It only needs to be able to survive a washing machine & dryer.

That is a common misquote of a biblical passage, that is improperly used to demonize money.  The literal translation of the passage is...

"For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

1 Timothy 6:10 New American Standard Bible


The emphasis above is my own, but note that the meaning of the passage is completely different.  The "love of money" is greed, "a root"  & "all sorts" imply greed is one of several and "by longing for it" implies that money is the object of the sin of greed, but not the sin itself.

Money of any form is simply a symbol, it is neither good nor bad upon it's own, no matter what form it should take.

EDIT: the passage also makes clear that there are certainly kinds of evil that do not have their root in the "love of money", I suggest that the love of power is a close second.

Interesting question. 

The debate between usury versus free market interest rates has a disagreement between sides that is often unstated, so let me state it.

Usury is when a loan is predatory, but has historicly been linked to interest.  It's forbidden in both the Old testatment (Torah) and the Koran because the average Joe/Mohammad was mathmatically illiterate for a long time even in cultures that the general population wasn't actually illiterate.  This is the real reason that, in our modern world, we teach young children arithmatic (and why we should teach them microeconomics) in grade school.  So when they get older they stand a chance of not getting screwed by someone with a much better understanding of mathmatics.

However, in a true free market, we should reasonablely be able to assume that your average consumer isn't mathmaticly illiterate; and even if he is, use of mathmatics to defraud anyone is still fraud.

Therefore usury is a special case of fraud, that pretends to be legitimate via the creative and/or deceptive use of mathmatics to present itself as an honest contract.

As a libertarian who understands, and supports, free market economics; I shouldn't have to argue against usury, because it's not a legitimate example of a free market contract to begin with.

Looks identical to me, except that it's intended to pay for a wifi hotspot access, not just anything.  Question, can Lock_Time be extended with newer revisions?  If it can, then there is no reason that this process cannot extend much longer than the initial lock_time, allowing the user to extend the agreement from the original period (be it a day or a month) out for as long as the counterparty would allow.

Somehow, though, I suspect that extending a lock_time is prohibited for some technical reason that I don't understand.

Well, snopes seems to think that it's bunk, but not everything that snopes refutes is actually correct.

http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/cop.asp


True, and that is effectively what they do.

I determined that the topic had diverged, and followed the thread backwards to the point that I thought that it started to diverge.  It was a judgement call on my part.  Learn to deal.


I didn't select you because your views are different than anyone.  I wasn't even paying any attention to whom you were, what your actual opinions on the matter were, or who your opposition was.  And the implication that I was leaves me with the impression that your prior conflicts with other mods may be your own doing.


That's your opinion, and you have a right to it.  I have a different opinion on the matter.  It just so happens that it's my opinion that matters in this case.  If you don't like how I do things, feel free to apply to become a mod yourself, and fix it.


Again, any views of any mod besides myself were, and remain, irrelevent.


I do not know about the validity of your accusations against bitcoin2cash, nor would I normally care.  However, I've already developed a sour taste concerning your biased viewpoints concerning mod actions, so I'm inclined to give bitcoin2cash the benefit of the doubt.  Moreso considering I've had business dealings with him directly, and consider him to be an honest & generally reasonable person.  I honestly don't know you as well, and you aren't winning any brownie points today.

Current and prior examples of private security & policing....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constable#United_Kingdom

"The system of policing by unpaid parish constables continued in England until the 19th century; in the London metropolitan area it was ended by the creation of the Metropolitan Police by the Metropolitan Police Act 1829,[15] and outside London by the County Police Act 1839, which allowed counties to establish full-time professional police forces. However, the lowest rank of the new police forces was still called "constable", and most outside London were headed by a chief constable.[16][17] This system is still used today."

Kentucky, where I live...

"In Kentucky, constables are elected from each magistrate district in the state. There are between three and eight magistrate districts in each county. Under Section 101 of the Kentucky Constitution, constables have the same countywide jurisdiction as the county sheriff.[46]

Prior to the 1970s, the main function of the constables was to provide court service and security to the Justice of the Peace courts. However, since these have been eliminated by judicial reform, the office of constable now has few real functions. Constables still have the power of arrest and to execute warrants, subpoenas, summonses and other court documents, and are required to execute any court process given to them. On the approval of the Fiscal Court (the legislature of the county) they may equip their vehicles with oscillating blue lights and sirens.[46]

Most constables in Kentucky are not paid a salary, but are paid fees for services rendered."

Think about regular sherriffs, getting off-duty part-time work at banks and private events, as if the constable's office were a temp office for cops, and you would have the right idea.  Incidentally, this is actually where we get the term 'cop' from.  It orginally meant "constable on patrol".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_police

"Security police protect their agency's facilities, properties, personnel, users, visitors and operations from harm and may enforce certain laws and administrative regulations. Most security police have at least some arrest authority. The law enforcement powers of security police vary widely, in some cases limited to those of private persons yet in others amounting to full police powers equivalent to state, provincial, or local law enforcement.

