As I basically don't really bother with other forums (this one was really the first that I've ever spent much effort on) I can't really answer that but for sure I do not see regular posts from many that used to contribute regularly previously (so they are not just being drowned out but are no longer posting much if at all).


We'll see - and progress is going well - initially it is probably just going to start out as a decentralised Blog platform for crypto projects to use (and I've already had some interest in it from a couple of major projects).

For sure I didn't say it is 100% capitalist - and indeed the stock market is not something I would even bother with here.

It is the silly myth that it is "communist" that annoys me as really there is very little here that would strike you as being that (apart from perhaps the stock market but really that is just the SOE's and they don't work in a way that benefits anyone but those in power).

The entire "point" of Carl Marx's idea was to benefit "the people" (by their own efforts) - but there is nothing you can find here that actually does that at all (seriously not one thing - so to call China "communist" would be to call Carl Marx a guy who's vision was to actually screw everyone for everything and give them nothing).

For example I have experienced problems at hospitals where someone who has a seriously high BP is not treated until they do "pointless tests" in order to charge you more money (endangering the patient's life just to get some more funds). Now does that strike you as being something that Carl Marx would have ever supported (if so then I guess you have never read any of his literature - which is something that I actually did)?

Basically westerners who talk about the "evils of communism" have never read Carl Marx and have no idea about how governments like the Chinese one work (they just picked up from CNN or the like that "communism" is bad and don't even bother to try and research about how a county's political system actually works).

Clearly you haven't read that yourself as you'd realise that Chinese have "private property" (and please stop being so arrogant - am pretty sure you are probably a lot younger than me and have a lot less life experience).

You do know that you can buy gold at any Chinese bank (and does your bank provide you with a gold buying service?).

Clearly - you don't know China and are just talking rubbish (and Stalin was about as far away from the ideas of Carl Marx as you could possibly get).

The vast majority of people have to work for a wage just like in the west so your idea of modern China is rather a fantasy.

Also when the natives don't call themselves communist you should probably listen to them (but it seems that you just listen to western propaganda instead).

Why?

The masses cannot use Bitcoin for buying coffee (it simply can't scale for that) and even the increased blocksize idea in XT would not scale up to the same size as something like Visa for many years (so even if XT became the main chain it won't be replacing the current payment systems for many years if ever).

So the only txs that most are going to make are going to be larger ones where 1 USD per tx might not be much at all (especially compared to something like Western Union).

The most logical area that Bitcoin can *own* is remittance and anyone thinking otherwise is just not looking at the reality.

I think it makes the most sense to first take on remittance and get rid of the ridiculous fees that are having to be paid currently in that area (how about we solve that first before worrying about people buying their coffee with Bitcoin?).

Again - China is not a "communist country" and if you believe that then you are a "brainwashed westerner".

What else can I say - I live in China and I know!
(you obviously have never lived in China)

They have "first class tickets" here - now what kind of communist country would have that?

Everywhere you can pay more to get "better service" such as "five star hotels" - again - what communist country would have that?

Jesus - even at the banks you can have a VIP account so you don't need to wait so long in a queue (they don't even have that in Australia so basically that makes Australia look more communist than China).

You do realise that even mainland Chinese don't consider themselves as being "communist" (and they haven't considered themselves as such for at least 35 years)?

It is very funny for anyone who actually knows about China to hear "westerners" still saying today that they are communist.

They aren't (and if you don't know that *then you are a brainwashed westerner*).

In regards to their overseas tourists I think that Aussies in Bali or Thailand don't really have a better reputation (and I am an Aussie).

Initial testing of a simple application using a blockchain versions of the User and Message packages has been performed.

There were some teething issues but I'm pleased to say the application is working as expected (many thanks to @vbcs for setting up a VM to help with the testing).

Confirmation times were a little slower than I would have hoped for (up to around a minute) but with only two minting accounts it is perhaps not surprising that some blocks were slow (and some adjustments to the basic blockchain settings will likely improve that performance).

Currently txs that are not locally created do not actually appear until they are included in a block but this could be changed in order to have unconfirmed txs appear quicker (something I'll be looking into next).

