You think that somehow you are going to preclude that outcome be leaving it out of your silly little bitcointalk.org poll?  Pffft.

You've outlined your absurd pipe-dream before which is why I snipped it.  I still cannot tell if you are being earnest and naive, or nefarious and self serving.  But at this point, who cares?

My best hypothesis is that Dan said that for 'attention whore' reason, but also to light a fire under those who need to be thinking about this stuff.  And it has had that effect...or something has.

The primitive proof-of-work based on sha256 has had the effect of lending enough credibility to the system to allow it to get big enough to make some people some money.  But it's weaknesses are becoming apparent to a segment of the community.  Whether a more well thought out scheme to keep Bitcoin credible into the future can be transplanted in at this point will be an interesting thing to observe.

OTOH, there may be other reasons why it is not worth the bother.  That is to say, if there is no real hope of Bitcoin remaining de-centralized then who cares what the proof-of-work scheme happens to be?  If a battle between Titans decides who's property it becomes, I personally could not care less which one happens to win it.

30 years is asinine.

Further, you left out the option for Bitcoin being a 'reserve currency' which is trusted enough to form the basis of value for many off-chain solutions.  Including other specialist cyrpto-currencies which are particularly suited for one role or another.  Say, not needing to wait for confirmations, providing genuine anonymity, etc, etc.

But whatever dude.  Your shtick is pretty transparent and stupid anyway.  When Bitcoin becomes something that no self-respecting Libertarian can look at without vomiting we'll have folks like you to thank for it.

I was involved with the internet in the mid 90's an following some of the cypherpunks work, but was not involved aside from piddling around with early versions of PGP and such.  I've been a politically aware US citizen since that time.

I can tell you that there have been notable shifts in popular opinion and expectations over this 20 year preriod.  There have been even more significant shifts on how the internet is used and viewed.

If you get complacent and think that what the cypherpunks achieved is sufficient to stand in stone forever more, you may very well be in for a rude awakening.  Certainly the Obama admin does not accept that military grade encryption is without a backdoor to assist  our fearless leaders in protecting us is the right path forward (see the EFF story I posted.)

As I mentioned, it is clear that we need SSL and probably SSH for business reasons.  That is NOT the same thing as needing these two to be capable of resisting 'authorized' analysis.  If you are going to stand up and say you don't trust the FBI, NSA, etc, your message is not going to resonate with either the legislative bodies or a healthy percentage of the population who is scared shitless by the 'Christmas bomber.'

Not true in my case, but I am way out on the edge compared to most people.

Getting rid of encryption on the public internet won't fly.  It is far to critical for security.  What could fly, however, would be only allowing encryption which was 'certified' in some manner.  Namely, in a manner which would provide a back-door which would allow analysis and capture.

I hypothesize that this will go down by having ISP's and network carriers use devices which will be able to detect and block encrypted data which is found to not be 'compliant'.  Or encrypted data which was carrying a payload which is not authorized.  And do so in close enough to real-time so that it could not be argued to be a show-stopper from an economic perspective.  This could explain some of these observations:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Obama-Set-to-Back-Fines-for-NonCompliant-Wiretapping-ISPs-124163

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/05/nsa-bluffdale/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/government-seeks

If this is true, then yes, there still _may_ be jurisdictions where it is possible to operate and access a high data-rate crypto-currency, but it will be a somewhat dangerous cat and mouse game reserved for specialists to even actually use them much less to operate them.  Actually, the same applies to low data-rate systems as well, but it becomes more practical to operate them in a wider range of places.

If large countries who's leadership most fears their own populations decide to cooperated within their own jurisdictions and put pressure on their smaller vassal states to do the same, it could become for all intents and purposes, impossible to run a viable system at high data rates.  I could imagine such cooperation being of enough mutual interest that I certainly would not rule it out.

Out-of-band communications like 'mesh networks' are not completely without hope, but it is critical to realize that even unmolested they will be WAY less capable, performant, and reliable than anything like what we are used to today.  If they are attacked as subversive, which seems highly likely to me, they may not work at all.

I would not anticipate such a dystopia to be a permanent thing.  People will eventually get fed up and make some changes.  But it could easily persist through a period of economic chaos, and that is exactly when we'd be in the most need of a functional and independent currency solution.

Erik.  As Pope to an army of tards and thus the commander of crack legions of SPV clients, you are a king-maker in Bitcoin-land.  I council you to distance yourself from ~vess.  I mean just publicly or course...to preserve your power for when it really counts.

Hear that Cypherdoc?  Time to man up and change your avatar to some other color.  My Krugerrands will remain a funny off-gold hue due to the alloy which imparts extra durability.  I think I still have some Maples which are more 'pure' as it were, but I've not checked that SD box for many years and cannot remember exactly what the hell I have in there.

Got my device yesterday.  I've not tired it since I'm interested in other things, but before I forget, I've sent a 0.1 BTC tip to 1F4j4Lha8BjL4wxwFVbGaQwMJ4Kd1brfXb  This brings my outlay into a range where I feel it adequately compensates ~arklan for his outstanding work.

I've not tipped John K because I believe his compensation to be basically adequate for the services rendered.  I do appreciate his going above and beyond the call over the course of this transaction.  Again, though, I think it best that he avoids becoming involved in servicing any efforts which might be construed as having conflict-of-interest issues.  Escrow is currently an under-served market at this time so some of that is understandable, but as things grow, I believe that transparency and demonstrable avoidance conflict of interest are going to be keys to success.

The only things I've ever been interested in are ways to allow scalability since that bothered me about Bitcoin within seconds of understanding the basics of the network and the design of it's decentralization.

