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5621  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: Do we want oblivious mining pool shares? on: April 27, 2011, 06:21:50 PM
Small pools will be fairly useless. Variance for small miners will be huge,

What do you base this statement on?
5622  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Necessary protocol improvement; dissent on future mining configuration on: April 27, 2011, 06:18:06 PM
If you want a default fee, better hard-code it into the protocol, that's at least reliable.
There already is, but it's sort of a sliding scale.  Free transactions can only be so large individually, and take up so much of the blockspace in total.  Beyond that there is a hardcoded fee schedule, the more transactions in a given block, the higher the transaction fee included must be in order to qualify to be added to that block.  This fee schedule is enforced by the network because if a block's size is over any of those 'soft' limits, there must be at least one transaction within it that pays at least the minimum for that tier, or it's rejected as an invalid block.  So even without the hard blocksize limit, there are mechanisms in play to strongly encourage senders to add a transaction fee if they desire their transaction to be processed quickly.  It is this mechanism that has delayed free transactions in the past, not the hard blocksize limit.  We have never come anywhere near the blocksize limit.
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But this thread still has the open question: isn't there a much better solution, that can work on the very small power required to check transactions?
There could be, but I doubt that either of us can come up with one.  If someone does come up with one that is significantly better than the proof-of-work system of Bitcoin, a better cryptocurrency will come into being.
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Could you please explain the problem instead of... writing that kind of message? Also, please estimate damage -- the current solution also subdues to attacks, the question is how likely and expensive the attack is. If fees are not held up by volunteers, it will be of the order of confirming all transactions. That sounds small to me, one might call it "broken by design", so if the WoT system breaks under less problematic conditions, the trade-off might be worth it.
The whole point of the proof-of-work system is that any direct attack on the system is expensive relative to the expected gain, so that crime doesn't pay.  Perhaps this still leaves Bitcoin open to an attack intended to outright destroy it by some malicious entity with vast resources, but even though I can acknowledge that such an attack is possible; it's far from cetain that it would be successful.  There are simply too many unknowns.  In the same vein, China could have long ago destroyed the American monetary system by the simple act of dumping US currency reserves and US treasury bonds upon the market, for they have more of both than the whole of the US public does.  This would probably cause massive inflation of the US FRN, if the US government does nothing, but this is not a certainty either; and would be expensive for the Chinese economy as well.

Attacks upon a WoT system are more subtle, and potentially much less costly.  One is simply the act of 'node identity spoofing', faking the identity of a trusted node.  Another is the 'scorched earth' event, wherein a node develops honest trust, and then turns bad once the opprotunity is presented.  You can make both of these attacks difficult technically, but you cannot make them impossible, nor particularly expensive since I do not need any great resources for either attack.  Other attacks requiring coordination are possible as well.  This does not include the basic network attacks upon the hosting servers themselves, the security of which is importan in a web of trust.  Bitcoin's collective security is not dependent upon the level of security of any given node.
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I see how we need large-scale mining now, for fair initial BTC distribution. But in the future? There exists no other solution than trying to be the world's #1? A very bold claim, and a destructive one if it is false.

I suppose we can address that issue when it comes up.  If Bitcoin is still the cryptocurrency of the Internet in 2130, feel free to bring it up again.
5623  Economy / Marketplace / Re: Ubitex: In-person Bitcoin exchange on: April 27, 2011, 05:49:05 PM
good plan
5624  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: fees imposed after cap coin creation? on: April 27, 2011, 03:11:42 PM


I am hypo-theorizing a network, which:
- Banks have most the CPU power...
- Multiple banks forms an alliance
- "The alliance" is interconnected with each other
- Those outside the alliance don't have access to most-up-to-date blocks generated by the alliance.
A cartel is difficult to maintain in a true market, because the smaller members always have an incentive to cheat.
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- Those outside the alliance have delayed (let's say, 10 minutes) access to the chains and blocks from the bank.
The percentage of relative power of the cartel must rise in conjunction with the delay.  If the delay were actually ten minutes, the cartel would need at least twice the computational power of the entire remainder of the network.  A 5 minute delay would require at least 50% more than the entire remainder of the network.  Even a delay of a few seconds puts the cartel at a disadvantage.
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Generating blocks need access to the chains,
And the cartel will need access to the rest of the network as well.
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so, delaying the block access make other impossible to generate (useful) blocks.
Incorrect.  See above.
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In this case, the alliance would almost always have the control.
This is basically what we have in stock market today.

In your presented case, the cartel would be very fragile, even if it could ever even develop the dominance.  The network is currently very small, projecting the size of the network when the userbase is ten times larger tells me that the network will become very difficult, indeed.
5625  Other / Politics & Society / Re: "Anarchists" rioting in London on: April 27, 2011, 02:53:59 PM
Weather Underground were not anarchists (they were a hodgepodge of Leninistisic types).

Yes, exactly.  Many of whom thought they were anarchists.
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 Then there we all those people who actually called themselves anarchists who "rioted" in Seattle in 1999 (and at many other events, including political conventions, since). 

