One more slightly more targeted response.  Sorry for the duplicate.


Who knows?  I wish to put it back though.  Back into Bitcoin itself (as it vanishes.)

I did a slight mention of the 'dense mesh' idea recently which is actually at the heart of things.  I value 'anonymity' personally, but it is not actually the thing that really 'gets me off' as it were.  None-the-less, the 'dense mesh' architecture helps with a lot of things, and could increase anonymity within the Bitcoin network at any time.  Or at least at any time after the system is functional and has some certain number of users.

As the diagrams are drawn, the type of client illustrated does not have a Bitcoin blockchain so it must either perform an SPV (or similar) transaction, or it needs to proxy.  With a 'dense mesh', it would be straightforward to do a pretty secure multi-hop proxy and thus significantly ad to the complexity of de-anonomizing traffic.  Particularly if the analysis were using listening stations and via backbone network taps.

Anyway, it's things like the proxy foundational work which would be much easier to implement on a system which was 'semi-live'.  My chief interest is actually in exploring multiple data transmission channel options.  But countless things along these would be much easier to develop in 'parasitic' mode when the Bitcoin network is standing by to catch any dropped balls and even potentially allow full system 're-boots' if you will.

It's worth pointing out again that a lot of users would have nothing to lose and very little risk to 'use' paracoin.  The main danger would be that for some reason Bitcoin would actively attack the solution in code, but it would be disruptive and there would be almost no reason to do it.  It would be much smarter to actively embrace it.

I think that most of the people 'in the government' are just trying to do their jobs.  Also that a lot of their jobs are important.  At this point I see a lot of reasonable rational behind many of the laws and regulations and it seems to me reasonable to make a good faith effort to lend assistance and advice.

I also think that a lot of the heads of various parts of at least my government (US) are already fairly rotten from the effects of money in politics and that that situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I strongly favor a situation where 'bitcoin' operates from a position of power.  That is to say, we 'do the right thing' when it makes sense but retain the option of withdrawing from cooperative arrangements if/when they become it makes sense to do so.

More than anything I am an 'anti-fascist' and look with great alarm at the merger of state and corporate power.  More and more the words 'state' and 'corporate' are words that can be used interchangeably.  With that said:

Two things interfere with the option to operate from a position of power:

 - Attachment to the same forces which corrupt our governments (specifically corporate and financial interests.)

 - Reliance on irreplaceable resources which are provided at the pleasure of corp/gov.  This is the main reason why I am SO negative about 'centralization' and so dead-set on wishing Bitcoin to remain as fully 'peer2peer' as possible.

I'm not giving up without a fight, but I'm telling you I think it's a lost cause.  People simply don't value anonymity and attempts to leverage that argument will be met with a blank stare.  Eventually it probably will become clear that freedom and anonymity are joined at the hip, and why, but it may be a while. 

In the mean time, it is not the case that Satoshi and company have done everything perfectly right.  Every project of any significance is going to be subject to priority constraints.  Further, a lot of things are just a lot more obvious with some hindsight.  As I am sure you are aware, working on a 'live system' is pretty challenging and we see (or at least I see) Bitcoin's progress brought down to a level where it will be struggling mightily to keep up with demand.

Bitcoin has already addressed a lot of the challenging problems and demonstrated convincingly some awesome proofs of concept.  Certain cleanup would not hurt, and there is plenty of room for development of certain of the more ancillary systems.  Working in an environment free of legacy constraints could lead to much more robust solutions much faster.


That is exactly what 'paracoin' does.  Just within the space offered by Bitcoin.  And it lets users move seamlessly between which lessens the risk.

If/when Bitcoin fails, it will be an easy matter to say "so long, and thanks for all the fishes."

It will either work or it won't, where 'work' is probably a little bit subjective.

My current best idea for mitigating against potential failures is an idea that hit me yesterday and is referenced in my sig block.  It is, or course, a work in progress.

Friends,

I'm more interested in other things at this point (chief among them the one outlined currently in my sig block) but have taken the time to document one thing in case anyone finds it useful or interesting:

  https://sites.google.com/a/tcilgl.com/paymium/home/categorized-info/-jav-pm-s

My interest may or may not be re-kindled once the bullshit 90-day mark is past.  I expect that the issue will be resolved in a sub-standard way, but am happy to be surprised.  In the mean time, if someone else gets serious about perusing this thing as I and others think is appropriate and thinks my involvement may be of help, ping me.

