Hope there will be a tiny bit of bitcoins thrown in for the user to experience on a user friendly bitcoin client that does not have to download a multi megabyte blockchain before experiencing the excitement - webcoin (bitcoinjs) is a possible sollution, Bitcoin-qt will only download headers as a lightweight client as well and not the whole blockchain.  Exciting times.

There are more than one type of Bitcoin user:

- The legit, privacy concerned user
- The legit, no privacy required user

and the unsavoury

- Illegitimate, privacy concerned user

- Mixed personality types, having a persona ( or wallet.dat file ) for more than one of the above categories

Google Plus social network have launched.  https://plus.google.com/  Is there a way that a bitcoinj or bitcoinjs web application ( https://github.com/bitcoinjs/node-bitcoin-p2p/issues/8 seperating the bulky blockchain held centrally from every users wallet held decentrally ) can be interfaced on the Google Plus web platform to allow Bitcoin digital goods transfers between friends on the Google Plus social web interface?  Knowing that Google is more friendly towards Bitcoin digital goods with the Google developed http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/ than other social networks like Facebook.

It would be helpful if the user just keeps his spendable (of small bitcoin value) wallet.dat file privately on his Google Plus account and reload it by uploading a new spendable wallet.dat once empty or buying Bitcoin digital goods into his online held wallet.dat at Google Plus or receive Bitcoin digital goods from friends into his online held wallet.dat at Google Plus.  When doing a transfer to a friend the application can hide the complicated Bitcoin addresses and just shows his friends names from his address book where he associated his friends Google Plus account with a Bitcoin address.  The Bitcoin digital goods' value to be transferred can also be shown in a national currency of choice (calculated at current market prices from major dealers) to simplify value of transfer comprehension for the average user.

Simple Bitcoin digital goods transfer interface example:

Transfer Bitcoin digital goods to:
                          Select Friend         Select value expressed in       Key in Bitcoin Value to transfer
                          John                     GBP                                   16.49 USD or 0.99 BTC
                          Suzy                    AUD                                      ^                ^
                          Sam                     USD                                      |                 |
                          Chris                    JPY                                     user           application converts
                                                     INR                                    key this       this on the fly from
                                                     EUR                                     in              online data available

If a person gets caught for selling drugs and I bought socks or soda from him that does not criminalize me.  How would it criminalize me if I bought digital bitcoin goods from him?  I am not part of his drug trading activities and I can not police all the activities of every stranger that I conduct business with.  I am related to the stranger solely for what my business was with him - it would be buying or selling digital goods that I have acquired or would dispose of by buying or selling it or keeping it.  You can not be held accountable for any criminal deeds of people you conducted business with if you were not involved in the criminal deed!  If I sell someone fresh fish at a market and he keeps it unrefrigerated for days, and serves it to a customer at his restaurant that acquires food poisoning in the process, the negligent criminal act would be due to his actions, not my due diligent actions.

A positive Bitcoin comment by a web user in this Forbes.com article:  http://blogs.forbes.com/steveschaefer/2011/06/29/visa-mastercard-surge-on-feds-friendlier-cap-on-swipe-fees/

Click on show comments.

Would a facebook app implementation of bitcoinjs be approved, for transfer of bitcoins between facebook users?

Why would N-S-A develop something in 2000 and then collaborate with the open source community for an inclusion of this software into the linux kernel in 2003 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux#Overview ) if it would make nosing into individuals' systems more difficult:

From NSA Security-enhanced Linux Team:

    "NSA Security-enhanced Linux is a set of patches to the Linux kernel and some utilities to incorporate a strong, flexible mandatory access control (MAC) architecture into the major subsystems of the kernel. It provides an enhanced mechanism to enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality and integrity requirements, which allows threats of tampering and bypassing of application security mechanisms to be addressed and enables the confinement of damage that can be caused by malicious or flawed applications. It includes a set of sample security policy configuration files designed to meet common, general-purpose security goals."

(SELinux has been integrated into version 2.6 series of the Linux kernel, and separate patches are now unnecessary; the above is a historical quote.)

It is in stark contrast to the Magic Lantern attempt just a few years earlier down the timeline in 2001?:  http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/11/48648 and http://www.uhuh.com/control/list-pat.htm

"Other security mavens pointed to free software projects such as openvirus.org as more trustworthy alternatives to Network Associates' McAfee anti-virus products, and GPG as a replacement for Network Associates' PGP encryption software.