As distinct from general law enforcement, the primary focus of security police is on the protection of specific properties and persons. "

http://www.michigan.gov/mcoles/0,1607,7-229-41626_42413---,00.html

Bruce Schneier is af fine person and an excellent resource, but not a fan..

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/private_police.html


And from the DOJ's website...

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=2034

"The private security field, in fact, is much more diverse than what many may imagine. Annually, it spends more than $100 billion on security products and services. In contrast, federal, state, and local law enforcement spend less than half that amount. Additionally, many private security employees are experts in technology, fraud, and forensics investigation and often hold professional certifications and advanced degrees.

Private security and public law enforcement share many of the same goals: preventing crime and disorder, identifying criminals, and ensuring the security of people and property. As there are two private security practitioners for every one sworn law enforcement officer, effective partnerships can act as a much needed force multiplier."

And then takent to it's logical conclusion...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_company

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

Incidentally, the US Constitution explicityly grants the Congress the power to establish private armies via a letter of marque...

http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html

"The Congress shall have Power To .... declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years"

Take note of that last one, and think about what the framers though of standing armies, and how quickly their objections were simply ignored.  They had a far greater trust in private armies, because they existed only for a particular contract and term, and then they went home to their families.  They considered a 'warrior class' type culture within a standing army to be antiethical to a free population.  Seems to me that they got it exactly right.

I split the topic, are you seriously calling me immature for doing so?  Or do you have some kind of personal issue with another mod?

Yes, we are all very familiar with ripple.  It has it's place, but doesn't remove trust from the metric.  Something ripple like would be useful as a overlay network, perhaps permitting bitcoin users to use the ripple like network to send/receive small payments indirectly to/from vendors that they don't personally know without tiny transactions on the bitcoin network.  Something similar might be usesful for smaller online wallet services to participate in off-bitcoin-network micropayments without actually having a reciprocity agreement with the other party's service.

But the use case that we are examing here is comparable to one or more paypal-like services.  So the comparisons are valid.

Wait, what?  Are you saying that the user would be able to make instant payments in excess of the funds he has tied up into the channel?


Which covers the use case of 99% of all Paypal members, which was my point.


Which covers the use case of half of the remaining 1% of Paypal users.


This I can agree with.

Oh, I see what you mean now.

That's true enough, but still true regardless of whether or not you have an account or not, so nothing changes.  If your bitbank asks for personal data, in order to sell it or for any other reason, just find one that does not or start your own.

This is all fine, but if a customer is willing to trust the processor with a small deposit, then he doesn't need any funds tied up into the channels.  Once again, I think that this idea is sound, but is more likely to be used at the macro level.

That's true, as it has much to do with 'skin effect'.  Still, that has almost zero bearing on the question of radio waves penetrating a thin metal sleave.

Why not?  What says that a bitcoin bank (on Tor or otherwise) needs to have your true identity?  Unless they are forced by some government edict, the bitcoin bank doesn't need that in order to either pay your bills, they have your money (or, at least, a irrevocable contract to do so, enforceable within the bitcoin network itself).  I can see no reason why a bitcoin bank, uncoerced by some government ditate, would need to know your name, your home address, or any other such stuff.

This only works to a point.  If the frequency of the device is shorter than the resonant wavelength of the foil wrapper, it can just resonate the single right through.  Unplug your microwave, put your cell phone into it, and call your cell  phone and you will see what I mean.

I think it would work, but I can't see how the payment processor makes any money.  As you said, his own funds are tied up in multiple connections; so all that money has to be rented somehow, and that doesn't even cover the costs of running the service itself.  I think that this would work great for long term reciprocity agreements between major online bitcoin payment processors, but in order for this to be beneficial there must be more than 4 transactions between users of a service.  For most this is unlikely, as most paypal users don't average one a month.  Reciprocity agreements between large online wallet services, however, can expect to have at least dozens of transactions between their userbases in any given day; many of which will simply cancel out.  A pair of payment processors could choose to tie up, say 1000 bitcoins in each others' service (or use this method to do so with a meta-processor) with the agreement that, should the transactions total to an imbalance of more than 50% of the funds in either direction, the processor that owes produces a 500 bitcoin transaction automaticly, thus rebalancing the flow.  This can consolidate hundreds, if not thousands, of individual transactions on the bitcoin network if the mutual buffer is large enough to permit many small transactions between userbase members, most of which simply cancel out.

Not those on Tor.  The Silk Road is, in effect, both an online wallet & a mixer, while also creating a convient market.



Not likely, many will exist long before it's a resource issue.

All of them?  All your addresses & all the bitcoin banks?  Well, the long arm of the law stretches to the ends of the Earth & the deepest parts of the Internet then.  In that, rather extreme, distopian future why can't you fall back to starting your own client?  Does anyone here not use a bank for something today?  Does anyone here really trust them?

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/index.html#/v/1702587311001/is-the-data-on-the-rising-cost-of-health-care-misleading/?playlist_id=87530

This seven minute clip from a recent Stossel episode explains some of the problems with Obamacare pretty well.