You should point out that no downloads are required with http://www.mybitcoin.com/

This article on base58 includes a list of valid characters:
http://icoloma.blogspot.com/2010/03/create-your-own-bitly-using-base58.html

Both BCM and MTGOX cost nothing to use.  MTGOX used to use a spread to make a small amount of money, but that went away, possibly to avoid being mistaken for a money services business.

MtGox is easy:  it's all JavaScript, which means the code that handles login, buy, sell, add, withdraw is publicly visible, available for inspection and study.  It uses HTML form values, HTTP cookies and JSON data.  Any web programmer worth his salt knows how to use those.

Does anybody know of open source software that performs automated trading?

I found http://www.geniustrader.org/ but perhaps there are others.

Are you sure you're not logged in, looking at your own auction?

AFAICT from my own auction, the bidder names were only revealed when I was logged in, looking at my own auctions.

IMO, there needs to be a method besides IRC and compiled-in seed nodes.  A middle ground.

Maybe a few volunteers could independently host a DNS zone that returns a fresh list of nodes as 'A' records.  A simple cron job could fetch fresh addresses from the bitcoin client, to update the DNS zone every so often.  A DNS lookup would be far faster than an IRC connection, and if we have enough volunteers, the loss of a DNS server or two would not impact the service.

lol, apparently the two CPAs I queried are useful idiots too

Sometimes this board can get pretty silly and imaginative, when it comes to naive attempts to dodge the taxman.

Auction: http://www.biddingpond.com/item.php?id=81

Bidding starts at 1 BTC - no reserve!  (950 BTC buy-it-now price)


Item:

$50 VISA gift card (aka debit card), activated, unused.

Details:

This is a VISA card number that may be used for online or real-world purchases all over the world.

This VISA gift card was purchased from Wal-Mart in October 2010.  Expires July 2018.  Activated via www.walmartgift.com.

You are purchasing online access to this gift card (ie. number, security code, password to walmartgift.com to change registered address).  If you want the card itself, you must add 50 BTC for shipping and handling to a United States address.  For non-US addresses, you must add 160 BTC for shipping, handling and customs.

You must register a US address at walmartgift.com in order to use this debit card for shopping online.

URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/304e7430-d0c1-11df-8667-00144feabdc0.html

No -- you are making the assumption that a cash-only existence is possible for large criminals.  If that was true, then money laundering would not exist, because it would not be necessary.

But it does.  Drug kingpins have so much cash it is quite literally a problem of size.  After paying all their flunkies, and buying illegal guns and such, they are still stuck with bales of FRNs.  That's why the Feds target any place that might accept large amounts of cash for legitimate items -- cars, houses, boats, non-illegal businesses.

It is surprisingly difficult to spend large amounts of cash without getting noticed, and that is by design.

What evidence shows that Peter Thiel was involved in those decisions?  PT has not been Paypal management for a while.

FWIW, I have no clue about how I will get paid for my auction.  The payment process, for buyers and sellers, appears to be completely undocumented.

Do buyers directly pay sellers, or is biddingpond.com an intermediary?
Using a payment processor at biddingpond.com, or simply using the bitcoin client?

Inquiring minds want to know   The 'help' section is basically empty.

I wonder if snipers lurk on biddingpond.com, as they do on ebay.

8.5 hours to go! 

Are wallet.dat files from Windows usable under Linux, and vice versa?

I'm referring to both bank notes and electronic transfers.

As an example, the US has a large, on-going effort to track banks that accept large amounts of Federal Reserve Notes, interdicting those banks who accept deposits from criminals.  Several banks in Macau were shut down, for example, because they accepted lots of FRNs from North Korea.  You hear similar stories out of Mexico, where drug cartels have stupidly large amounts of FRNs.  The Feds play whack-a-mole with banks who accept large volumes of FRNs from drug kingpins.

You're incredibly naive if you think FRN flows are not actively tracked.  The Feds target digitization points -- ie. a location, usually a bank, that accepts paper USD in exchange for electronic USD credit in an account.  Additionally, many standard FRN counting/sorting machines, such as those found in casinos or banks, have the ability to scan the bill's serial number, thus providing another tracking point.  Ever heard of "marked bills?"  You don't need a special ink or marker -- law enforcement only needs to enter a bill's serial number into a Federal Reserve database somewhere.

The whole system is set up to marginalize (and de facto criminalize) large cash operations of any sort, legal or illegal.  Death by 1,000 paper cuts.


If that's a response to my post...  I was not casting any blame, nor making any judgements.  Just recounting the goal and reality of today's worldwide cash tracking operations.

Like it or not, cutting off a criminal's money supply has been proven a highly effective method of targeting and neutralizing individual criminals.  Law enforcement will always want power over money, be it USD or EUR or Pecunix or bitcoin.

Bump.  24 hours to go, and the current bid is 525 BTC:

That's ~ $32 for a $100 VISA debit card that can be used anywhere VISA is accepted.

You mean, like the numbers found on http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/ ?

That would certainly be violating the law (the tax code): http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html

I won't speculate on your chances of being caught...