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6921  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: Block files, database files, and other stuff on: November 05, 2010, 11:05:30 PM
If I wanted to run bitcoin on multiple machines on my LAN, and I wanted to copy the block chain so that it doesn't have to re-download, which files do I need to copy? I'm guessing
./blk0001.dat
./blkindex.dat
are necessary, but what about

I've actually copied the blockchain before, and the two above files were all that I needed to get it to work.  I'm pretty sure that the others are checkpointing files, and it's not a bad idea to let the new client checkpoint the entire blockchain after a copy anyway.

I'm not certain, however, as that client was a while ago, and predates the checkpointing upon startup thing.
6922  Economy / Speculation / Re: Bitcoin Technical Analysis on: November 05, 2010, 10:53:55 PM
this is the promised update.

I keep it very brief as technically norhing has changed.


Actually, I disagree here.  Something fundamental has changed, the Federal Reserve has openly admitted to intentionally manipulating equities prices, as well as an intention to continue to do so while also directly supporting US Treasury Bond sales with $600 Billion in newly created US currency.  I think that this open intent to spur inflation has a lot to do with this Bitcoin rally, regardless of what national currency we are pricing it in.  Capital flows freely, after all.
6923  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Some questions regarding block chain info, transaction limits, etc. on: November 05, 2010, 06:37:40 PM
I changed "combined" to "concatenated" on the wiki page.

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regarding prioritized transactions and fees.

Transactions are never really "prioritized" based on fee (though they probably should be). Some are temporarily disallowed if their fee is too small, and they'll be included in a later block. In these cases I guess a higher fee would be prioritization, but generators don't look at all of the queued transactions and sort them by fee.

They don't currently, but is there any reason that they couldn't?  If that was a common sorting rule for much of the network, in a future with much bitcoin traffic the everyday man running the Bitcoin client to heat his house in Siberia could 1) help the network at no additional cost to himself, 2) set his client to not require fees like ArtForz does and 3) still have a decent chance at collecting an additional fee from some major player who desires to have a quick confirmation.  So the end result would be fee-less transactions for the common man when the network has the time, with the ability to make a 'buck' off of those who can afford quick service; automaticly.

I think what ArtForz is doing is a positive thing, but there is no reason to expect that he (or others like himself) will continue to do so indefinitely.
6924  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Slows down Mac even when nice'd & not generating (?!) on: November 05, 2010, 06:19:02 PM

Yes, it does make the code very compact and readable; but I think the proper way to do this would be to either rotate the open file descriptors, or perform a flush-copy-truncate on the open log file.

Is there a way to ensure the developers catch wind of this?


Gavin is one of the developers, I believe.  And more involved in the forum than Satoshi himself.  If anyone can get action for this, I'm sure that it's him.
6925  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 05, 2010, 06:14:08 PM
The easiest way is to simply watch for an excessively long block interval.  Although one such interval is only suspicious, multiple intervals in a row that take 80% longer than the target increase the certainty of a network fragmentation, which could then either set off an alarm to notify the user of the risks or automaticly suspend trading in the case of automatic clients such as is used by the markets.

This doesn't prevent the scenario whereby someone isolates a client or group of clients by fragmenting the network or running lots of clients on different IPs and relying on luck  or crashing CUDA clients with a magic transaction and then jumping in with lots of CPU power to maintain a plausible block rate. I know it's a hard attack but my scheme prevents it, possibly at the cost of some privacy.


A very hard attack, one that depends on the attackers' ability to jump in and maintain a plausible block rate.  If the attacker has that much computional ability, there are more plausible attack vectors.  This may be an issue, I don't know.
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Another method is to selectively choose your peers, choosing peers who are representative of large sectors of the Internet that you are not; so that a lost connection could be taken as a sign of a possible fragmentation.
Sounds horrible to try to code and then debug/test/prove correct.


Probably so, I'm not a code monkey so I can't say.  The block interval watchdog code should be relatively simple, however.  I understand that the simple nature of the watchdog code makes it imperfect, but it's something.
6926  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 05, 2010, 06:08:02 PM
I was doing that, right up until you implied that according to you something was wrong and should be fixed according to you.  It is this arrogant statement that set me off.  Who died and made you the king of Bitcoin, to come in here and start demanding answers?  That is how you read to me.

