Can you tell there isn't one if you don't have the source code? It has adware and spyware by default, so why not also backdoors?

The server database program Interbase had a backdoor until it was released as open source:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/01/01/11/1318207/interbase-backdoor-secret-for-six-years-revealed-in-source

1. Observe that Bitcoin-Qt is released under the MIT license, not under any of the copyleft licenses. This allows you to modify the source code and distribute it as proprietary software. So, you can take advantage (and continue to take advantage) of all their work, but they can't do the same. Cool.

2. Develop a very fast bitcoin client, with an attractive but minimalistic GUI that's easy to use and has lots of great features.

3. Make an Android, iPhone, Windows, Linux, Mac, etc versions of it.

4. Make it proprietary. Never give out the source code! This is the most important thing.

5. Install adware, spyware and backdoors such as in uTorrent/BitTorrent^tm. Don't worry about people finding out about the back doors, they can't tell if it's there without the source code. Tip: don't activate the adware/spyware features until enough people are using it. Let them get accustomed to the program first. Most are too lazy to switch to another client despite the adware and spyware if they are already accustomed to it. Want proof that they won't switch? Take a look at uTorrent/BitTorrent^tm.

6. Advertise and get more people to use it.

7. Sell out to any company or government agency of your choosing.

8. ….

9. Profit!


If you found this tutorial useful, please donate to 1Hw3Meb9kbYZtGoSWQNqxa9Qw5pc6prFCe

Did someone set up a site called LitecoinDice?

That was the first thought that came in my mind when I read the title of this topic.

Thank you for answering my questions. 

I prefer to keep only digital copies of the keys, passwords, etc, because they can be encrypted and it's easier to make backup copies.

Thanks for clarifying this.

Although I wonder how much money it would take to carry out these kinds of attacks and whether or not there is a reason to worry when considering buying bitcoins.

I'm new to bitcoin I was reading about the transaction fees here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fee

It states:

"Transaction fees are voluntary on the part of the person making the bitcoin transaction, as the person attempting to make a transaction can include any fee or none at all in the transaction."

Can governments, botnets or someone with enough computing and networking power keep sending an infinite amount of transactions back and forth their own addresses automatically and grow the blockchain to a size that for most people is impossible to keep on their hard drivers? Or can verifying all those transactions take up too much resources to everyone but supercomputers?

Thanks for answering some of the questions.

It's technical uncertainties like these and the fear of losing everything that prevent a lot of people and companies from adopting bitcoin.

Thanks for the replies.

I guess it might be a glitch then.

Some newbie questions:

1. I make regular backups of all important files, but how do I verify that my wallet.dat file is not damaged?

2. What if my hard drive has bad sectors and can it affect the wallet.dat file?

3. Will the wallet.dat file still open even if it has like a few bytes missing?

4. Could I be backing up a damaged file and not being aware of it?

5. What if my computer crashes or there is a power failure while the wallet.dat file is being modified by the bitcoin software?

I checked all the addresses on blockchain.info and one of the addresses that was hidden had 0 BTC under the field "Final Balance" and the other one that was hidden had 0.0004 BTC.

I can understand why the first one disappeared temporarily, but not why the second one disappeared.


I also experimented with a bit of mining a little while ago and I got quite a few Blue Screens of Death while I was doing it. I had to press the restart button on my computer while bitcoin-qt was still running. Could that have possibly messed up something?

Sometimes if I start up the bitcoin-qt program and click on the "Receive coins" button, then I can only see some of my addresses, but not all of them. Same thing happens with the address book. I added an address there yesterday and when I started the program today, there was nothing there.

If I restart the program, it displays all my addresses and my address book correctly.

This happens from time to time and I have no idea what is causing it.