Prove the mixnet isn't a honeypot.

This is an awesome idea, but as far as the exchange rate goes, why not peg the prices to the 24 hour or seven day moving average once each day?

Because the problem that they are trying to solve in privacy for the individual surfer, and if everyone knows the password, anyone can still see everyone else's packets.  Tor is a good solution, but so is a private VPN to connect to.  These are good practices anyway.

Or simply an open hotspot that is blocked for all ports except for bitcoin's, and any users' attempts to go online redirect them to a webpage to send the hotspot owner a bitnickel for access for that day, which then opens up that mac address to the Internet for 24 hours. (or the month for a full bitcoin?)  If you live within a line of sight of anyplace that people congregate on a regular basis, such as a major bus stop, or a public park without many trees, something along these lines might just be a fine business model.  But for the concept of the project, it's still too restrictive.  I might be willing to redirect the users to a bitcoin donations page the first time each day that they connect with any particular mac address, but I wouldn't be willing to require any payment.

Unlike previous analysis I've seen on this forum concerning certain aspects of Bitcoin's system, I actually agree that mutual wireless bandwidth sharing is a commons situation.  Honestly, I don't care.  I know full well that there will be people who freeload off of my network.  That is, after all, the point of it all.  Certainly there will be people who do not open their networks in kind, and as a result I'll be places that I cannot get an Internet connection. 

I never heard back from him, give it a try if you want.

If, in the future, the particular crypto systems that Bitcoin presently uses are defeated (or even appear at risk) then the Bitcoin network can transition to a more secure version of each of those systems.  The old transactions that are left unclaimed then basicly become salvage to the first person that actually breaks those accounts open.  History tells us that there are no crypto systems that a deterministic computer can do effectively survive indefinitely. with the arguable exception of the vernon cypher. which doesn't have an application in Bitcoin at all.

The usual idea is that the cash is either hidden, or simply placed into a public locker with two keys.

I wouldn't know how to cash out of bitcoins, I've never done it.  However, if anyone here lives in Kentucky, I'd be willing to pay you cash in person, if you are not too far.

In the near term, I'd be more than happy with just being able to pay my electric bill without a postage stamp or a $3 "conveince fee"

I can't hazard a guess.  I could say, "yes" and eventually I'll be right anyway, but the downside to an anonymous currency is that you can't determine with any certainty if the trades seen on the Bitcoin network are speculative currency trades or the reflection of the commerce of (non-financial) products or services.  The only analysis that can be done is basicly raw market data analysis, such as Elliot Wave theory.  So far, it's made me some money on trades, as I've racheted up a small sum of US $ on MtGox up about 64%, but I find myself still surprised at the very next surge.  If most of the rise in price is due to the influx of new market players, then it's primarily a speculative rally, and it has to run out of steam eventually.  If most of the rise in price is due to some Bitcoin aware drug cartel demanding their customers use bitcoin for transactions; then, for good or for bad, a significant pullback (say, back below the 7 day adjusted average) is unlikely.

If you ever find anyone who will tell you he can call the top of any market rally, assume that he is full of crap.

Well, if they are still designing it, they are going to be chasing our tail by the time it's operational anyway.  At this rate of growth, anyway.  I expected to see $4 per bitcoin around 2013.  Not before May of 2011.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/15/ibm-battles-china-worlds-fastest-supercomputer/

This article says that the next supercomputer will be about 10 petaflops.  Is that 10,000 teraflops?  If so, and assuming that the estimates on bitcoinwatch.com are accurate, the Bitcoin network is already faster than the next top supercomputer.  As of this writing, bitcoinwatch.com says that the Bitcoin network is ringing in at 12,755 teraflops.

A competing chain has a chance only if it offers a distinction from Bitcoin that is an obvious advantage over the Bitcoin network, and one that the running network is incapable of adopting.

I find that unlikely.  Even if such an advantage is discovered, the first to market advantage is huge.

Older people who tend to die with money are more likely to have a plan for that money.  Add that to the fact that old people who don't have a will when they die, are also likely to die broke anyway.

I don't think that this is a problem worth worrying about.  At least not before 2133.

You could end up in a court room because some jerk-off downloaded kiddy porn over your network, but you could end up there because you share a name with someone on a watch list.  At least you could log your connections, but changing your name doesn't help because by the time you know about the problem, you're already looking at the judge.

Perhaps some kind of hotspot managment system, that requires users to acknowledge that, although access is free, illegal use violates the terms that grant the random user permission to use the network in the first place.  And simply notifying users that connections are logged is probably enough to compel the freaks from using your wifi network for illegal activities.

Or how about a nanny filter running directly on the wifi router, such as Dansguardian?

And transactions are far less expensive in Bitcoin than MPesa.

Bitcoin's system is anonymous, in the sense that identifying information is not available from the system itself, and that such information is not neccessary for it's function; unlike credit cards and the like.  However, bitcoin does nothing to prevent the user from breaking his own cover.  Whoever desires to remain anonymous must take some rather drastic steps to maintain it, such as never allowing coins to mix from a published address to any that are intended to be used for anonymous business.  So basicly, to remain truly anonymous, care must be taken that two distinct wallet.dat files (presumedly with two clients) never intermingle.  This is so that a user can have a public business personna with Bitcoin, while maintaining an additional set of funds for cladestine business transactions. 

However, transactions can easily be traced as they flow from one address to another, which is why it is difficult to maintain an anonymous personna with only one Bitcoin wallet.dat file.  The client mixes account funds by default, and the current client makes no attempt to maintain any kind of seperation of funds.

So the short answer to the question is that Bitcoin can be anonymous, but it's the actual people who are not.

We still have yet to open the black box and see if the cat is alive.

Okay, I understand now.

If you are shopping online, say at Thinkgeek.com, you would have to provide them with your creditials and payment info so that they could trust that they were who you said you were, but do you demand that the ownership of Thinkgeek.com prove to yourself who the owners are?  If you don't trust an online retailer to abide by his word, would you send him your name and credit card number?  Trust is an issue, but in most online commerce, the trust issue tends to be one sided; and with Bitcoin the untrusted party is paying up front.  If you don't trust an online retailer enough to send you your paid for items as agreed, should you be buying from them at all?