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1  Bitcoin / Meetups / Re: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA on: November 28, 2013, 03:18:30 AM
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA

Looking for interest or ideas for the Twin Cities area.

I'd like to organize another meet up.  I have access to large meeting rooms in downtown Minneapolis, or could be responsible for organizing something in a Twin Cities bar.

Please post if you're interested.

Thanks!

bamp
2  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Origins of Bitcoin on: November 19, 2013, 02:49:24 PM
Did a little sleuthing today upon arriving to the office.  I had remembered something from an old book I've had for more than 12 years.  A book I used to help write some encryption classes in Java before Java offered them.  I remembered that the author presented a payment system leveraging a protocol hashing and encryption.  This wasn't my interest at the time, but somehow it stuck with me.  Well I found the book again and did some reading (I've put this off too long).

"A really clever thing about this protocol is that the encryption key for each message depends on the previous message.  Each message doubles as an authenticator for all previous messages.  This means that someone can't replay an old message; the receiver could never decrypt it.  I am impressed with this idea and expect that it will see wider use once it becomes widely known." [1]

I don't have the first edition of this book, so I don't know exactly when this was penned, but not after 1995.

[1] - Schneier, Bruce (1996). Applied Cryptography Second Edition : protocols, algorithms, and source code in C. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 590
3  Economy / Economics / Re: When will Bitcoin take over the money transfer market on: November 18, 2013, 01:13:49 AM
If I look at this:
http://coinometrics.com/bitcoin/btix
I think WU (and all competitors) has a serious problem with their core business model. It is no more a question if but more when Bitcoin will take over the market.
My estimate is at the current growth rate (0.59 % per day - that was for the past but now the growth rate seems to escalate) it will take at most one year.
My suggestion to WU would be to turn into a company for Bitcoin ATMs very fast before other companies take over this business.

I agree with this and have thought about it for a few years.  WU is foolish to not be offering this service.  As far as fincen is concerned btc is only a problem once moved into cash, and that is what WU does.... they're a regulated money exchange.

I'll send them more resumes.  I want to think they'll get it soon.
4  Economy / Economics / Re: personal dilemma on: November 10, 2013, 02:52:13 AM
I am in need of a new car now as mine is on a quick decline to repair bill-hell, I could cash in my BTC now and buy something pretty reasonable, about £8,000. But I'm not sure this is wise as I think we still have a long way to go with the price.

This will sound like your dad, but anyway...

I want you to think of this another way.  You should separate out the issues.  A basic need in life for where most of us live is a healthy reliable car [1].  If your car is on the way out or causing stress in some manner you need to acquire a new (to you) one.

Never go into debt to buy a car for more then 6,000 USD.  If you can't afford a 6k car then get a loan to acquire one worth about 6k.  Having something with basic reliability, clean, and well running is important to freeing up your life to pursue other ventures without needless wasting resources.

I would sell 6k worth of btc to acquire a car today if you can't pay cash for it.  This is coming from a guy that has sold btc in the past to acquire things that if I hadn't the present value of btc lost for those items is amazing.  A 300k motorcycle (purchased for 4k usd worth btc at the time), the 60k necklace for my wife (500 usd worth of btc at the time), etc.

I don't regret any of this.

I would NOT take out a conventional loan for a 6k car if I could acquire it with selling btc today, only because you're doubling down on your finical risk.

Move your life forward a little, and if this crashes you are in a better spot then before.  I don't believe it will crash soon (maybe not ever), but I do know that regrets come from both sides of this game.  If you can modestly and prudently move your life forward by liquidating a few btc then do it.

I think a good rule is to pull 20% of your btc profits annually for things like other investments, or a little better standard of living.

Try not to make it an all or nothing game.



[1] - note I didn't say flashy/expensive high end fools toy
5  Economy / Exchanges / Re: MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering] on: November 04, 2013, 01:25:27 AM
Anyone with a new witdraw processed??

Wich date??

 Huh
I'm still waiting for my four figure withdrawal from July. Their backlog doesn't seem to be moving very quickly.

If it's not in EUR, PLN, or JPY, then it won't be going out anytime soon unless you pay the extra 5% to withdraw, which also currently have a backlog.