I merely stated my opinion about a design decision that doesn't go much further than an implementation detail seeking the opinion of others.
 

That's not the way it sounded.  Lets start over.  Hi, I'm Creighto, is English your first language?

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Wouldn't forcing standard clients to generate at 5% or 10% CPU be a big step towards security ?
Maybe that would help ditribute more evenly CPU power and thus rely in a more balanced way on different implementations of the client ?



I would think that having the option of a client that can truely 'nice' itself on demand would be a great thing, but I can't see how cutting down the contributions of the standard client to less than a tenth of it's current abilities can do anything positive for the security of the system.  It would give those with the ability to remove the governing code a huge generation advantage, however.

The total proof-of-work of the network is a major factor in it's overal security, equitable distribution of that proof-of-work is not so much an issue.  Intentionally limiting that proof-of-work is counter productive, IMHO.
6927  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 05, 2010, 03:45:52 AM
Why according to you?  I understand why it is there, and generally how it works, and you do not.
Ok sure, if you'd be kind enough to point out my misunderstandings. Oh silly me, you can't.


I could try, but others could do a better job on the details, but that is beside the point.  If you don't understand something, it is up to you to educate yourself.  It is not the responsibility of anyone else, and you have the authority to decide for only yourself.  I would say that the most common reason that no one has bothered to explain it to you thus far, is because those who do understand it get tired of trying to explain things to forum members with 'newbie' next to their name.  Go search the archives if you can't find the answers that you seek. Only then, should that not help, do you politely ask the forum to explain the logic behind the current security features.

If you call me an ignorant i think it's up to you to point out what i misunderstood.
I'm not requesting that you explain stuff to me, just that you elaborate on your blunt and aggressive statement.


I wasn't calling you ignorant, I was going out of my way to avoid that implication.  I was calling you new to the idea, which is different.  Regardless, it is still not the responsibility of others to do anything on your behalf. 

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Again, if you feel offended by the way i voice things feel free, absolutely free to ignore me altogether.

I was doing that, right up until you implied that according to you something was wrong and should be fixed according to you.  It is this arrogant statement that set me off.  Who died and made you the king of Bitcoin, to come in here and start demanding answers?  That is how you read to me.

6928  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 05, 2010, 03:33:30 AM
I still would like to see tentative explain me how he could create a chain of 90,000 proofs of work with the same difficulties that are inside the current block chain, and then be faster than the current bitcoin network, so that he could always make sure his chain is longer than the bitcoin one.

You could always make a block chain in which all the blocks are generated on an easy difficulty. After a certain time the difficulty jumps up and you don't bother creating any blocks until it jumps down again whereupon you generate loads of blocks again. It still wouldn't be easy but to generate a longer block chain I don't think you'd have to do it at the same difficulties as the current one.

ByteCoin


The total proof-of-work of the blockchain is considered by the clients when deciding upon which chain is the "longest", so it's more complicated than the simple number of blocks solved since the genesis block.  Otherwise someone might be able to attack the blockchain by altering the target interval on a darknet and create a blockchain of greater block length with a much lower average difficulty.  Satoshi and crew have really vetted this one well.  This was one of my own misconceptions when I was new to this idea.
6929  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 05, 2010, 03:24:06 AM
If a bitcoin was sent 2 months ago and someone changes the block chain did a bitcoin actually exist?
It is indeed a problem if spent coinbase transactions get "rolled back" as those coins are deemed never to have existed.

An attack based on an adversary with huge computing power rehashing a decent chunk of block chain to invalidate coinbase transactions that have been spent can be prevented or at least detected as follows:

When a hash of sufficient quality is found for a particular block, all the clients which have generated hashes for that block which are not quite good enough send those hashes to each other, signed by some per client key. Each client that receives this information can use it to get a good estimate of the total hashing power at a given time. If the hashing power falls abruptly to a small value then the client suspects that the network has fragmented and it's on a small fragment and new coins must not be spent. When the hash rate it sees ramps up again then it must compare the incoming near-miss client signatures with the ones it's used to seeing. If they're a lot different then an attack is in progress.

