Just making a thread... for future use!

 Last time I looked at LETs accounting systems was a couple of years ago now. What's changed since?

 Ideally we're looking for a way for members to go online, check their balance and pay and be paid easily. I shouldn't need to go into too much detail as to why the idea is to use this rather than Bitcoin or cash other than to say that there is some firewalling to the market this way.

 Last I looked we were going to use Ripple but it was very different back then and I don't want that much ease of connectivity to other markets.

 So what I'm looking for is decentralised accounting.

 Would this be OpenTransactions? Is it stable yet? (edit, update: No, not ready according to the git site) Is it (very) easy to use for old people? How would we handle people who don't really use computers? If so, where would be best to host it? I could pay for a low end server and do it but I'd rather use someone else if possible.

As an alternative, in a simple way Ripple could be used for this couldn't it? Let's say I was treasurer, then everyone would have to trust me with their currency. The next problem would be that I can't change my password and I can't share the job. So I think Ripple is no good (yet?).

 Any solution has to be totally ready as an alternative, in a simple way Ripple could be used for this couldn't it? Let's say I was treasurer, then everyone would have to trust me with their currency. The next problem would be that I can't change my password and I can't share the job. So I think Ripple is no good (yet?). And with a slick interface. There can't be any java interface shernanagans for the users.  

 What about more established online accounting systems? The most important thing is that any data can be exported and migrated to any new system that comes out down the line. Could a group edited Google spreadsheet actually do this since we have such a simple system?

 At the moment they're using one guy who makes a note of everything manually on the phone.

edit:

Just found Cyclos... seems like the best yet?
There's also https://www.community-exchange.org/ but it looks centralised and not making use of cryptography as much as Cyclos.

Is it possible to rent access to a gaming rig via RDP or something similar?

I know you wouldn't get sound and they would be lag but DayZmod would be alright wouldn't it?

 - and you could use Teamspeak on your own computer for voice comms.

Thoughts? Seems like a good alternative thing to do than mining and it would be useful for me to try out. Get in touch if you want to test it out and you're in the UK

Increasingly interaction with fiat currencies is involving more and more "verification". This typically means involves finding a utility bill and ID document and uploading it to a server.

We have no idea whether the ID is actually of someone using an account. We have no idea how the documents are stored,
yet we see passport scans being sold on the deepweb no problem and anyone at the exchange with access to these files can reuse them again to open an account somewhere else...

Does nobody notice how ridiculous this is?

In the UK for example, there are laws on storing certain documents. Credit cards have a whole load of guff legislation regarding them; visa then awards a compliance level. In order to get to the various compliance levels companies have to do various things to get there; it's a real ball ache for all involved. It helps but of course beaurocracy is one step away from the crushing inefficiencies of communism and statism slowing it down for solutions like Bitcoin to fill the gap.

Surely there's a 3rd party out there to store documentation on behalf of companies? Can't something like OpenID step in to help too?

I think my company uses VISA recharge to pay expenses to people in some situations.
I know cards have a facility to take funds for refunds but can that be used to fund any prepay card? If so, an exchange could charge a prepaid card with the proceeds of a Bitcoin sale.

I need access to a UK VPN or VPS as my server has fallen over. I've looked but from experience many seem to make the accounts manually and that's too slow. Is there anything that will auto setup the same day?

A lot of people sit on BTC waiting for it to rise. Some others don't buy it because they think it will fall.
I do neither.
I feel that I can't tell whether it will go up or down. I sit on the fence and any reserve I have is quite small on the basis that it's a useful emergency fund.

But I still use it to pay for things instead of hoarding because I sit on the fence. I feel if you are a bear you are wrong... and if you are a bull you are wrong. Both think they are right. Both think that they are more intelligent than 50% of the market. If you pause for a second and think... can you really out trade the market? Do you have time to monitor MtGox for lag? Do you have time to follow tech analysis and trade accordingly... or program something to trade for you that will work even when your exchange is down?
Probably the answer is no. It's a full time job and the crashes usually revolve around the weekend.
Bear/bull thinking seems to me as a binary thought trap.