What's the status on this?  I've also taken big delays from swift transfers to the US.  Is there another thread addressing this?  How are the bank wire transfers working on bitstamp?
6  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: I'm looking for a decade(s)-old article about cryptography that anticipated BTC on: September 13, 2013, 08:02:21 PM
this --> http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/is-the-national-security-agency-behind-bitcoin/

brings you to this --> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/money/nsamint/nsamint.htm

People think my tinfoil hat is on too tight, but I've always suspected something bigger behind bitcoin.

Where are you presenting?
7  Bitcoin / Meetups / Re: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA on: July 20, 2013, 03:17:00 AM
bumping for the twincities!
8  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Once again, what about the scalability issue? on: July 18, 2013, 12:41:20 AM
We won't get some real big transaction volume because of this issue.

It will just force the economies around the system to change.  Not everyone will be able to maintain a real block chain.  We need to work on trust issues with relying on 3rd parties to verify transactions for us....

this doesn't slow the machine down, just causes change.
9  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How could Bitcoin be used as currency among inmates? on: July 02, 2013, 12:59:33 AM
Tech hurtles are too big when cigs and drugs do just fine.
10  Bitcoin / Meetups / Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA on: July 01, 2013, 02:36:39 PM
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA

Looking for interest or ideas for the Twin Cities area.  I understand that there was a meet up back in April.  If someone could post some meeting minutes from that (or general experience) that would be great.  Here is the site for that meet up --> http://www.meetup.com/Everything-Bitcoin/events/110608472/

I'd like to organize another meet up.  I have access to large meeting rooms in downtown Minneapolis, or could be responsible for organizing something in a Twin Cities bar.

Please post if you're interested.


Thanks!
11  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Idea 4 lost bitcoin problems on: June 20, 2013, 01:21:37 AM
NO, I am saying if it was not accepted within 72 hours, and would only apply if someone wanted to pay the fee for it..

I don't know the right answer, I do know that there is no recourse right now if that happens.. And I feel something with recourse could help bitcoin go more mainstream..  Maybe a charge back model like credit cards or something would be better I don't know.. Just an idea..

BTC having, "no recourse," creates an entirely new sort of transfer of value system.  It has different abilities (some that make it more powerful), then our traditional models of value transfer.  People want to mold it into what they know which is what they're comfortable with.

In the instance you gave, I assume that the party sending the btc had already received value from the party receiving the btc.  If the btc are lost it is a problem with the seller of value not the seller of btc.  The agreement is good, why do you care to get your btc back.

This sort of feature could occur in 3rd party escrow services, and maybe once high bred multi sig can be levered (will still need 3rd party), but I don't believe it would ever be part of the main protocol.

Good luck!
12  Other / Off-topic / Re: Steve Gibson Nails Prism and Some Light Reading on: June 14, 2013, 03:35:24 AM
Come on! Old man wasted one hour just to tell that NSA uses optical splitters at traffic exchanges to get a copy of most traffic and therefore PRISM is a fitting name. Yep, it makes sense, but what's the news here? What's the news in any of the recent revelations, actually? I thought it is a common knowledge that NSA and their ilk have a copy of most comms. Encrypt everything. Nothing has changed.

Great statement.

We've known that all major isp's have been fully tapped for at least 8 years.  The bigger questions are about the nature in which they've matured in processing this massive amount of data.  <-- that helps you to under stand the need for the two huge multi billion dollar dc's being built today by the nsa.

Here are the questions that define the future:

Can they MITM 1024b tls?
What is the depth of their access to Windows systems? <-- previous leaks talk about built in keys for nsa
The contributions to the core linux kernel from the nsa, do they weaken the random number generator with their provided cryptography updates?

The foundations of everything we do on computing systems come into question.

I sense a mass departure from online (cloud) backup solutions.

The cloud in general will suffer for a good length of time.

There will be a mass arrival of methods to conceal any activity you have on the dirty internets. <-- business to jump into now.

good luck fuckers!
13  Other / Off-topic / Re: What would you like to know about Prism on: June 14, 2013, 01:05:14 AM
I'm writing an article for Bitcoin Magazine on Prism and I'd like to ask this community what they would like to know about Prism

Do you have any information on how prism works, or are you going pure gumshoe?
14  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Where are the Japanese? on: June 05, 2013, 05:49:04 PM
Please. That sounds so ethnocentrically ignorant.

Don't get mad so quickly.  It is true that culturally today the majority of people in power don't step out of line, or encourage it.  It is also true that the next generation is more American (especially in their waist line), but those people have yet to reach to any prominence of power yet in the system.

