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Gox shuts down = BTC CRASH.
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I have to doubt that based on historic precedent. I happened to have gotten serious enough about Bitcoin to use a typical exchange during the fortnight-ish the Mt. Gox was off-line due to their hack. It seemed to have had a remarkably small impact on the actual valuations. They were already in decline and continued in much the same trend once Mt. Gox came back. If you are implying that Mt. Gox would lose significant BTC I highly doubt that. They have way to much experience, skill, and money not to have a robust cold storage regime. If they lose BTC it is almost completely certain to be an inside job. |
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Well, i learned my lesson. Having access on phone is nice so i can transfer when I'm not in front of my machine at home, but agree that's only good for limited amounts. Fortunately, I've lurked here long enough to learn about cold storage and how to set that up disconnected from network so I'm safe. I PM'd the other guy that got hacked in the same transaction but haven't hear back yet. Right now it would appear blockchain.info is the common factor, but if he was running same program on phone I'd probably consider that another possible weak link.
New wallet, one location.
Probably unrelated, but in my case: I had only one or two apps installed. Android OS. The only app I remember was a GPS satellite monitoring program...I'd replaced the phone recently because the GPS had given out. Phones generally are not my thing and I mainly use it for it's navigation functions. I was out of cell range, but hooked up to a friend's satellite via wi-fi (way way out a rural area where there is just about zero chance that the wi-fi was hacked unless through the friend's hard-wired compute or ipad or router.) I received a chat and it was in some foreign script. I then noticed that my keyboard had changed to Arabic. Later that evening, I noticed several unusual drafts in my outbox so I am pretty sure that the attacker had accessed my e-mail. I left the house not long after my the chat, so it is possible that the attacker got cut off and did not get a chance to fully do what he wished and/or clean up successfully. |
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have the bitcoin-qt client (behind firewall and encrypted wallet), blockchain.info (pretty tough password) and also have the address on my phone using bitcoinspinner for android (could be weak link).
My phone was hacked the other day (posted in off-topic.) I didn't investigate it in detail...just wiped the phone and moved on. I would have a lot of trouble trusting the phone for anything at this point. Certainly not a bitcoin client or access to any on-line wallet with more than a few dollars worth of value. I now don't use it for e-mail on my main e-mail account. Just set up a secondary e-mail for very limited data and use which is a drag (vs. being able to check my mail e-mail from my phone.) I guess I'll do the same with on-line wallets which should be easy enough. I have a Windows machine but would prefer to not access any wallet with more than a few BTC from it as well so this will kill several birds with one stone. |
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I'll add a question to the sentence I bolded. If I make a transaction on the newly created fork-chain, wouldn't this be a legitimate transaction on the bitcoin chain as well? Meaning if someone relays transactions between chains you can't really spend coins from one chain only. Is there a good way to fork the chain without this happening?
I'm just sort of guesstimating (this not being a tech thread), but it seems to me that the best way to do this would be to manipulate the address format in backward-ish compatible way such that a spend would be invalid on fork and honored on another. My big question is if that is even possible in a backward compatible way. If not a majority vote fork could possibly be quite disruptive as all their fork-transactions would likely find their way into bitcoin somehow as well. I'm really not sure of the consequences here but think it could need some thought. Let's say that the 'real' Bitcoin is called fork-A. In the case that a person wanted pre-fork coins to be spendable on fork-B, just modify the software such that it would accept both pre-fork keys and a special modification of keys which 'real' Bitcoin does not allow. Just generate new non-realbitcoin-legal keys if you don't want transactions to be able to be replayed on the 'real' fork-A. Should be pretty easy I would think. Interestingly, transactions from the 'real' Bitcoin could be re-played in the 'B' chain. This would be an easy way to create even more 'deflation' or 'distribution' (or 'theft') or whatever. Of course there would be nothing to stop 'real' Bitcoin from eventually making 'bitcoin-b' keys legal as well. But once the blockchians diverge even a little it would probably result in nothing but a giant mess. As long as 'real' Bitcoin remains vaguely competitive on an operational level, my sense is that it would have nothing to 'fear' from out-of-band sister efforts of the nature described above. |
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I'll add a question to the sentence I bolded. If I make a transaction on the newly created fork-chain, wouldn't this be a legitimate transaction on the bitcoin chain as well? Meaning if someone relays transactions between chains you can't really spend coins from one chain only. Is there a good way to fork the chain without this happening?