A similar fragmentation detection scheme was worked out a month or two ago.  The easiest way is to simply watch for an excessively long block interval.  Although one such interval is only suspicious, multiple intervals in a row that take 80% longer than the target increase the certainty of a network fragmentation, which could then either set off an alarm to notify the user of the risks or automaticly suspend trading in the case of automatic clients such as is used by the markets.  Another method is to selectively choose your peers, choosing peers who are representative of large sectors of the Internet that you are not; so that a lost connection could be taken as a sign of a possible fragmentation.  As far as I know, no one has been worried enough about it to write the watchdog code.
6930  Bitcoin / Project Development / Re: Bounty for Bitcoin Animated Movie [13622.05 BTC ($2520) and growing] on: November 05, 2010, 03:08:14 AM
INTRODUCING BITCOIN
[...]

I like this a lot. This would win at least my 100 BTC "How to get started" bounty.

I think that it's a great script, if someone is willing to create the animation to go with it.
6931  Other / Off-topic / Re: Creating Bitcoins without paying for electricity?! on: November 04, 2010, 06:35:20 PM
There is one legitimate way to generate bitcoins without increasing your electricity bill. It only works if you are currently using resistive electric heating to heat your house.

In that case you turn off your electric heaters and start up a bank of computers generating bitcoins. The computers perform the computation, then release 100% of the electrical energy as heat, so you get exactly the same amount of electrical heating for your money, but the heat came as the waste product of computation which is then effectively free of cost.

The problem is that heating by resistor elements is not the most efficient way of heating. Heat pumps are more profitable.


I was wondering about that. But where does the energy go besides heat? There isn't any motion or light.


REsistive heating is 100% efficient, but heat pumps are 200% to 350% heat efficient.  They literally pump the heat from a cold space to a warmer space in the way a water pump pushes water from the bottom of the hill to the top; from a lower energy potiential to a higher energy potential.

However, they also lose their advantages quickly with an increasing temp gap, so in colder climates they are not particularly efficient.  They work best in temperate climates that don't spend more than 20 to 30 days below freezing a year.  They wouldn't effect the guy who lives in Canada|Siberia who has to heat his home anyway and has no access to cheaper heat such as natural gas or nuclear municipal heat.  It's this guy that heating with Bitcoin generation that will be generating even when it is not profitable.
6932  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Govcoin. on: November 04, 2010, 04:34:47 AM
   Police brutality and the state's monopoly on force is offensive not something written harmlessly on an online forum. It is no secret that bitcoin is viewed that way ,at least every time its brought up on mises.org the next post will invariably be that it has no backing.


And just like forum members here, there are always those on Mises.org who are going to point out the obvious.
6933  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Govcoin. on: November 03, 2010, 11:46:17 PM
Or the people getting offended could realize that the people whose posts they're reading think differently from them and are very likely not trying to offend.

That's irrelevent.  It's not like it's so bad that I'm never going to get past it, but it's still bad form to offend your readership, even by accident.
6934  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Govcoin. on: November 03, 2010, 11:43:58 PM
BTW, those of you who assume that others whom you interact with on an Internet forum think like yourselves, should try to remember that it's is highly likely that you are being offensive to the very people that you are trying to amuse.

I don't understand this paragraph.  But I guess trying to be humoristic on Internet is even harder than I thought.


Let me sum it up.  I'm an Austrian Economist.  I don't find the implication that my peers and myself would have our 'heads spin' to be humorous.  I see it as evidence that those who write such things don't understand the ideas of those they attempt to belittle, in addition to a general case of inmaturity.  I have no doubt that some found this joke amusing, but it was posted on a public forum, presumedly with the intent of amusing forum membership.  Since I identify with the butt of your joke, I find it mildly offensive.
6935  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 03, 2010, 11:26:03 PM
Why according to you?  I understand why it is there, and generally how it works, and you do not.
Ok sure, if you'd be kind enough to point out my misunderstandings. Oh silly me, you can't.


I could try, but others could do a better job on the details, but that is beside the point.  If you don't understand something, it is up to you to educate yourself.  It is not the responsibility of anyone else, and you have the authority to decide for only yourself.  I would say that the most common reason that no one has bothered to explain it to you thus far, is because those who do understand it get tired of trying to explain things to forum members with 'newbie' next to their name.  Go search the archives if you can't find the answers that you seek.  Only then, should that not help, do you politely ask the forum to explain the logic behind the current security features.