I'd consider this more of an 'Indication of Intent' than a 'Proof of Stake'.

It has to be realistic for any interested party to be involved (in my conception of things) so the proof cannot be a very high barrier.  Also it's just a Bitcoin address (and fully usable in Bitcoin-land) and the 'stake' (aka 'value') of most of these is zero.

Let me also add that the difficulty of obtaining a '1para1...' address is about 15 billion.  This puts it within the realistic reach of anyone but makes it not completely trivial to get a giant number of them quickly for DOS attacks of one sort or another.  I kind of envision the method of initial loading, and recovery in case of a 'para-illegal' operation, being use of a new vanity 'para-addy'.

It is unlikely to run across a 'para-addy' which was not deliberately generated (though not so unlikely that it should be assumed when coding...)

Like I mentioned, this is just an idea which popped into my head yesterday.  I've not thought through almost anything fully at this point.

The path of least resistance after being delivered an ass-whoopin' is to retire to some cloistered environ to lick one's wounds and draw comfort by commiserating with one's friends about the 'cesspool' nature of this forum.

It's just a tag which losly indicates that a participant at least attempts to have a presence in the paracoin blockchain.  Miners might leverage it in 'parasitic mode' when they are primarily mining the Bitcoin blockchain itself.

It might fuck up bloom filtering.  If so it could probably be moved to the end.  Or be dispensed with completely.

An idea hit me this afternoon spurred in part, I'm sure, from discussions on this thread.

  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192273.0

~jdillion:  You and I seem to be in a a similar predicament and of a similar mindset so you might be interested in the thought.

Here's an idea that hit me this afternoon.  Tapped out some notes for the fun of it:  paracoin.org

It's a personal judgement call, and 'the right thing' means different things to different people.

I'm not a particularly trusting person (which is part of why Bitcoin appeals to me) so I value 'transparency' very highly.  If the BCF does not, this cannot help but detract from the value I see in that body.  I have less inclinations than ever to 'buy in' in order to achieve visibility into that organization and never had much in the first place.  Outwardly it appears that their interests and certain of mine (specifically, 'getting rich') are aligned and it would cost me more than it is worth to validate that.

I would expect most people to put their full faith and trust in the BCF absent a very obvious calamity.  This is the way the human brain tends to be wired.

Hah!  I'm neither unused to nor uncomfortable with being in a minority.

Neither is this the first time I've seen people adopt a counter-intuitive action of Satoshi as evidence to support their own side of an argument.  For my part I simply do not know why the guy set the block size as he did.  He certainly knew it was going to be a significant issue in the trajectory of the solution yet neglected to outline his rational in the commit log or even mention it.  He could have simply been running late for a date for all I know.

One thing is for sure, however, and that is that hardware has not changed significantly since Satoshi felt the need to protect the system in this way, though software has undergone some optimizations.  Even with these though they seem somewhat strained to keep up in spite of our barely touching the economic balances imposed by the current, and (purportedly) temporary 1MB quick-fix.

I don't expect things to go 'my way' here.  They should not both because my efforts have been minimal compared to those of others, and because I very well could be wrong about a lot of things.  I don't think it hurts to provide a different point of view however as it is clearly the case that people tend to get tunnel vision.

As a practical matter at this time, it is highly unlikely that an individual is going to be attacked on the basis of this threat.  There is simply not enough bang for the buck since it would be a large and expensive effort due to the dispersed nature of the infrastructure and the incentive for individuals to protect their own interests.  That is, if I have $250,000 worth of BTC there is a big incentive for me to do whatever it takes to realize continued utilization of it.  (Of course in this particular case there is also the obvious absurdity of the attack rational.)

Now, on the other hand, attacking a single service provider is a whole different set of calculations.  Once strike could wipe out an entire swath of the userbase.  It may be slightly more challenging since a provider likely has more resources to fight back legally, but ultimately the state controls the legal system and it would be a simple matter to disrupt the service for a significant period of time even if a legal struggle is ultimately destined to lose.  We saw this it Kim Dotcom's case.

It is a practical matter of fact that 'transparency' is often at odds with 'getting things done.'  That was the stated rational for not inviting lesser members of the Bitcoin Foundation to certain meetings, or even informing them that such meetings were scheduled.

It is an unfortunate matter of fact that the above reality leaves 'things' as an undefined term subject to much speculation.  Ultimately the Bitcoin Foundation will have to balance out the pro's and con's of 'transparency' as they see fit.