I'm just sort of guesstimating (this not being a tech thread), but it seems to me that the best way to do this would be to manipulate the address format in backward-ish compatible way such that a spend would be invalid on fork and honored on another. edit: I should mention that I own http://bitcoin-legacy.org and have put a tiny amount of thought into such things between other more pressing projects. |
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FinCen has no authority or jurisdiction over Crypto Currencies, any moves they make will be met in an International Court by the CCCB in defense of the integrity of Crypto Currencies. Contact will be made with FinCen on reguards to there future actions, anything else is just pure speculation!
Because everybody knows the US government has no reach or influence outside the borders of the US. After roundly defeating the US in it's struggle for independence during WW-II, Japan has enjoyed an unprecedented degree of autonomy. |
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I've pretty much given up hope on Bitcoin itself achieving anything particularly world-changing beyond demonstrating a proof of concept. A secondary fall-back hope of mine has always been that there is an outside possibility that they'll make me rich though, and this is more promising than ever.
We know. You mention this in every thread. Do you think, instead of this defeatist monologue, you might want to actually do anything to change this outcome? Well I guess it's on my mind a lot these days. It's a minority viewpoint and as such sometimes has some positive cancellation effect in an echo chamber. Back in late 2011 I also had a minority opinion that Bitcoin was not necessarily dead and had some real potential. I spoke up then as well, and it is possible that I influenced some people and they ended up being happy for it. |
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I would feel similarly to the way I'd feel when in order to be a 'peer' in the 'peer2peer' solution one need a computer cluster, specially provisioned network connectivity, and datacenter resources. Both are 'democracy' though, and there is a limit to the amount of bitching I'm willing to do about that form of decision making.
Being the type who tries to look some distance into the future, I've pretty much given up hope on Bitcoin itself achieving anything particularly world-changing beyond demonstrating a proof of concept. A secondary fall-back hope of mine has always been that there is an outside possibility that they'll make me rich though, and this is more promising than ever.
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If someone participates in illegal stuff, they will be prosecuted no matter what vehicle they use. Now, if bitcoin itself comes under attack - then it's all the reason to get involved and organize opposision.
If bitcoin is bad in and of itself, then also cell phones, roads, laptops and hammers are bad in and of itself.
+1 to this, and also to crazy_rabbit about paying taxes. It's technically not possible to launder money if the money is not associated with a crime. At least the way I read the definition of money laundering. I'm good here...happy days! I lost interest in drugs about 25 years ago and have not spent a dime on them since that time. I'm golden here to, although I think it should be fine for people to waste their money and destroy their bodies with drugs if they choose to do so. As for capital gains, they won't kill me. I didn't expect to make any money on Bitcoin at all so any net profit I make is great. Thanks to the rich fuckers here in the US and our level of political corruption, we have low taxes for people who earn money by having money vs. by actually working for a living it so I'll ride along with them. Even though I don't like my tax dollars killing kids in the outer reaches of our empire, I'll ante up anyway because it would be monumentally stupid not to. Particularly when doing something which, although perfectly ethical, corp/gov is probably not going to be real fond of. Cheating on one's taxes in association with Bitcoin will, I'm projecting, be one of the surest ways to end up in one of our gulags. |
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Glad to see you back.
If you are looking for a project, could you build Mt. Gox a matching engine that that works with some modicum of performance? It may or may not be your thing, but someone of the 7 billion people on earth should be able to do something for Christsake!
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I can proofread your french version of your story if needed (for as much BTC as you see fit).