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And the blockchain benchmark doesn't constitute a central authority.  It is only an extension of the authority that we users entrust to the developers when we download and upgrade their code.
So, what happens if they go rogue ? (protip: satoshi is a human being)
If the SVN repo gets hacked ?

Most likely the same thing that would happen if any other such project were hacked or hijacked, the developer with the broken SVN/broken moral code would loose the trust they have earned in very short order, the majority would revert to earlier trusted code, and some other developer would advance more trustworthy code.

Much the same thing as what would happen should Satoshi die.

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You can change it, or remove the blockchain benchmark altogether, and release a client without said code. If others agree with your concerns and your fix, then they will download your version; and the will of the developers would be irrelevent.
For that matter, you could change the code so that the total number of bitcoins never stops, but you would still have to convince the majority of users that your version is better.  I think that unlikely.
Yep, that's called open source, and I happen to like it a lot, just as I think voicing concerns about potential problems is part of it.

My problem is not with your concerns, but with the manner in which you present your concerns.
6936  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Alternative svg New Logo ;D on: November 03, 2010, 07:03:03 PM
That's awesome!

I want stickers, real stickers.  Like a window sticker that I can put in the passenger window of my car.  I intend to accept Bitcoin via Flinc (or whichever p2p dynamic ridesharing app wins in the marketplace) and would like to plant the meme with my passengers.
6937  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Govcoin. on: November 03, 2010, 06:59:11 PM

Maybe one day gold will be backed by bitcoins.   Smiley


haha that would make the Austrian economists heads spin around.

No, not really.  Austrians don't have problems with double backing, which is what a gold currency with a fixed convertability into Bitcoin would be.  Austrians only have problems with currencies that arise in an unnatural manner, such as every fiat currency in the world.  A gold standard is better than an unbacked fiat, mind you; but the best answer is to remove the monopolies that 'legal tender' laws grant to a particular national currency and let the actions of the people determine what they naturally trust.

BTW, those of you who assume that others whom you interact with on an Internet forum think like yourselves, should try to remember that it's is highly likely that you are being offensive to the very people that you are trying to amuse.
6938  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is not as advertised on: November 03, 2010, 06:47:06 PM
Also, no one actually answered as to why there was a block chain lockdown hardcoded, it doesn't solve anything, not even CPU overpowering attack on the network.

It does prevent someone with super-duper-computer-power to replace the entire chain with a new one... why not do it?
That's a feature.
Also bitcoin advertises there is no central authority, and that's obviously untrue, this code should either be dropped or its effects should be stated clearly in the docs according to me.

 

Why according to you?  I understand why it is there, and generally how it works, and you do not.  Your approval is not neccessary, and it's not our concern if you use Bitcoin or not.  If you don't trust it, don't use it.  No one is going to attempt to convince you otherwise.

And although Bitcoin is safe enough without the blockchain benchmark, it's safer still with it.  And the blockchain benchmark doesn't constitute a central authority.  It is only an extension of the authority that we users entrust to the developers when we download and upgrade their code.  You can change it, or remove the blockchain benchmark altogether, and release a client without said code.  If others agree with your concerns and your fix, then they will download your version; and the will of the developers would be irrelevent.  For that matter, you could change the code so that the total number of bitcoins never stops, but you would still have to convince the majority of users that your version is better.  I think that unlikely.
6939  Economy / Economics / Re: How evil is Bitcoin ? on: October 31, 2010, 03:17:54 AM
Am I the only one that notices a pattern here ? A mega-crisis every 40 years perhaps ?

No, you are not the only one.  You just stumbled onto Forth Turning social theory, but the full cycle is 80-88 years.  It's a well researched, and little known, theory about generational cycles.  Well worth a read, very enlightening.
6940  Economy / Marketplace / Re: Would you buy a house? on: October 30, 2010, 10:17:09 PM
4 million bitcoins in circulation at this time.
Valerius

Please do not add markups to my words when you quote them, unless you are willing to note that the emphasis is yours, not mine.  It could change the interpretation of the statement, once edited out of context and the emphasis altered.  You really shouldn't do this for anyone, it's bad form.
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