I don't think that it would be technically unfeasible to devise such a solution, nor do I believe that it is as trivial as you make it sound for a society to stamp out things that the leadership does not like.  If so, there would not be such a thing as 'contraband', and it is absurd to turn a blind eye to the existence of such things or to their value (which happens to often rise dramatically due to artificially straining the supply/demand curve.)

I don't know how prevalent CP is and I imagine that the problem is blown out of proportion for political reasons, but I am sure that it does exist.  This in spite of nearly universal negativity on the part of almost every society and strong support for enforcement it has not been stamped out.

In contrast to CP, efforts to interfere with a distributed crypto-currency would probably be seen for what they are by large segments of the population;  self-serving and unfair policies designed under a crony regime to benefit their well connected friends.  In short they are likely to receive much less public support and subject a much broader segment of the population to abuse.  This will impose some limit on the level of punishment that a state can impose on those caught participating in the economy.  Of course that will vary from state to state, but we are talking about a global phenomenon here.

I am speaking about a 'reserve' currency role.  Arguments about the ability of the state to interfere with Skittle purchases are in a different category.  Those are not the kinds of transactions inherent in a 'reserve' role, but I do not believe that value in a 'reserve' capacity is negated because an item has no realistic 'exchange' function.  Certainly it is not what we see in precious metals.

I do suspect that you are right that Bitcoin will simply not be the solution which ends up being a trusted reserve currency.  This is not because it is could not be.  Indeed, one has to work at it to make it NOT fall into this role.  It is more that much of the development team simply sees no value or role for such a solution and if anything seems to consider it an undesirable thing and something to be actively avoided.

That is a prescient and sad observation actually.  I had not really thought of it, but you are probably right.

I've been interested in the solution for years and a lot of my friends know of my interest.  Historically I've been a little bi-polar on whether people should get involved at all.  Lately a lot of my friends have been asking me about getting started, and now I feel it Bitcoin more likely to 'succeed' so I am usually inclined to be encouraging these days.  At least to the 'right' people.

I am, as you might have detected, strongly in favor of the 'full peer' approach, but pretty frustrated about how impractical that is in a lot of cases.  When I introduce people I usually use an on-line wallet, but with all kinds of warnings about how the dangers.  For people who are doing non-trivial amounts, I do go ahead and encourage a full node and Armory so they can do flexible paper wallets and generally get a handle on the system.  It only really would be a good idea for people who are pretty technical though as my most interested friends tend to be.

I consider it something of a duty to advise people to be prepared for a total loss.  I've always felt, however, that if Bitcoin 'goes', it will probably go so big that a pretty modest footprint now will pay off well.  Thus there is no good reason to sink a lot of money into it.

Seems just the opposite to me.  If that were a problem (which I doubt) then the wallet service is likely to be frozen along with your ability to use it for as long as the investigation takes.

Of course a well designed wallet service like blockchain.info will have work-arounds for that problem.  OTOH, some of the workarounds may be responsible for the rash of thefts that have plagued them lately.

Either the problem of objectionably data in the block chain is non-existent for you if you were a peer, or it's a problem that when attacked will impact everyone relying on the infrastructure which are peers.  It may be a valid assumption that people with the wherewithal to be peers are more prepared to protect themselves against harassment than 'amateurs' though.  At least for now.

Accd to Hearn you don't need an up-to-date blockchain to send BTC.  It makes some sense that that would be the case, but I've not tried it first hand.  Accd to Garzik users can help the network by being peers.

I'm not so sure.  They are at their core quite mainstream.  They are deathly allergic to anything which has the remote chance of being a 'conspiricy theory' which limits their effectiveness in some of the most interesting journalistic endeavors.  I don't think it is a calculated strategy to broaden the base but rather a true reflection of their mindsets.  I would not be at all surprised if most of them found Bitcoin to be too far out there and to far from standard orthodoxy to accept.  Not to mention the fact that they actually are (unhappily) indeed fairly 'statist' and Bitcoin is not something which will help the state much (although that may or may not be true depending on how development goes.)

Again though, TYT is doing some of the best work out there in my opinion.  Much of my outlook on the world comes from taking a significant helping of TYT mixed with a dash of Max Keiser and a pinch of Alex Jones, etc.  Pretty much any new source can have some value if looked upon through one filter or another (imho.)