I appreciate your advice and assistance thus-far and have made a contribution in gratitude. I got side-tracked and lost some interest in this issue, but do intend to formulate a report with some of the information I have obtained and would very much appreciate your proof-reading it at some point. In other news, I had a brief and cordial conversation with ~davout via PM. It was without meaningful content, but that was completely appropriate in the situation and equal to or greater than I expected. |
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...snip...
A "free market" that accepts violence as the means of competition isn't free, or a market.
Call it an evolutionary soup then. Just like slow gazelles get eaten by jaguars and thus gazelles are evolved for speed, non-state societies fell apart or were conquered and modern societies evolved for security and stability. Even if you don't like it, that's how evolution works. A gazelle does not get to say to a jaguar "No violence please" does it? Nope, but they do have some nasty horns... A gazelle's horns evolved exclusively for the purposes of applying 'violence' within their social groupings, by the way. They have nothing to do with defense against jaguars. |
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would you put it past a goldbug 100% invested in pm's to start rumors? That suspicion would not have an element of projection at is base would it? |
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Where's the wienie? Show me where such a thing even remotely works as described? For examples of where it fails, pick any of the failed states throughout history.
Worked pretty good in medieval Iceland, for about 600 years, until an outside power bought up the judges. 1000 years in Ireland, before Cromwell finally beat 'em. I looked into both a bit last night. The look to me like they were distinctly Feudal societies at their core albeit which some tribalism mixed in which is more common then not. Sure, they had some mild variations about how law was enforced, but it seems nothing like what Friedman fantasizing about. |
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Drunk driving is like a homemade bomb with a burning fuse under your chair. It isn't certain that you will die, but there is a high chance of it.
If it were that easy it would not be a big problem to me. The main troubles as I see them are: - The perp is equally or more likely to kill someone else who received no benefit by by absorbing the extra risk. - The perp is equally likely to simply be paralyzed and become a ward of the state who I need to subsidize. Like Ayn Rand when she got lung cancer after smoking like a chimney all her life, for instance. |
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Oh, I see. A fascist state to solve three problems which don't exist. Fascist state? No, I think you're confused. What I am suggesting is removing the state from the equation. Well who is going to be 'enforcing' restitution and so on? Private security forces of the handful of individuals who own everything? So Fascism or Feudalism; Pick your poison. Collectively as humans we'll say 'been there, done that.' Careful. You're starting to show that you don't actually know what you're talking about. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jTYkdEU_B4o It'll be the most productive 23 minutes you've ever spent on YouTube. Yawn. A chain of completely implausible guesstimates which, unsurprisingly, yields something impressive to only a sliver of easily impressed zealots. Where's the wienie? Show me where such a thing even remotely works as described? For examples of where it fails, pick any of the failed states throughout history. |
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Oh, I see. A fascist state to solve three problems which don't exist. Fascist state? No, I think you're confused. What I am suggesting is removing the state from the equation. Well who is going to be 'enforcing' restitution and so on? Private security forces of the handful of individuals who own everything? So Fascism or Feudalism; Pick your poison. Collectively as humans we'll say 'been there, done that.' |
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We would likely not care one bit about people drunk on the roads if it were not for the fact that the ancient government road technology has not been improved upon in over 100 years.
Telephones were only a government monopoly and hardly changed technology for 50 years. We have come a long way since the monopoly was lifted. Imagine if we had done the same with roads at the time. People would not be driving their cars anymore, the smart roads would.
Most natural monopolies which work at all work because of public utility districts and the like. If not for them there would be mega-cities and not much else since that's where the profit is. Examples abound of backwater countries with a handful of reasonably modern cities and the rest of society not being far beyond early agriculture stage. Thankfully my nation choose a different path and we've got a much stronger society for it. Your 'smart roads' are utter fantasy-land tripe as anyone who can run a calculator can tell you. There must be one example in the world where such a thing happened? Where? The closest thing I can think of is self-driving cars, and they sprung up in the epicenter of socialism on the Left Coast. And to your suggestion that road technology has not been improved upon in the last 100 years tells me for certain that you are neither a civil engineer nor a historian. |
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Would you like to know how I would fix the problem?
