Depends on the jurisdiction and what the court rules. For a defamatory statement it would be worth the risk, but would you want to take the risk of uploading child porn given the life-ruining consequences of even being accused?

I think that this is a very real risk to the current system.

It shouldn't be impossible for someone to set up a secure JavaScript based wallet service where your keys are encrypted by a client-side password. You'd lose everything if you lost your password though

Yes but only for a short time, depending on the trustworthiness value of that developer. Maybe have milestones for larger projects.
We'll also have to watch out for scumbags submitting copyrighted code from other projects as their own and it being released under an incompatible license.

Yep, I'm thinking that each project has an address and we just post the funds back to the address that sent them, so there's no need for people to register accounts to donate. Completed projects would have new funds posted directly to the person who completed the task. Not sure about new funds, maybe new funds being added should re-open / extend a project, or maybe they're just posted back to the address that sent them.

I think the requirements should be set in stone when the project is created. We're dealing with donations from many people who are donating because they agree with the requirements. This is horribly bureaucratic but IMO the only way to do it fairly.

Absolutely, I hate sites that force me to sign up with a new password, almost as much as I hate having to store user passwords!

Thinking of security, would it be possible to write the platform in a way which prevents the site owners, moderators and any intruders from having access to the funds? For example we could encrypt the private key with a "project key" (owned by the site) and a "sponsor key" (one sponsor per donation address, potentially many per project). Once the site moderators agree that the requirements have been met, the project sponsors enter their key and the funds are released. Or maybe something is possible using scripting?

This would have the down-side of projects running forever and funds potentially being lost if the sponsors disappear, as we couldn't close a project without knowing the sponsor key. But it would IMO be a better option than running an escrow site given all the recent hackings!

Yep that would be good

History, culinary advice, astronomy, architecture and physics are pretty interesting subjects. Far more interesting than war, poverty and all miserable things.

Yeah that should work. However, in a few years time the wallet format may have changed.

You'd be much better off just backing up the private key for the address (on paper), then importing that into your current wallet several years in the future.

I was just kidding, but I fully reserve the right to shit in any thread that does nothing but links to another, specially if the thread being linked to is asking for money. Spam spam spam spam spam

We post a rig to a PO box in the Bahamas, right?

I don't know if others are working on such a project, but I just registered btcbounty.net anyway. I'll do some hacking over the coming weekends and put the source on github.

Also, if I'm gonna step up and run this project then only free software projects will be eligible for bounty/payout, because I'm a dirty socialist like that

@John Smith, I'm a Python hacker and FSF member. I've never done Python web dev (aside from writing my own webserver based on SimpleHTTPServer). Here's an example of my work in Python

Interested in working together?

Lern 2 English, Forbes.

Agreed. Bitcoin won't be deflationary for many, many years. I did lose 1BTC over the weekend because I didn't have the balls to hold though. You win some, you lose some, either way gambling is fun

Potential solution for Bitcoin client: Use secure desktop to enter passwords (ala KeePass), which means they'd have to write a hardware keyboard driver to record the keyboard.
Potential solution for users: Store wallet in a KeePass database and set it to enter passwords on secure desktop.

Situation: Private keys are extracted directly from memory, despite an encrypted wallet and password entered on a secure desktop.

Potential solution for Bitcoin client: Store private keys in secure memory storage service. Only store the keys in memory for a limited time, blank the memory after use.

It should be desktop environment specific, nothing to do with the browser:
Here's how to do it for Windows, Linux (Gnome/KDE), OSX, Android and iOS

Don't you mean "how can the professional miners hang on?"

As a casual miners I don't care about the electricity cost, hell, most nights my girlfriend leaves the TV on all night but it's not going to break the bank.

My teacup is full of clouds, a storm in fact. I'll buy up all your bitcoins once the price is low enough

FTFY

Currently doing some Python hacking for BTC, and since the price drop I'm probably working for 10% of my usual rate. However, I'm having fun doing it; it's the kind of thing I'd usually do in my spare time for free, so I'm not losing out.

I encourage other developers to do the same with small projects, I'm certainly enjoying it

Not likely. There's been a downward trend for the last two months, which suggests that some early adopter is slowly cashing out. IMO the market can never reach high, stable prices in this situation.

Also the BTC supply is increasing by 200k a month (deflationary currency my ass, how much is being invested in the BTC economy per month?), mostly going into the hands of miners who are trying to recoup the cost of their mining rigs, with a large number of them living in their parents' basements and not having to pay for electricity.

Also I can't get burned since my entire investment was £30, I now have $300 and have mostly used my BTC for anonymous gambling. Even if I walk away with nothing I've had more than my money's worth in fun

I've cashed out and currently waiting for the price to plummet further before I buy back!

I think they'll settle at around the price of the electricity required to generate them, plus their usefulness. At the moment this is what, about $6 each?

Hopefully once the price is stable and small, we can start actually using them instead of hoarding / speculating. Their future price depends entirely on how useful they are so if you're a speculator who wanted them to increase in value, you should have invested in developing some killer apps rather than playing the exchanges.

Violates conservation of energy. I can't work out whether TheGer is a clever troll or a total idiot

This is a good idea. We could rename it to "ourbitcoin" too