that only for orders with size asymptotically approaching zero.  Why bother?  We can reach zero. 

Batch trading improves price efficiency (component of 'liquidity' that traders actually care about) for both small and large trades.  Does not result in twitchiness.  Does not destabilize market.  Does not go out of control faster than human can correct.  P2P marketplace is automatic, no chance of favoritism or corruption.   I believe combination of instant-auction and high speed trading provides no benefit to other traders not better provided in periodic-fair-price model.  Unless buy or sell RIGHT NOW instead of sometime in the next ten minutes is terribly important benefit. 

Finally, and to me most compelling argument; allows humans time to consider situation and respond carefully rather than being in a frantic panic to be faster than neighbor and make stupid mistakes.

All coins in bitcoin are "locked" coins.  To open lock, you must satisfy conditions of script.  Usually means just show you have private key.  So no different than usual from Bitcoin side of the problem.

Altcoin side of the problem is somehow do-able, but I haven't seen yet exactly how.  Here is brief.

Some transaction or sequence of transactions "hides" the information necessary to spend the bitcoin in the blockchain of the altcoin.  Maybe it has to be done in a series, each after a previous transaction in the sequence is "confirmed."  Maybe it involves the creation and destruction of a couple of different special-flavor altcoin as intermediate steps.  During the process, an ordinary transaction is entered on the bitcoin blockchain which moves the bitcoin to a new script-hash address.  Last transaction in series creates the bitcoin-flavored altcoin on the altcoin blockchain.

Later, someone who has bitcoin-flavored altcoin wants to spend bitcoin.  Must go through another series of transactions, starting with destroying the Bitcoin-flavored altcoin and resulting eventually in releasing to that user sufficient information to spend Bitcoin.  This may involve the production and destruction of one or more special or different-flavored altcoin along the way.   It may need to be done in series after previous transaction in series is confirmed.  I'm pretty sure this is possible.  Zerocoin protocol working on altchain side, or something of key negotiation, secret sharing, etc.  Just haven't figured out exactly how yet.

Say that I have code for a P2P currency platform that natively supports "colored coins" -- ie, coins of a particular type having different values, and values permitted to float against one another.  I developed the code thinking of a P2P stock exchange, basically the "colored coins" were intended to be stocks that some company would issue on the P2P exchange. 

The idea of using multiple currencies seemed like a good one.  It would be nice if you could trade frictionlessly using any cryptocoin.

But how can a Bitcoin (or Litecoin, or whatever) exist in the blockchain of an altchain? 

A "one way door" is easy enough; if you "burn" a bitcoin by sending it to a bitcoin address which is provably unspendable, the altchain network (if it knows about how to access the bitcoin blockchain) can verify that.  A special transaction type can create a "bitcoin" flavored coin into the alt chain when you prove you have the private key of the address that the bitcoin was sent to the unspendable bitcoin address from.  The problem with this is that the coin has been burned as far as the bitcoin chain is concerned.  There is no way to get it back.   The altcoin chain can

What I want to do is modify the "one way door" mechanism to make it into a "two way door."  A bitcoin sent to a "two way door" should be unspendable until the owner of the corresponding "bitcoin-flavored" altcoin z  in turn burns it in the altchain by sending it to an unspendable altchain address. This 'burn' in the altchain ('burning' the bitcoin-flavored altcoin) should release information to the sender allowing the sender (and no one else) to construct a key which allows spending the original, locked up bitcoin (in the bitcoin chain) by using the key. The person who 'sends' a bitcoin-flavored altcoin to the unspendable altchain address is presumed to be its current owner, right?  So he is the one who can be given the key to unlock the original bitcoin, still sitting in its little cage.

It's all well and good for the bitcoin-flavored altcoin to be permanently erased from the altcoin chain.  It (or another one fungibly like it) can be re-created if another (or the same) bitcoin is sent again to the "two way door."   But we don't want the bitcoin permanently erased from the bitcoin chain because it is in that chain that it actually has its primary value.

What I want is very much like an 'escrow' but based on the activity of another blockchain.  Anyone have any ideas on how to construct it?

Only definition of 'spread' worthwhile to me is difference in price between buying and selling. If no buying and no selling, or buyer/seller not have to pay extra or take cheaper price because of crossing 'gap' in market, then no spread at all as far as I'm concerned. 

Market spreads in 'continuous auction' have come way down recently, but is due mainly to HFT getting more efficient/faster because market speed has gone up.

My point is we can do better yet. Bids & asks execute at same price means no spread at all.