Let's try to talk this out with out calling each other names, or getting mad.
15  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Where are the Japanese? on: June 05, 2013, 04:07:58 PM
I think the question has been asked before here, and afai remember some have speculated that the Japanese culture is somewhat more hierarchical and authoritarian.

This is exactly correct.  Japanese culturally don't like to step out of line.

I've often thought of bitcoin as being started by some government entity.  the romanticism of a lone programer implementing and seeding this technology feels a little too good to be true, but alas these are my feelings.

whom ever owns the initial bitcoins will own the throne of the finicial world if bitcoin takes off... who is Santoshi?
16  Bitcoin / Press / Re: 2013-05-01 Bill Gross "There will be haircuts" on: June 05, 2013, 03:05:56 AM
Quote
"There will be haircuts"
...so that buzzing sound in the distance isn't the economic recovery getting closer? - but CNN just said everything's fine and the dow was going to break 15000 today Huh

Patience my friend. The monetary revolution you have in your mind isn't going to happen as fast as you think.

Quoting Bill Gross:

"'Good as Money,' proclaimed the ad for Twenty Grand Vodka infused with Cognac. Being a beer drinker, and never having cashed in a Budweiser to pay for a fill-up at the local gas station, I said to myself “Man, that must be really good stuff!” Even in a financial meltdown I thought, you could use it in place of cash, diamonds, gold or Bitcoins! And if the Mongol hordes descend upon us during a future revolution, who wouldn’t prefer a few belts of Twenty Grand on the way out, instead of some shiny rocks and a slingshot?"

"Well, not being inebriated at that moment I immediately shifted focus to a more serious topic. What IS money? A medium of exchange and a store of value is a rather succinct definition, but we generally think of it as cash or perhaps checks that reflect some balance of “ready” cash at a friendly bank. Yet as technology and financial innovation have progressed over the past few decades, and as central banks have tenuously validated the liquidity and price of various forms of credit, it seems that the definition of money has been extended;"

Mr. Gross is starting to grasp the foundations of bitcoin and it's relation to existing asset value structures.  I believe he is eluding to this in the second paragraph.

"What IS money? A medium of exchange and a store of value is a rather succinct definition"

The beauty of the above quote is that it simply embodies bitcoin.

medium of exchange - world wide p2p block chain distribution
store of value - transaction value (includes coin generation for now) aka... proof of work

I like this quote best, "who wouldn’t prefer a few belts of Twenty Grand [expensive vodka] on the way out, instead of some shiny rocks and a slingshot?"
17  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: DDoS attacks on: May 27, 2013, 01:52:19 AM
You can never pay them, it was mentioned here before, but as a good philosophy in general is to never pay blackmail or extortion... they'll always come back for more.  You need to upgrade your stuff.  Get an Akamai front end, a WAF tuned into typical ddos methods, and maybe some simple routines in your code to better verify normal users and not bad accounts.... but this all takes money.

Be glad the day you've been ddos'ed, it means you've arrived.  You just need to get your shit together now.  Be better, faster and stronger.


Good luck!
18  Economy / Speculation / Re: will recent crash stabilize? on: April 28, 2013, 04:08:57 AM
will the recent crash stabilize if so how long do you think?

if you new the answer to this you could retire
19  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Breaking News: Satoshi sighted as member of "the Foundation" on: April 28, 2013, 03:59:16 AM
As usual, this is a pure troll thread, caused not by an evil conspiracy to control bitcoin, but by a too-tight tinfoil hat.

Not so.  If they desire to be transparent they'll produce the legally executed articles of incorporation.  They could legally assign ownership to an individual that provides a key, but why wouldn't they produce the signed agreement?

They need to let us know how transparent they want to be!
20  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Breaking News: Satoshi sighted as member of "the Foundation" on: April 28, 2013, 03:24:08 AM
calm down you fools.  THE BITCOIN FOUNDATION, INC. is registered in DC and should have filed papers stating this before advertising it.  We need someone to pull down the official legal filing, and make sure the i's are dotted.

If they're registering as a private organization and protecting their original bylaws by being private <-- tear it up on this forum... I'll get some backup

If they desire transparency, then they'll produce pdf's of the contract that was executed for the articles of incorporation.  We need the originals not the digital ones... the ones with signatures.

I do contracts all the time.... there's always a last minute edit (initialed by all parties), and full john hancocks for a body of work that usually is never perfect in word format (you need the scanned pdf).
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