Why not sit on the fence? If we do that then it's possible to use BTC for normal transactions. The problem with greed is that it takes all our focus. Instead of getting on with work we're thinking of the price. If we can sit on the fence and forget the price then we can get on with work. Those who are working with BTC are making the real profits. Sure there are fluctuations to mitigate for but in general having a skill is much more valuable than money in any form.

However... it's genuinely addictive. Kick that habit. Post back here the longest amount of time you've gone without checking the price!

 Let's say you buy a property in Spain. You can have it denominated in £ or €. Let's say we go for Euros. Then Spain goes back to pesos.

 Most likely the mortgage gets converted to pesos and then the peso devalues so you're in profit... but that's not the only scenario.

The banks aren't going to be happy with switching to pesos? What if the mortgage could stay in Euros and then your asset is going to devalue massively. It seems less likely but is it possible? Looking at history you might think no but those examples are different in that this time we have the eurozone and a group of countries - is there an analog in history... US states or anything like that?

If one believes in a switch to peso then perhaps it's better to wait for that switch and devaluation first. Or perhaps not - perhaps in a situation like that trade with things like offshore accounts or Bitcoin would now be under massive attack by governments... and might not be an option because everything is such a mess.

 Is it possible to use a mortgage to make a bet on this?

Just wondering if there are any paper based/brainwallet/offline wallets for any of the various alternate cryptocurrencies?

 Let's say we're staying in a hotel. You connect over open WiFi... this doesn't sound safe to me for sending BTC.

 What if the WiFi is encrypted but all the guests in the hotel know the password?

 What if you're using a remotely hosted blockchain such as Electrum or Bitcoinspinner?

 My guess is that the best you should do is connect to a VPN or VPS using a one time password or 2 factor auth and then you'll probably want to run a thin bitcoin client athough ideally the full client would be best?

 Failing that then perhaps if using Electrum then make sure you have an SSL connection to the server in settings.

 A more likely threat to me seems a man in the middle with MtGox website rather than actually intercepting transactions because you have the private key right and the private key signs where the transaction is going - the worst that can happen is the attacker drops the packets so the payment doesn't get through... then you pay again, possibly.

 So, Bitcoin in hotels... comments?

 I had a look at Coinapult's SMS wallet. Pretty handy but a shame to have to trust them. It would be better to be able to send such messages to your own phone number at home either through gnokki or by linking to a SMS server where you can rent a virtual mobile number online. All this would be useful for travellers in countries with unreliable infrastructure or where it's hard to buy a local simcard with prepay internet - Iran... others?

I wanted to buy an Arbitridge fund on the Rock Trading but it's in SLL and I'm blocked by the risk API.

Where can I find the same thing but in BTC?

http://www.goldtrends.net/FreeDailyBlog?mode=PostView&bmi=1267250

^ here this guy gives a 3 stage theory on gold's loss of value recently.

1) "FED will no longer QE"
2) "Cyprus to sell gold"
3) Crash the physical gold selling system so people can't sell in that market

 However... before all this I read plenty of tech analysis saying gold and especially silver as in a downwave generally for this year.

 However, the theory regards gold is useful for the Bitcoin price fluctuations we've seen, especially regards (3)

 I subscribed to quite a few sources in order to catch a flash crash, sell high and buy low.

None of them called a top or forecast this crash other than to say "if it goes below the x line then sell". I don't know how automatically sell below a moving line and I was busy today so I missed selling. Not a major bummer since I only speculate with a small amount but it does make me think I've wasted my money on tech analysis - once again another failed experiment!

 Do you agree?
 Do you have a method for automating buy and sell?

 
 
 Took the phone in the sea in a "aquapac" but took the battery out. Got back on land, found moisture inside. Put the phone out to dry for ~3hours then tried to switch on. I expect it to be ok since there was no battery inside to short out. Nothing. No vibrate.

 I think it should be possible to rescue the data onboard. Unfortunately I hadn't backed up because I was going to copy the backup in an email and became worried on the security of the email... plus the BTC value was lower back then.

