Indeed - I think the situation in the favelas in Brazil may well be much worse from what I've seen - *but* - I don't know anything more than what I've seen on TV about that situation so I might be completely wrong about that.

We all have "media sunglasses" when it comes to viewing each other (which are not even necessarily "government approved sunglasses" as the media in the west in particular is far more run by private companies).

The only way to "really understand" people and their situations is to "live with them" IMO (although I would not recommend going to countries that might be dangerous to even visit).

By the way - if you want to come over to China for a visit then let me know (I think it is safe enough here for that).

Hmm... so that's your argument now is it?

Guess you aren't actually interested in listening to anything are you?

I never said that "you" personally were "brainwashed" so I don't see the reason to get "defensive" and then start silly arguments with me about that (especially as to whether or not "I am still a westerner" - this isn't the school yard and we aren't picking teams).

I am not an apologist for the Chinese government - they have plenty of faults - I just ask you to use the same amount of "sense" that you would in analyzing any Chinese report about the US (am assuming you would dismiss any such reports as "propaganda").

Personally I think that such stories are basically "western propaganda" - and for many westerners this is hard to swallow but please just try to think about the following question:

Is China Communist?

From my experience most "westerners" will immediately answer *yes* to this question but interestingly enough very few Chinese would say the same.

The reality is that "communism" (in accordance with the ideas of Karl Marx) finished after Deng Xiao Ping took over from Mao (i.e. back in the 1970's) but still westerners "believe" that China is "communist" without seemingly even knowing what that means (apart from "it must be bad").

If that isn't being "brainwashed" then what is?

BTW - the situation that I *have* observed is that sometimes they cram a bunch of people into an apartment using bunk beds and every space available (apparently in the building I was living several apartments on the "top floor" were like this - each person only paying 500 RMB per month to live in an apartment that would be 5000 RMB per month for a single occupant) *but* this isn't *forced* - it is the tenants "free will" to live this way (something that I think you probably "couldn't do" in say Melbourne, Australia which is why you'd actually end up with more homeless people there as the laws would prevent such high density apartment usage).

So OP - you live in Beijing then (I did for 7 years)?

Of course there are homeless there but actually you see just as many in many western cities (such as Melbourne, Australia where I originate from).

BTW - the subway stations are closed and locked at nights so there is no-one "living" inside them (you do see some homeless people sleeping in "pedestrian subway crossings" though).

Also - right next to where I used to live (around Dongzhimen subway) there is a community whose buildings are supposed to have been demolished (the "chai" symbol is painted all over it) - but there are at least 30-50 tenants that simply "refuse to leave" (and this is not unique to that location - you see the same all over Beijing).

Nothing has "happened" to them - they have been living there for at least the last 4 years (that I observed directly) and am pretty sure they were living there under the same situation for at least a few years before as the landlord I rented from told me so (and would not be surprised if I see them still there in another few years).

The Apple II was actually the best thing that company ever did (mostly because of the "other" Steve) and the fact that you could buy cheap "clones" from Asia.

Back then they had a "huge" community (I actually wrote a letter to Bill Budge when I was a teenager and received a response that included a bunch of 6502 assembly code that I used in some of my first projects - no mention of copyright from Bill who at that time was "the master" of writing PC games).

After that time they abandoned the "hacker" idea (you couldn't even program a Mac without forking out huge bucks for MPW) and out-priced themselves from the market (which had already moved to IBM PCs).

After the Mac came out I moved on to PC clones (as did many of my generation who had grown up with an Apple II or clone) and never looked back.

Steve Wozniak didn't care for patents and lawyers - he cared for hacking - something which Apple hasn't cared for since the 1970's.

I am just too tired to keep at this - every time I give you an answer to A your reply is:  "but that's not the answer to B".

I suggested you might want to try and slow down a bit but it seems you are either unable or unwilling to do that so I will simply stop replying and go watch some TV instead (btw - I am not angry - but I do need a bit of a break from this topic).

It is the same script or it is another script - so of course it would be treated no differently (nor could it).

There are only "scripts" - don't complicate things unnecessarily by trying to now have "different types of scripts".