The criticism raised a well-known point in security circles: Security software, including PGP and anti-virus products ware, is either looking out for your interests or those of the government. It can't do both.

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In his 1982 book The Puzzle Palace, author James Bamford recounted how the National Security Agency's predecessor coerced Western Union, RCA, and ITT Communications to turn over telegraph traffic to the feds in 1945."

Thanks.  Will iptables suffice?

The beauty of free market systems is that every player sees it differently.  The more volatility, the more speculators.  The more speculators (long & short side), the more stability.  The more stability, the more investment and trading.  Some outside event rocks the boat, the more volatility and the cycle continues...

At current bitcoin prices, the minimum value of bitcoin that can be transferred THROUGH THE BITCOIN CLIENT without attracting penalty transfer is 0.01BTC x 16.89US$ = 0.169US$.  I don't know what is the price of a printed newspaper in your parts of the world, but if I had to transfer 0.169US$ of bitcoins to a publishing provider and only the values of articles I read, get subtracted from the 0.169US$ worth of bitcoins in balance, I would be pleased.  Let's say I read two articles in today's edition, each subtracting 0.001btc (or maybe even less for some items) from my 0.01btc credit balance - I would still have 0.008btc left with the publishing provider without any transfer penalties incurred.  Tomorrow or in future I can use the remaining balance at this publishing provider without incurring any transfer penalties.

Also the same goes with any micro service/goods provider with an account on mybitcoin.com for example.  No transfer penalties for micro transfers between accounts of all mybitcoin.com users.




That's right, if you transfer more than 0.01btc there is no compulsory fee through the bitcoin client, and if you sell/buy bitcoins through free market places like bitomat there are no commissions involved in selling/buying bitcoins.  If you keep your credit in your bitomat account there is also no fee, only a traditional bank transfer fee when you withdraw script/promissory note fiat currency, not when you transfer bitcoin digital goods (digital goods commodity used as currency) in / out.

A traditional merchant without a cash register is dead meat.

A bitcoin merchant without network connectivity is dead meat.

Options:
- You take your everyday spending wallet.dat to a bitcoin accepting merchant and they handle the transfer for you.
- You connect via the merchant's network connection to your mybitcoin.com spending account and verify the transfer with your password.
- You use your smartphone to connect to mybitcoin.com and spend from your spending account
- You use wap on your traditional cellphone for bitcoin to be send to a user email from a user email in the amount specified (if such a service exists)
- Use an sms request/verification system for bitcoin to be send to the user email sms'ed from the user email sms'ed in the amount sms'ed (if such a service exists)

The bitcoin micropayment ( / nanopayment limit if you like that as a better term mouse) is 0.01btc - at current bitcoin prices that translates to US$0.169 - bitcoins transferred under this value at present will attract a compulsory transfer penalty.  It protects the bitcoin blockchain from transfer spam.

This limit however will be adjusted dynamically depending on future bitcoin prices and blockchain volume.

At a certain service provider holding your bitcoin in credit, you would be able to transfer any minute amount of bitcoin without any penalty if it is internally to the service provider, see mybitcoin.com for example where transfers of any minute amount is always free.

So wallet.dat can be hacked through port 8333 by malware?

Rather do a facebook app implementation of bitcoinjs "and it went viral".

It is with minimal cost, equivalent to opening a bank account or buying tickets at your country fair or buying corn to barter for cows, use Bitomat once for buying or selling your bitcoins in bulk with international wire tranfer (cost ~$20 more or less once off for any amount transferred?, small in comparison with monthly bank account / annual credit card maintenance costs).  Bitomat is a free Polish bitcoin market place, charging no commissions on bitcoin buy/sell transactions.  The Polish version is at https://bitomat.pl/ , english translation script for Bitomat at http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105566


btc transfer fees are not a requirement to be included in the blockchain at this stage.  Miners get rewarded with 50btc / 10 min at present and this will exponentially be reduced over a period - after which very small transfer allocations per transfer will reimburse miners.  At the moment an average of 212,495.68 BTC / hour ( http://bitcoinwatch.com/ ) was sent through the bitcoin network.  This is 35,415.95 BTC / 10 min on average at the moment.  50 BTC / 10 min are rewarded on average to the aggregate of all miners as secure transfer handling reward with only optional user transfer penalty in place.  This constitutes 50 / 35,415.95 = 0.1412 % in transfer penalty that was paid for bitcoin transfers on average.