 I think it's rescueable. It's the photos I'm really after though - I think CM10 doesn't have the option to save to the external SD card otherwise I would have done that.

 Any tips on anything else to try? Any service you recommend to fix it? How much do you think it's worth? The screen is also scratched, the gorilla glass came off.

 Would you feel that you can buy a house directly with coins?

-or do you think that you would need to show the how you got the cash? -or that you might be taxed, then fined for not declaring until nothing is left?

 Do you have an exit strategy for any profits? What on earth will you do with all that money if we have $1000-5000/btc?

 Just wondering!

[I can find no information on more complex analysis applied to a network or at least just more than one stock - can you help?]

Consider these links:

PPCoin Proof of Stake: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.0
Qubic IP related proof of stake: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112676.0
Network effect in cloud computing observations: http://thenetworkeffect.blogspot.com.es/2008/09/10-laws-of-cloudonomics.html
Banking and superconnected companies study: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf
The network that runs the world: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html#bx283545B1
Elliot waves, Fibonnaci numbers, stock exchange maths (got anymore links?): http://www.goldennumber.net/fibonacci-stock-market-analysis/

Markets are networks just like Bitcoin. Bitcoin may fix the inflation problem but it doesn't address the network effect.

- This is why we have MtGox so big
- this is why we have a number of dominant mining pools
but also
- this is why we have such swings in the stock market
- could this be the main cause of equality in the world?

At a minimum this undermines Bitcoin which is supposed to be decentralised. At a maximum it means we will always see these swings in markets that destroy people's lives, make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

One way to address it is to allow people to trade easily. Traders analyse the market and make a profit out of the network effect, usually in 2D as chartists. This only seems to smooth out the market bumps a little bit. I can find no information on more complex analysis applied to a network or at least just more than one stock - can you help?

I think this will always be a problem unless something is done at network level and finally we have a chance with cryptocurrencies.
I can't think of anything more pressing.

To address this I think you need to change the proof of work to working out this network effect combined with the QubicCoin identity by IP method. It sounds complicated but I my gut feeling is that to the right person an elegant solution is entirely possible to design. That right person with the background knowledge of this might be working as a programmer in investment banking, working for a hedge fund or just themselves day trading a profit.

Can you help me find any information related to this?

We are not punishing wealthy people here. We are not intending to punish big nodes per-sec. We are looking to cancel out this network effect where big nodes attract more and more traffic.

p2p load balancing? http://www.scientific.net/AMM.220-223.2578.pdf
p2p bottleneck mitogation: http://ojs.academypublisher.com/index.php/jait/article/view/4153
Irregular load balancing:
What search terms should I be using?
"network topology balancing"?

ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce a two-phase dynamic load-balancing technique for P2P computing systems. The first phase consists of mapping a P2P network onto a hierarchical topology based on 1-D space tessellations. This hierarchy is called TreeP (tree based P2P architecture). The second phase consists of balancing the load among the peers using the PSLB (positional scan load-balancing) technique, which is well suited for regular topologies. We study this technique and optimize its implementation on the TreeP topology. This technique is simple, efficient, scalable, and does not introduce a considerable overhead as shown in the experimental results and theoretical study

Paywall here - http://www.researchgate.net/publication/224674655_On_the_Efficiency_of_Dynamic_Load_Balancing_on_P2P_Irregular_Network_Topologies

Another paywall:

ABSTRACT

One of the challenges of P2P systems is to perform load balancing efficiently. A distributed hash table (DHT) abstraction, heterogeneous nodes, and non uniform distribution of objects cause load imbalance in structured P2P overlay networks. Several solutions are suggested to solve this problem but they have some restrictions. They assume the homogeneous capabilities of nodes, unawareness of the link latency during transferring load and imposing logical structures to collect and reassign load. This paper presents a distributed load balancing algorithm with topology awareness using the concept of virtual servers. In our proposed approach, each node collects neighborhood load information from physically close nodes and reassigns virtual servers to overlay nodes according to topology of underlying network. Consequently, it provides rapid convergence on load balance and reduces the load transfer cost. Moreover, our parametric algorithm increases the quality of load balancing among close nodes of overlay and also provides a new tradeoff between the quality of load balancing and load transfer cost among all overlay nodes. Our simulations show that our approach reduces the load transfer cost and saves a great network bandwidth.