I would. Please proceed... Well, I've pointed out three main problems: 1) Public property means it's their road too. 2) We're currently punishing blood content instead of impairment 3) We're treating people who have harmed no one like criminals The first one is as simple as defining the problem. Public property is the problem, so private property is the solution. Privately owned roads would allow the owners to set the rules for people who drive on them. There could, theoretically be roads which allowed people to drive impaired (which would likely be deathtraps - Darwin at work) and roads which did not allow people to drive impaired. People could then decide how much risk they wanted to take, rather than being forced into a one-size fits all risk plan. The answer to the second one follows from the first. Private road owners who prohibit impairment would probably like to keep their insurance rates down, as well as make it as pleasant as possible to use their roads, so as to increase their customers. To this end, they would likely want to make sure that impaired drivers don't cause accidents. The surest way, of course, is to remove all the impaired drivers from the road. With the option of taking the other road open to them, fewer will drive on the road that prohibits their behavior, but for those that do, an arbitrary blood alcohol content is a poor indicator of impairment, especially for the other forms of impairment I've mentioned. Therefore, impairment testing, such as the "road sobriety test" and various other more high-tech means, would likely replace the breathalyser or blood tests as measures of impairment. Being private property, the road owners can set punishment for driving impaired, but being business owners, would likely limit this to refusal of service (ie banning from that road). And finally, by holding all accidents to the same standard, regardless of why the responsible party caused them, and requiring that they pay restitution, you hold the driver responsible for their actions. This, I think, will greatly reduce all forms of irresponsible driving, from drunkenness to road rage. True, restitution does not return a lost loved one, but neither will paying for caging a man, and at least he's supporting you in your time of need, instead of the other way around. My solution would be along the lines of subsidizing the aformentioned micro-nations enough to keep them operational and thus, hopefully, help keep the BFL types from contaminating ours. You're assuming they wouldn't end up subsidizing the welfare states to keep the leeches from contaminating them.  Oh, I see. A fascist state to solve three problems which don't exist. What a great idea! I again vote to chip in to keep one of the LFC style micro-nations where they attempt such a thing alive for long enough to see how it works out. It would probably be entertaining enough that a media conglomerate could make money with a reality TV show and thus they might even be able to pull their own weight for a while. |
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As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on whether that will be the case, and if it does turn out to be, whether the system will have bloated beyond the capacity where it could realistically be operated by a large pool of individuals. The ability for the operational infrastructure to be cheap and widely dispersed is THE thing which gives Bitcoin it's backing and strength in my opinion. As that erodes so does my confidence in the solution.
Most of the bitcoin network is not the technical network of computers running Bitcoin protocol. Bitcoin is in actuality a socio-economic power network of hundreds of supernodes and 100,000s of active nodes. That the majority of them don't have the Bitcoin client, is only economical, division of labor. The important thing is, Bitcoin is open source, so that the economic majority gets to choose the rules, not the coercive minority, and this will forever remain so, because of the design. I disagree with this rosy analysis. I put more emphasis on the actual hardware and network topology needed to allow the system to perform anywhere near it's potential. But you bring up another entirely different potential failure mode which I consider as possibly coming into play. That is, if the system is not working reasonably well for a wide range of participants, the participants could very well be drawn to something else. Unlike with gold, it would be very low effort to actually develop a crypto-currency system upon which the masses could coalesce. The bothersome part is that there are limited means to make the system work truly well for all but the early adopters (like most of us reading this probably are.) Ultimately Bitcoin rests on the same 'historical record' as gold, but where gold's history goes back thousands of years, Bitcoin's goes back to 2009. There is actually a link between my two concerns. That is, if the Bitcoin network becomes sufficiently centralized and riding entirely on a backbone consisting of 'supernodes', it will be that much easier to attack the system and degrade it enough to make it even less appealing to the newcomers than it is simply due to the expensive proposition of 'buying in' at what will likely always appear to be the top. |
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