From here http://blockexplorer.com/block/00000000000008e5a1eb1b3c036f40dcd8fb480771220708b86249a30d9d0410 you can see that not a lot of users are opting to pay the user transfer penalty for example (because it is not required, it is optional, the miners gets rewarded with 50btc/10min on average at present without optional transfer penalties in place).  You can see from the above example that for 89 transactions a total of 0.018 btc fees were paid for a total of 2,496.42 btc transferred.  This is an additional 0.00072% cost of transfer in addition to the 0.1412% calculated above.  So the total transfer cost were 0.1419%, compared to credit cards' ~5%.  And please note that this 0.1419% is already accounted for in the bitcoin supply expansion (penalty to all bitcoin users) - the individual tranferrer does not get this penalty subtracted from his btc's.  The cost to all bitcoin holders would have been 0.1412% on aggregate for this block example, and 0.00072% for the individual transferrer on average in this block example.  The individual transferrer were totally in control by selecting the level of optional transfer penalty.

If he wants to - it's now optional at any amount of btc.

Not if he trades at bitomat or other free bitcoin market places.

There are international bitcoin market places allowing local or more costly international wire transfers to the cost of ~US$20.  

You however are not exposed to the bitcoin price if you have a credit in anything other than bitcoin where you bought/sold your bitcoin.

Some might say that waiting 180 days for a credit card transaction to clear is not a very clean process.  Some might say that waiting 5 days for an international wire transfer is not a very clean process.  Most of bitcoin's transfer steps can be programmatically automated, even bitcoin buy/sell risk aversion - the interface where bitcoins themselves are bought/sold with/for credit card / bank transferred money however is not a clean process as are all other digital goods transactions involving credit card / bank transferred money.  So once you have bitcoin digital goods purchased - you are freed from the not so clean system of credit card / bank transferred money.

Seems like MtGox trading volume is back to normalcy levels - before hack closure low volume levels and press mania elevated volume levels:

http://bitcoinwatch.com/

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/

What is an omniport?  Can any other network traffic pass through port 8333 accept bitcoin client traffic?

Sales of Digital goods ( / services) are against Paypal policy - so strictly speaking, Paypal can not be used for digital goods internet commerce.  That leaves credit cards, charging merchants up ~5% to cover risks of fraud.  That gives bitcoin a competitive edge over credit cards of ~5%.  

It also gives the purchaser the option of transferring with bitcoins as payment in kind at a reduced price of ~5% ( equivalent to traditional discount for payment in cash, unfortunately difficult over the internet or a mobile phone ) or the consumer can opt to pay with a credit card at a premium of ~5%.  It would be needless to say which option would have the competitive edge attracting more customers.  The equivalent price in fiat currency can be displayed for both options (at current major bitcoin rates) to enable the customer to vote between options with his valued resources.

Who will win such a customer voting election:  Bitcoin digital goods transfers, or credit card store of value transfers?

Can wallet.dat be hacked through port 8333 ?

Countering Payment Reversal Risk for Merchants:  How long before online downloadable digital content / services merchants will proclaim that they only take Bitcoin due to the reversability of other payment methods, and the irreversable nature of Bitcoin payments?

Countering Bitcoin price fluctuation Risk for Merchants:  The merchant of the downloadable content / service can also protect themselves against fluctuating bitcoin prices by exchanging the received bitcoins immediately (programmatically) after receival. 

Countering Bitcoin liquidity Risk for Merchants:  Pricing of goods/services can take cognisance of the depth of market liquidity on major exchanges.  If your product is worth $50 dollars for example - and 100 customers are expected to order it per hour - it gives you $5000 - if the depth at MtGox of bitcoins wanted is $5000 at an average price of US$16.45 for example - you can convert your US$ into bitcoin (programmatically) by this conversion rate.  So depending on your product price and product volume you can offer a bitcoin rate on the fly if your site is linked to Bitcoin exchange data.

Simple Merchant shopping cart bitcoin transfer button script (should just be able to replace paypal/credit card payment link in shopping cart software with bitcoin enabled transfer link):  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitWillet