Is the Windows binary pointed to by this link infected?

sgminer-5.0-pre-release-1-win32.zip

Bitdefender reports a virus/threat in the zip file downloaded ... Gen:Variant.Application.BitCoinMiner.11

I've not had a virus warning from any of the other versions that have been optimized for x13 that I have downloaded so far.

*update* - link is no longer active at 18:47 BST


@NiceHash - can we have a dev statement about the probable infection and an update on progress please?

"Chop Shop" : the practice of building a car from two halves, welded together.

"A chop shop must be able to take apart a car without damaging the parts and keep them organized. Time is of the essence: more cars processed equals higher profits. There is no advantage to a large inventory, as it can be done more efficiently in a "JIT" (Just In Time) manner"

"Naked Lunch : a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."  William S. Burroughs

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.  For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."   William Blake

Sorry for the mistake.

Please don't give up!  Fight for change!

You have a right to be outraged.

Liberty is for All

I'm not saying anyone is scamming, just a quick breakdown of where the coins are based on the published Rich List.

The Libertycoin Rich List (I wonder why it's called that) only accounts for 5.771 million coins

There are roughly 800k coins missing from it which is weird.  I wonder where they are?

The top 5 wallets combined hold 34% of all coins (of 6.5 million coins)

The top 10 wallets combined hold 58% of all coins (of 6.5 million coins)

The top 15 wallets combined hold 77% of all coins (of 6.5 million coins)

Taking a sensible lower limit of 1000 coins, there are 501 wallets with 1000 or more.

This means roughly 23% of all coins are held in 486 wallets, at an average of around 0.45% each (of 6.5 million coins)

The average is a little misleading ... there are 30 wallets with over 100k after the top 15.

This is freely available information

http://xlb.blockexplorer.cc/richlist/index.php?min=0

I suspect a similar pattern is repeated for nearly all the other coins.

When such a concentration of "wealth" is held in so few hands, a (wo)man is no longer in control of his/her own destiny - (s)he is at the mercy of the rich, subject to their whims and control, which is no different to the current banking situation we are all trying to get away from.

That's about 7% of all Libertycoin in circulation.

Either from a single buyer or from 2 or more people all wanting to buy at the same price.

The concentration of coins into fewer and fewer hands looks like it is continuing.

And yet the top wallet of around 725k yesterday is down to 500k today.

The top wallet has dumped 30% or more of their holding.

Hmmm

The wealth is only a perceived wealth, seperate from it's value.

Diamonds, outside of industry, have no practical value whatsoever, yet they remain deisrable because they have perceived rarity.

The strict control of how many diamonds are released onto the open market maintains the perception of rarity and value.  

Only about 1% of all the jewelry diamonds mined make it to the public.  The price is maintained by deliberately limitting the supply.

Ultimately, they are worthless - but people still see value in them because they are shiney.

https://mises.org/Econsense/ch91.asp

The concentration of wealth with altcoins is the same as they are fundamentally useless, but their perceived value is based on limitting the supply to control market value.

It is not how much a particular coin is worth, it is how they are distributed and who controls the movement of flow.

Any coin where large proportions are held in very few hands means that the owners of those coins can control supply and try to increase demand, thereby increasing prices and perceived value.  This is a cartel, no different to diamonds or the privately run banks.

It doesn't matter if a coin is worth 1 cent or 100 dollars - it's just managed perception.  

If, for example, 60% of all coins or more are held in 10 accounts or less, you have a cartel-type structure, not the free movement of money.   The concentration of a given resource is in the hands of a small number of people.

Satoshi, in creating a methodology for everyone, wanted to do away with cartels and strict control of supply.

That no longer exists in cryptos.  They are being run, knowingly or unknowingly, by cartels - and investors are at their mercy.

It's our money they are taking.  And they laugh all the way to the next coin.

Don't blame the coins, blame the mechanism they are all built on and the persuit of greed over fairness.

The logo looks like the front of your trousers are being opened up to check out the "value" of your "package".

And it's not your hand that is opening the zip, it is someone elses!

I'm not sure the logo has the positive image you may need to move forward.

Yes, that is what it will become - just a name.

If all people want is a fancy name, ok, job done.

Just another crypto, no innovation, no real desirability, no real value, no uptake outside of the exchanges.

However, the devs think bigger than this and so do most of the community.

 

Hehe, we're back to the "one with the biggest hammer wins" again, using it to destroy rather than create!

This isn't Liberty.

I'm not sure that came across properly, I'll try again!  The 1% thing was just a starting point for discussion.

What I was trying to say was that if the initial distribution is fairer, then the acquisition can develop over time, but at a much slower rate than it does now.  The wealth acquisition and the potential for manipulation right now is out of control, and the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.  The solo miner is disenfranchised.

When that initial distribution favours only a few, then they will be in control of the coins and in a position to potentially manipulate the market to their advantage.  This is the current state of cryptos and a lot of the problems surrounding P&D, hype & FUD.

I can see 3 possible solutions for the future :-

1) Create a new mechanism that distributes coins more fairly and evenly across many, many more miners so that market manipulation is drastically reduced - at least at the launch - and large-scale wealth hoarding becomes more difficult.

2) Take the current coin distribution and re-allocate it more fairly and go forward from there with much more people actively involved.

3) Rebrand Libertycoin and drop the concept of Liberty and remain the same as every other coin.

I can't see a way where Liberty can exist when the coins are controlled by a ruling Aristocracy of a few wealthy owners.

The two are diametrically opposite to each other, you can't have both at the same time, within the same system.

It's one or the other.  

Only solutions 1 & 2, or variations thereof, can release control so that Liberty can evolve.

There will always be the urge to acquire more wealth.  That is human nature.

In a marathon race, there are always fast runners, charity runners, people dressed as lions, olympic gold medalists.

However, they all start from the same start line and they run the same race, regardless of where they end up once the marathon is under way.  At the beginning, everyone has an equal starting position.

It's not really fair if someone jumps into a car to get to the end (ASIC), someone else takes shortcuts (pre-mine) or people throw rocks into the road  to stop the runners at the back from moving forward (DDoS).

It needs to be a level playing field from the outset, to give everyone the same chance, and the current state of cryptos is not.

What is likely to happen is the name stays as Libertycoin, the concept of Liberty is ignored or oversold, the coin distribution remains asis and it will be lost amongst the other cryptos without the innovation it requires to evolve.

This is where radical thinking is going to help us more than anything.

One of the primary problems with cryptos is that they are pretty much all the same, they are all built on the same mechanism and unfortunately, open to exploitation and corruption, hoarding and whaling.

One of the ways I look at this is similar to the idea of "quality".  Quality is not something that you can simply add on when you've completed a product and hope for the best, it is about the entire process from beginning to end.  If quality is addressed from the start and maintained throughout the development and delivery processes, a quality product is almost guaranteed, whatever that product may be.

I'm not sure it's as simple as adding something to Libertycoin to make it different, but reassessing it's very foundations and questioning why it exists and what are it's goals.

Fundamentaly, right now, it is exactly the same as every other coin.

With a solid mission statement that sets it apart from all the other coins, progress can be made to move it away from the current state of all the other cryptos and into new, unexplored territory.

But the disproportionate distribution of wealth at it's very core - regardless of who owns it - will always hold it back.  

In the French Revolution, the Aristocracy were beheaded by the people!

No, I am not saying we need to take the devs to the guillotine!  haha!

Once the Aristocracy were overthrown, their wealth was accessed and redistributed.

The redistribution of the current wealth of Libertycoin is critical to moving forward, IMO.  This is very radical indeed, but gets to the very core of the issue of Liberty and crypto coins in general.  Without this, it may never move forward at all - at least not under the banner of Liberty.  It may need to drop the entire concept of Liberty and just become another coin so that the few wealthy individuals can remain wealthy.  This is the easy way out.

I do not anticipate that this redistribution will occur, however.