After that work has been completed and some further testing has been performed a blockchain version of the Blog package will be created.

It just shows what has happened to this forum that I see the same non-technical guys arguing the same stuff in numerous topics (with no technical guys even bothering to join in).

So whatever side you take about the situation what you won't find here is any real technical discussion about it (the ad sig campaigns have probably made sure of that).

Duh - that is the entire point.

Your post reminds me of when I used the algo for CIYAM Safe to safely lock away 10 BTC with a small password (was only 5 or 6 characters from memory).

I had a bunch of young idiots asking "how to work out the salt" not understanding that the "salt" was the very point of the exercise (i.e. you ain't going to get the coins by guessing).

Funnily enough with all their hashing power they were unable to crack such a small password without my help (I basically had to give them all but one of the password characters before they could crack it and that was after around a week of them trying having been given the first three characters of the small password).

Also - strictly speaking it is not "salt" as that would be known to you in plain text (the more correct term is perhaps "pepper").

@BurtW

Although Danny is doing a fine job in continuing to extend his list the problem is that new ad siggers are joining the forum every day so I somehow doubt he can actually keep up with them all.

Also note that at least some of the mods are ad sig posters also - so basically this forum is now "ad sig friendly" and has been for around a year (I started several topics in opposition to this and got attacked for my opposition).

The CIYAM team is in the process of developing a decentralised forum that won't allow signatures.

There is still quite a bit of development needed but expect some announcements in the next few months.

He has been away for a while so perhaps hasn't worked out what has happened to the forum over the last year.

Okay - for a typical offline tx I use *one* UTXO (some address I sent a bunch of BTC to a long time ago that was not used for anything else).

Thus the tx has only one UTXO and is very small (so no issue with using a QR code).

Armory is trying to cater for people that gave out their address and so have multiple UTXOs for that same address (this also has the problem of their offline computer needing to know more and more about what the online computer knows).

None of this is at all complicated or difficult for you to understand.

Of course it is - https://susestudio.com/a/kp8B3G/ciyam-safe (I didn't want to put in the link before as it might have come across as some sort of advertisement).

All comms are done using QR codes (you would only use the USB for the OS itself which you would never need to reconnect to the computer you downloaded it from).

In general one QR code can handle about 4K (so a private key from GPG can require two QR codes but a single UTXO BTC tx only requires one).

I am using 1 QR code per tx as the txs are only using one UTXO (which is all you need to if you are using offline storage).

The problem with Armory is that you always have wanted to treat the online and offline wallets as the same - I simply don't do that so I don't have the problem of UTXOs.

Seriously I have been using QR codes to do BTC txs for *years* without a problem so I think you are exaggerating any problems other than the problems of trying to use a "normal wallet" (that ends up with lots of UTXOs).

It is amazing that so many people like you post negative things about using QR codes for BTC when I have done literally hundreds of BTC txs this way without a single problem (my guess is that you have never actually tried to use QR codes yourself).

The safest way to do comms is QR codes - unfortunately the Armory project have never wanted to do that as they always have wanted their offline storage to work like an online wallet (which I've always thought is silly).

Trezor won't help in that it uses USB also and therefore could be compromised in the same manner as other USB connections could (it is also vulnerable to "side-channel" attacks).

I created a 100% air-gapped solution years back (the CIYAM Safe) and although I didn't bother to make it very easy to use it is a bit disappointing that no-one seems to be interested in making such a solution available.

I think this is not a bad idea and for those who still seem to think it is impossible to create a good brainwallet please note that this one: https://blockchain.info/address/1Au4v6dZacFVsWXeKUMJd99AtyBZeqti2L still has its 1 BTC (that has been there for three years).

Of course if you are going to use a stupid pass phrase then you are going to lose your coins but with a decent enough pass phrase and especially with decent key hardening (500K rounds seems actually over the top but will provide "future proofing") you will be safe from brute forcing.

You just missed one rather important thing.

Chinese love to gamble.

So they will not make their position known until the last possible moment (they view this whole block size thing as a way to get rich quick).