Classifying anarchists as "European" or "American" is idiotic, as is the claim that the European ones are actually statists. It is one of the stupider things I've ever seen on this board.

I used those descriptors because I don't have better ones.  Of course there are "European" anarchists in the US, and "American" anarchists is Europe.  Nothing is absolute.

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One of the easiest ways to point out that the distinction is bullshit is by pointing out that Pierre Joseph Proudhon, that French person who is credited with first openly calling himself an anarchist, was a European.

And if the point is that European type anarchists are all socialists. And that all socialists are statists, then I'll point to Josiah Warren. Basically, profit is wrong. Oh, and let's not forget Ben Tucker. He was a self professed socialist, yet somehow still called himself an anarchist.

See above.
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Blown your puny minds yet?
By name dropping?  Not really.
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I could go on to explain why property isn't necessary for anarchism to exist, or why (as I think I've said before in this very thread), that some anarchists feel that attacking the state or symbols of capitalism is self-defense, but I've wasted too much time on your people as it is. You make ignorant statements and then pat each other on the back and crow about how clever you are. Well done, but it doesn't mean you you aren't wrong.

I can accept the possibility that I'm wrong, but I've read all that you have presented on this theme in the past, and probably much more than you can produce, and IMHO the most likely possibility is that you are confused about your own role.
5626  Economy / Economics / Re: Hostile action against the bitcoin infrastracture on: April 27, 2011, 01:10:52 PM

Why can't the client just automatically encrypt the wallet file and ask the user for a password?

It can, it just doesn't.  It's on the future features list.  Feel free to contribute a patch.
5627  Other / Politics & Society / Re: "Anarchists" rioting in London on: April 27, 2011, 04:43:03 AM
I'm an anarchist. But for people too stupid to listen to my explanation of what I mean by the term, I also use the term libertarian socialist.

Which is a contradiction in terms.

Depends.

Not really; unless you are saying that you are a libertarian except within your own family, and then you are socialist, which pretty much means that you are a libertarian.  You cannot be for liberty and socialism at the same time, they are opposing ideologies.  Heads would explode.

As far as I can tell, an anarchist libertarian socialist is someone who believes there should not be a state, that people should do whatever they want, and that the resulting overpopulation will force social interaction.

It's sort of a "here and now" type of philosophy, future social welfare be damned.

In fact it's not really all that different from anarcho-capitalism except that instead of just poors starving, everyone starves together and benefits from the sense of community.

That's funny!
5628  Other / Politics & Society / Re: "Anarchists" rioting in London on: April 27, 2011, 04:41:41 AM
I'm an anarchist. But for people too stupid to listen to my explanation of what I mean by the term, I also use the term libertarian socialist.

Which is a contradiction in terms.
Wanker. And that includes your second post.

Anarchism is socialist. Has that blown your mind?

Not at all.  The European version of anarchism is indeed socialist, but they are not libertarians.  European anarchists are statists who oppose the factions in control of the state and the ideologies that they represent, but not statism itself.  Which has much to do with why American anarchists tend to use other terms, such as 'volunteerist', so as not to be associated with the European understanding of the term.  Certainly there are those in Europe who believe themselves to be actual anarchists, but those are those whom Stalin called "useful idiots".  Violent or chaotic anarchy is always a transitional political state, and one the Marx himself advocated as a stepping stone to socialism.  And although some/most libertarians are truly anti-state, most are not under any illusion about the fragility of the rule of law under a stateless political society, and any solution is basicly a mini-state.  Notice, if you will, that American anarchists, no matter what they call themselves or how badly they might want to, never riot.  They have not since the Weather Underground of the 1970's, who were quite openly anarchists of the European sort.  They don't riot because the destruction of private property (any property owned by anyone not their target, whether they like them or not) would violate their principles concerning non-aggression and the rule of natural/common law.
5629  Other / Politics & Society / Re: "Anarchists" rioting in London on: April 27, 2011, 04:24:38 AM
I'm an anarchist. But for people too stupid to listen to my explanation of what I mean by the term, I also use the term libertarian socialist.

Which is a contradiction in terms.

Depends.

Not really; unless you are saying that you are a libertarian except within your own family, and then you are socialist, which pretty much means that you are a libertarian.  You cannot be for liberty and socialism at the same time, they are opposing ideologies.  Heads would explode.
5630  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? on: April 27, 2011, 04:22:18 AM
But most people still let the client go with the default, which is relying on IRC unless it's down, right?

Down or not, the client will attempt to connect to it's internal list to fill out it's connections.  It doesn't depend on any one source for data, so such an attempt to prevent new clients from bootstrapping the blockchain would be short lived.  Clients that have already bootstrapped remember their past connections anyway.
5631  Other / Politics & Society / Re: "Anarchists" rioting in London on: April 27, 2011, 04:04:09 AM
I'm an anarchist. But for people too stupid to listen to my explanation of what I mean by the term, I also use the term libertarian socialist.