^ http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5356795&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D5356795

Topology-aware routing in structured peer-to-peer overlay
networks:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:mdDBm9qJTN0J:www.mpi-sws.org/~druschel/publications/Pastry-locality.pdf+&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgCFxw_yaFmRRDaDjW0A-8NklAdbUrLzJF-lvoRqNY6ctC9keugcqVuSlyIojpsalvOHn9q2x3MgUNDU2MdfcXcYvz7Zo6YFdSawml0nDzeRR9s8jBZFegQeY_fVuIZIh-Iidht&sig=AHIEtbRlVPaDOPdXprtR8ba9SmRu72CmCw

 I did a little experiment selling half a coin a while a go (was worth a lot less). I specified only buyers from the UK and some other things but after a month I got the credit card fraud chargeback as expected

 The winner was in Singapore so proof of delivery didn't seem possible... I should have cut the experiment short there but well...

 So, when it came to responding to the dispute I decided to file under "refund provided". Under tracking number I quoted the Bitcoin address and under tracking company I used 'other' and Blockchainexplorer.info !

 Of course I don't expect this to work with Paypal's robots but I still like to do it anyway because if I was in a court room I could imagine myself doing a fair argument on it - that address is the delivery address and blockchain are indeed proof of delivery! The only thing could be the use of the word 'address' and the virtual world but I think even that could fit!

 I will now do another experiment with a much smaller amount, probably BTC0.01 and have another look at the options to see if I can come up with a way to do it and not get scammed.

Learnt a few things in doing it. One thing is that I'm sure I only wanted buyer in the UK but the scammer was able to put an address in Singapore...
the next is regards proof of delivery - don't necessarily need a tracking number to dispute the claim!

After it all I now see ways to scam anyone - so, so easy. The only difference is I have a conscious and there's no one I hate that much to screw over!

This is a real eye opener because I always thought to myself "well, at least there's always ebay if I want to make some bucks"... but clearly, because ebay UK forces us to accept Paypal... it is not. That is - in a crisis people will get more and more desperate so although this scam is hot on Bitcoin if things get worse this can become more and more prevalent. Even more reason to get into a value providing business that accepted Bitcoin.

If you're interested, the scammers address I sent to was:

http://blockexplorer.com/address/17HX9LAgFWqWiB9B6wo5hWpzGUigBE79Sv

Saranshi Nais
nurainif
naissaran@yahoo.com.sg

Postal address:
Nais Saranshi
Blk 53 Marine Terrace #04-216
Singapore 440052



Note to seller:
17HX9LAgFWqWiB9B6wo5hWpzGUigBE79Sv

I remember reading something about tying an address to an IP somewhere?

There are services out there for this but they all have bad reviews.

I'm looking for someone to receive a letter for me, check it for drugs (it's from Google so should only contain a plastic tube and paper I guess) and send it to me in the UK.

You don't need to have a load of good reputation since the genome service can only be used by me.

Less than a single BTC lost because I was experimenting with BTCJam, thinking I'd probably lose something. I kept reinvesting with just BTC1 but with slightly careful choices.

Seems that wasn't good enough.

Bemtje, Paranorman, SynOps all overdue.

O well, experiment concluded :-)

 I want to use Google's 23andme genome sequencing service. Of course, I want my data to be anonymous in case some criminal happens to have the same DNA as me! (it's actually possible - DNA is not infallible!).

 So in comes a great application for those semi anonymous polish cards! The only problem is that with shipping I'm ~$30 over the limit.

 Thus, I'm looking for someone to take delivery of the kit, check it for drugs and then send it on to me in the UK.

 I guess I offer 2x whatever the postage costs are. I'm getting $44 with USPS so that would be your fee.