The fair distribution needs to be done at the very beginning of a coin's life cycle, it will be almost impossible to do now that those coins are beyond the mining phase and in the hands of a few individuals.

It's not so much about the solidity of the programming or new delivery mechanisms, but the coins that were created and where they are right now.

There needs to be a mechanism by which no individual can ever hold more than, say, 1% or less of all coins in circulation for
example.

Then it becomes the coin of the many, not the few.  Then, as the coin gains value, everyone wins at once.


  

Thanks for that.

The comparison to doctors & disease may have been too specific when I mentioned cancer.  But the anology still remains.

I have become a little defensive in the face of all of the personal attacks, but I also could have just walked away and left Libertycoin to rot in the gutter with all the other cryptos.  

It has been asked "why am I still here"?

It is not to defend a personal, skewed viewpoint, but to clarify what Liberty is about and to expose some painful truths in cryptos that not many people want to hear.  In my attempts to lift the wool from people's eyes, I have come across in an unintended way.

@Community :-

I apologise for coming across as a bit preachy.

It is often hard to be heard in a roomful of people if everyone is shouting "piss off!"

I will try to temper my posts so they are more constructive and going in a more positive direction.

The wounds in crypto needed to be opened first so they can be understood, cleaned, dressed and the healing process begin.

I have the right to defend myself, but I will try to do it in a better way.

Personal attacks don't help in any way whatsoever and I would appreciate it if people concentrated on the message and not kicking the messenger!  I haven't personally attacked anyone, I have responded to what they have written.

I stand by everything I have previously posted and a lot of it does not need to be said again.

Long Live Liberty!

Open source, by it's very nature, is based on Liberty.

It places control and decision maiking in the hands of the many.

For Liberty to work, the people need input.

Slavishly conforming to a devs ideas without critical analysis and without public approval is just more slavery in a fancy package.

So the devs themsleves really need to get involved, listen to the people, so they can accomodate the viewpoints of others and produce a shining star.

No system is ever going to be perfect, that's silly.  

Perfect societies, ie Utopias, are doomed to extinction because they have no room to evolve and grow because perfection has already been acheived and can't be improved upon.

Nature, even after 4.5 billion years,  is still working out where the hell to go!  Because nature does not seek perfection, it seeks growth.


 

That is the foundation of Liberty!

Liberty is not wealth in the hands of the few, but generosity in the hands of the many.

Liberty is based on sharing and giving, not selfishness and taking.

Are you here to feed your brothers, or just to feed yourself?

If Libertycoin wants to stand out from the crowd, it must do that by understanding the past, getting a grip on the present and creating a new future.  I know people may think I am being obnoxious, but if a doctor diagnoses cancer, maybe treatment can be sought.

Hiding that cancer away and not seeking help means an early death.

Exposing the problems of cryptos in general (cancer) will give this community a chance to try something new with Libertycoin in particular (chemotherapy).

I'm still here because I'm fighting for Liberty - where very few people are - in an arena of defamation, flaming and ridicule.

Many people here don't want Liberty, they want money.   They will become a new aristocracy - a digital ruling elite - at the expense of the weak and unwary.  Cryptos, currently, are disenfranchising - the very opposite of Liberty.  They are exclusive, not inclusive.  

What will Libertycoin do to become all-inclusive and break away from all the other cryptos that are based on exclusion while shouting "everyone join"?  They only shout this to fleece them of their wealth and laugh at them.

They seem to be blinded by greed and do not care one iota for their fellow man.

Long Live Liberty!

The "ruling elite" is a reference to the fact that the vast majority of the wealth is in the hands of a small amount of people.

It doesn't have to be about palaces and champagne, it can be about minimum wage and equality.

The power should be in the hands of the many so small groups of people cannot take control.

Then you are advocating secrecy and censorship over Liberty and common good.   Hmmmm.

Very true.

There is a big disparity between theory and practice in cryptos - both in the Satoshi methodology (technology outstripping an idea) and the ideology behind the implementation (cryptos imply freedom from banks, but creates more banks).