Which is a contradiction in terms.
5632  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? on: April 27, 2011, 03:44:53 AM
Could they secretly force Freenode to silently mute anyone joining the channel except the govt's bots that will report the addresses of honeypots to cripple the network by keeping most people making useless connections and at the same time buil.d a database of who is trying to use Bitcoin?

Not for long, and not likely to any useful degree even in the short term.  The current client no longer requires the IRC channel even for initial bootstrapping.  I don't even let my client connect.
5633  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Strange transactions? on: April 27, 2011, 03:35:54 AM
Did you guys ever consider that it's just some guy trying to break up his coins into change?
5634  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: inheriting bitcoins on: April 27, 2011, 03:31:29 AM
- nLockTime prevents miners from including the transaction in a block before the specified time.

Surely you're mistaken about how nLockTime transactions work. I believe that they are included in the next block just like normal transactions and any transactions which supersede it would be included in the blocks following them. Why else would there be a nLockTime field in every transaction in every block? The way you have it, there'd be no point recording the lock time in the blocks because the transaction would only be in the block once it's locked.

nLockTime as you explain it is an ugly solution. It creates the need for a parallel store of transactions that are neither in blocks nor eligible to be included in the next block. When a new miner starts up, how does he find out about nLockTime transactions which have been sent but haven't been locked? An extension to the network protocol would have to be made.

ByteCoin

And yet, as ugly as it may be, that's how nLockTime transactions work.  They form a kind of pseudo-escrow, allowing the sender to prove to the seller that he actually has the funds, without actually sending them.
5635  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? on: April 27, 2011, 03:25:43 AM
[...] it would be pretty trivial for pretty much any government, not to mention a small-cap corporation, to DOS or disintegrate the Bitcoin network.[...]
+1

I can see at least three ways to attack it other than DoS: delete the bitcoin.org domain (commonly done by US law enforcement), arrest key persons (developers, website owners), or coerce Freenode into blocking this "illegal activity" on their IRC network.

Bitcoin has an urgent need for robustness.

None of these three attacks would do a thing to the running Bitcoin network, and aren't even likely to do much to prevent new users.
5636  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? on: April 27, 2011, 12:57:31 AM
If you believe the theater is on fire or that there is some other important reason for everyone to leave in panic you totally have the right to yell "Fire!" inside the theater; not only the right but the duty to do so.

The assumption in intended is that there was no such case, but only the intent to cause a panic.
5637  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? on: April 27, 2011, 12:35:36 AM
Saying you want someone dead publicly is against the law? Isn't it covered by freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is a negative right, that the federal government does not have the authority to limit your ability to say what you wish about it.  And it does not.  You can say these things, but once you do you can be persecuted based upon the content.  Not by critiquing the actions of government in general, or the actions of government agents in particular; but by advocating harm being done to another person.  Generally such things are taken more seriously when the person in question also happens to be an agent of the state.  Freedom of speech doesn't imply you have the right to scream "fire!" in a crowded theater any more than the freedom to keep and bear arms implies you have a right to shoot your neighbor if he stumbles drunk into your backyard and pisses on your lillies.

And that is considering places wherein the public actually has a freedom of speech.
5638  Economy / Economics / Re: A modest amount of inflation should be part of bitcoin on: April 27, 2011, 12:21:47 AM
Ripple is not a currency, but a web-of-trust based credit system.  It still depends on a common reference of value.  Said another way, Ripple users can use any common metric; such as ounces of gold or silver, fiat currencies, or whatever; as their medium of exchange, but the system itself does not establish one.  Bitcoins could be traded well in this manner, but in the end, Ripple is credit; if the buyer had the bitcoins, he could just pay for it.  Ripple does permit people to trade online relative to hard money, without needing to ship the hard money itself; but it is neccessarily not anonymous.

LETS stands for Local Exchange Trading System, and it is a local "mutual credit" based currency.  It does not involve scarcity, as the credits are created at the time of the trade deal by a double entry type system.  I.E., there is some central book, and when someone buys something from a local vendor, the account of the vendor shows a credit while the account of the buyer shows a debit, but all debits and credits in the system balance out to zero.  The system requires an external peg of value agreed to by the whole of the userbase, which can be a national currency, hard money, or hours of unskilled labor.



5639  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? on: April 27, 2011, 12:09:30 AM
Kinda off-topic, but would any of you know of a site where people can vote for, and against, the assasination of individuals; just dealing with votes, no money? Even though it probably wouldn't lead to anything i guess voting there would still feel a little more productive than yelling at the TV during the news....

You could start such a site on Tor, but this would likely be illegal in many juristictions.
5640  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Necessary protocol improvement; dissent on future mining configuration on: April 27, 2011, 12:08:01 AM
What is the better way?  How do you eliminate double spending?

The block chain is already the solution to that, as long as it follows the rules and no branches are added somewhere in the past. And that's the thing. Just like with checkpoints, clients can frequently agree à la "okay, nobody coming up with a different block? then it's settled, this one is the real one for all eternity."

That's pretty much how the proof-of-work system works now.  Feel free to fork the Bitcoin code to attempt what you are advocating.  And after a little while, I'll come help break your web of trust system.

Oh, yes.  I can.
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