• 'http://bakcoin.org' I abandoned, but it was envisioned to support 'best-of-breed' exchange currencies and thus, hopefully, Bitcoin.
• 'http://bitcoin-legacy.org' is arguably Bitcoin.  (Oh, I need to make a slight correction there...done.)
• 'http://paracoin.org' is Bitcoin by design...until Bitcoin 'fails' at least.

I've never held any alternate crypto-currencies or had much interest in them since none that I know of focus on real scaling issues.  I have given BTC to friend and encouraged them to knock themselves out playing with alternates in the hopes that some good ideas and code spring from them, but generally it's not worth my time to play with them.

The idea of a 'debt based' system which can move 'debt' to where it is needed is a powerful one and very interesting.  But Ripple is is closed source and centralized from the get-go which is a non-starter for me.  It's a completely opposite beast than Bitcoin (in my mind), but that is fine and actually a good thing.

Open Transactions seems to rock, and is exactly the class of solution I see as being the best hope for Bitcoin in any capacity where it has a realistic chance of being worth a shit (where 'worth' is not meant to be taken as in monetary terms.)

  edit: url fix

Sage advice which I will take.

Before I go, I'll just like to say screw Gavin and the Bitcoin Foundation horse he rode in on...or at least rides into the future.  I'm sorry to not be more hopeful, but at this point I see Bitcoin to be not much more than a cash cow to be milked.  I'm counting on the army of mouth-breathing think-they-are-libertarians here to continue to help me line my nest with $USD and they have not let me down yet.

I do have confidence in the 'free market' and have confidence that it will eventually produce something the people of world actually need vis-a-vis distributed crypto-currencies.  What we definitely don't need is some corporate controlled one-world currency solution which is exactly where this thing is headed to be blunt about it.

I hope I'm wrong and you are right that there is still some hope for Bitcoin proper, but I'm not betting on it.  Were it not for Garzik and Maxwell I would have zero hope.  I will participate in what efforts I might be able to in terms of experimentation and such as they will likely produce useful data and code no matter what happens.

My experience is that PayPal pays attention mainly (or only) to communications that went through their system.

Most of the people who've tried to screw me have not provided responses to my queries through PayPal's messaging system, and coincidentally or not, it took PayPal investigators a matter of minutes to decide I was in the right.

I have always tried to format my correspondence such that a PayPal investigator could easily follow things.  Short simple questions of the merchant which should be easy to answer.  And which should be answered.

My, how clever and original you are!

I'm try very hard to avoid the tech section in order keep in order to keep it marginally useful.  I'm out now.  I'll sell you some uBTC on the Google 'send money' thingy in a year or two.  So, see ya in hell.

Ya know what?  I think you've check-mated us decentralized folks.  A big block can eat a little block, and the SPV's are pawns who have no choice but to upgrade.

I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I think the you and your employer are going to win this one.  So, carry on and make me rich.  My BTC will flow, but they will be to had only dearly.

Careful what you wish for.  I'm sure that there are many who would like to get rid of the USD in it's cash form, and they will be pointing out exactly the same things you do.  Perhaps counter-intuitively, these people are likely clustered in the higher echelons of the US political and financial groupings.

If Bitcoin could be corralled I've little doubt that it would be a much preferable solution than paper $20 bills to 'the powers that be.'  And when one's only realistic option is the use SPV, I've little doubt that Bitcoin can be corralled.  Mix in a tainting system and I'm certain of it.

Is that so?

I don't think that everyone here came to the conclusion that I was personally was advocating 'taint', but rather simply pointing out some observations from the 2013 security round-table and considerations associated with their posture.  And indeed that am so opposed to the implementation of it that was worth my time to formulate a message on the subject.

I was fully aware that there would be a fair number of jackasses who could not see what is to many more clued in readers was pretty obvious.  This is bitcointalk.org after all.  I'm not surprised that you specifically ended up being one of those jackasses.

Some people consider the possibility of governments being hostile to Bitcoin as conspiracy theories on par with the moon landing being fake.  Other people, I suppose, feel that the best strategy to avoid hostility is to comply with any demands that corp/gov may make and architect the solution such that it is capable of doing so.  Frankly, I see the Bitcoin Foundation as being fairly strongly in the latter camp and I think it is a mistake for the strength of the Bitcoin solution.

---

On the topic of infrastructure scaling, it is noteworthy that to be reliable it is necessary to run well in excess of average capacity.  This to account for diurnal and seasonal spikes.  5/1 is an oft used industry guide line and I found it necessary in my work, except that since I had no control over the demand side, I at times realize a spike in the first few seconds of the hour which vastly exceeded even the 5x margin.  This because of end-user automation which was not properly designed.

Off-chain solutions can give users the ability to reliably and safely perform financial operations which are locked to the Bitcoin 'source of truth' when it is practically and economically feasible to do so.  Actively embracing them would be, from a system design point of view, a wise thing to do.  It would act as a much needed buffer for the native protocol and go a long ways toward allowing it to be widely distributed.  At least if wide distribution is actually seen as a positive thing.

I donated .05 BTC...that person owes me a blowjob!

It does the 'fat cat banksters' a lot more good to see your transactions than it will you to see theirs.  If they have their way, you'll definitely have most of your activity in the block chain, and there will be a fair amount of information logged about how it got there.  So, don't worry, be happy.

Ya, ya, I know.  'Tor'.  Yawn.

Yup.  And a centralized network is just what a centralized body like that needs.  They made a giant fuck-up by not waiting until the blocks were full and the limit was lifted (which couldn't happen to soon for our buddy ~justusranvier here.)  Unless it was baked into 0.8.2 somehow and nobody noticed.

That was not my impression of him (though I wish I could say it were.)  I thought he seemed very bright and capable.  I sense that he and I are diametrically opposed on certain philosophical issues and visions of the future.  But I sense that about myself and most everyone else in one respect or another.