If you think you are going to get "better answers" from someone else then by all means ask someone else - but it is starting to come across a bit like a kid asking their mother for something after their father has said no.

You can't do that as explained before - *every node* has to do the action otherwise it might never occur.

If you are going to keep questioning simple logic then I think I'll just take the break that you should and let you talk to yourself for a while.

This is probably because you are too busy "posting" to spend any time "reading" things properly.  

Treat the VM script the same as a normal transaction script - you wouldn't allow an invalid tx and nor would you allow an invalid script result (we are not trying to stop people from "creating invalid tx's or script results" though).

Again *we can't know it made the query* all we can do is have peers check the results - but I don't see why we really care if one peer did or didn't honestly do what it was asked.

Basically it is the same problem that happens when peers decide to say accept a transaction that lets an account have a negative balance - the result is you'll end up with a "fork".


If you just treat the scripts the same as normal transactions in this way you'll see that there simply is no need to try and do "magical things" to verify them.

To make it even clearer: we don't need that (so no need to waste BCNext's or your own time on even thinking about it).

I don't think you read all of that article James:


As I said before *unless you are designing something for years down the track* then please forget about that - it is not practical nor is it even vetted.

Now we are perhaps getting to the core problem - basically you need to have operations that don't have harmful side effects (so sending emails or the like is a very bad idea).

So consider "sending a BTC transaction" (not that this is perhaps the best idea but at least it is fine to repeat) - one can send it without harm even if it has already been sent (in fact if you were using bitcoind then your own instance wouldn't even try sending it again if it has already seen it). These are really the only kind of operations you want to be performing.

The Nxt core can be modified James - wake up (or perhaps instead "take a nap")!

You do realise that some nodes are running different versions of the NRS right now don't you?

And you do also realise that any reporting their version as x.x.x could simply be lying don't you?

Am pretty sure that the kind of complexity required for that kind of approach would make the whole VM thing far too expensive to consider running for probably many, many years (so "stop right there" unless you are planning years in advance now).


What a peer would do is have to run the script itself (get used to the fact that the script will need to run on *every* peer except perhaps for some lightweight ones) and compare its result to that being suggested by another peer.

This is why the script's state must be "deterministic" if a peer tells you that the answer to running script A with state X results in state Y but you think it results in state Z then you ignore that block as being invalid and block the peer.

This is just wrong - it's like your trusting that other peers are running the correct NRS - of course they may not be and you have no way to know. The only thing you can do is verify results and compare them to what you know (and blacklist peers that disagree with you).

So your verification idea here is "ass about" (it would only be useful for a server to use to check that they are running the correct plugin themselves which would really just be like a "version check" - it doesn't help the "script" itself in any way at all).

Understand that any "step in the script" to "verify a plugin" can *simply be ignored* by Evil Bob's script processor!

I don't see how running the "right plugin" is going to help if the plugin deals with any 3rd party software or protocol at all as Evil Bob doesn't need to *change the plugin* he will make his changes to the 3rd party software or intercept and modify the protocol commands.


Of course using "blockchain.info" would be a hack but it isn't that relevant if you are going to have other servers "check the script execution" which you will *have* to do in order for it to be correctly verified (which is why sending an email would be silly).

Why would you need/want that rather than just doing RPC commands to a "real bitcoind"?


You are *always* going to have Evil Bob using the "wrong plugin" and *you will not be able to tell* especially if your plugin has no way to be verified (which was the point about an SMTP plugin).


Exactly my concern - a plugin that issues a "bitcoind" RPC command (hell - why not just use "blockchain.info" for that matter) is at least *verifiable* in that given x servers running the "supposedly same" plugin you would get the exact same result from all of them (if they are able to give a result at all that is).

If you want a "dead simple" plugin then how about one that just does this:

return "hello";

Okay - well in that case why not make your "prototype" plugin check for the existence of a Bitcoin transaction instead (that has at least x confirmations)?

The "script" will have "state" so any "plugin calls" it makes would presumably have some sort of "return value" that could be checked and/or kept in the script's state.

I am not even quite sure what a NXTplugin *is* but if it does has anything to do with the Nxt VM and its "scripts" then an email plugin would only be a "proof of what NOT to do".