Perhaps, but they'd certainly be useful for money laundering purposes.

Do we know that this hashing power was under the control of a single entity?  Could a bunch of kids from overclock.net have joined the network temporarily only to get bored and return to gaming when they realized they would not become millionaires overnight? 

I got my estimate of network hashing capacity from sipa's graphs here: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/
Then I used the hash-to-FLOPS conversion figures provided by ArtForz here: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4408.msg64596#msg64596

So today's approximate FLOPS figure would be (500E9 hash/s) * (4150 intops/hash) * (2 flops/intop) = 4.15E15 FLOPS.  It's definitely a newsworthy development.

Holy magnum opus, Batman!  This is an excellent analysis.  I've printed it off for further reading and digestion when I have more time.  Thanks for the contribution.

I don't see anyone coming up with such a supercomputer anytime soon.  The fastest computer currently known is the Tianhe-I, which is capable of 2.5 petaFLOPS.  The current Bitcoin network hashing rate is around 500 Ghash/S.  According to ArtForz, one hash/s corresponds to approximately 8000 FLOPS.  Therefore, the Bitcoin network is capable of around 4 petaFLOPS today.  That's pretty amazing if you think about it.  Finding a block in a second, not nanoseconds as you are suggesting, would require a computer capable of something on the order of 2.5 exaFLOPS.  That's a thousand times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer today.  If someone had such a machine, I suspect the last thing they would be doing with it would be attacking the Bitcoin network.

I had some issues with Mybitcoin.com about a month ago and never got a reply to my email.  I realize it is a free service, and you get what you pay for, but yet I still see people on this forum recommending them to merchants.  They either need to get their act together (and start charging fees if necessary to make it worth their while), or we need another, similar service.

That mobo will work fine, but I wouldn't put 4 GPUs in it because you will have difficulty keeping them cool since there is no airspace for the fans to draw in cool air.  You will either need to come up with a custom cooling setup or cram wedges between the boards (not recommended).  If I were to do a 4-GPU setup, I think I would take out the existing fans and shrouds and design a plenum that channeled the output from a high-CFM 120 mm fan into the front edges of the cards, with the exit through the slots in the PCI hanger.

Regarding the PCIe transfer bandwidth, it doesn't matter for mining. x4 even is fine really.

A full shell script implementation of bitcoin: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2461.0

I checked out your site.  Really cool.  I'll probably never have time to play, but it's great having you as part of the Bitcoin team.

Yes, look over all the bounties in the "Project Development" section of the forum.

This is a fantastic way of buying Bitcoins.  Am I correct in assuming that MoneyPak is anonymous?  According to their website, you only need to divulge personal information if you fund a PayPal account with more than $250 per year.

Also, the MoneyPak site says that it costs $4.95 or less.  When is it less?

No, never held e-gold or other digital, gold-backed currencies before Pecunix.  Never had sufficient trust/confidence in any of the others.

I also hold Pecunix as well as gold, silver and other hard, tradeable assets.

How many BTC do you need?

I have to agree with this sentiment.  Each merchant can set his/her own threshold where they require X confirmations for any transactions over the threshold amount.  For example, anything below 1 BTC isn't worth anyone's time waiting for 6 or more confirmations.  As soon as the transaction shows up in the client, it can be considered valid.  Perhaps 2-5 BTC would require 2 confirmations, 5-50 BTC would require 4, etc.  It's not worth an attacker's computing power to try to double spend 1 BTC.  Anyone making a large transaction surely will have the patience to wait an hour or so for 6 confirmations.

I selected other because my primary motivation is smashing the state.  The hope is that if enough people use Bitcoin and/or other untraceable currencies, then the state will be unable to collect sufficient tax revenue and will implode in bankruptcy.  This is a just outcome for political entities that use force or the threat of force on peaceful citizens.

This is bullshit.  They are still poisoning alcohol sold without taxation or licensing with methanol.  They're from the government, and they're there to help.

If you already have both of them coming, try each in turn and see which one overclocks the best.  I've always preferred ASUS myself.

Don't know how I missed that.  I put it at the end because I wasn't sure how it would affect votes cast already.

On a related note, does anyone know how many integer operations are necessary to compute one hash?