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781  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin is becoming less and less adopted... on: September 06, 2013, 08:37:33 PM

True bitcoiners follow the advice of Mr. Nakamoto and use a new address each time, so it's hard to assess real numbers. But let's assume that each day roughly 100'000 new users join us (110k is the extremum on http://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses). Today the world population has been increased by 200'000 persons (350k born, 150k died). Tomorrow 200k will become 201k, then 202k and so on. Each day number of NON-bitcoiners becomes higher. Looks like a Zeno's paradox, doesn't it? Wink

If you select the log scale you will see the trend-line shows the number of Bitcoin users doubling every year. I am fairly certain the world population is growing at slower rate. Looks like there was a large peak in the spring. They'll be back.


782  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: Crypto Compression Concept Worth Big Money - I Did It! on: September 06, 2013, 05:30:53 PM

Numbers like what my compression ratio could be once the software is completed is pointless now.  All I can say is, for large data, like 100 Gigabytes, that kind of guess on my part is really just a guess (99.8%) at this point, and is not worth the getting all wound up over.  For a file the size of the Hutter contest, 100 megs, I am fairly certain the brute force method can still apply, so internal file splitting to achieve multiple crypto keys would not be needed for a file that small.  Thus, I am certain I could achieve 100% compression of that file, if you want to call it compression.  It's not really compression as society knows it today.  It's a way of hiding the data and then knowing how to bring it back from a known natural container.  Bringing it back requires brute force methods, as far as I know.  For 100 megs, if you want to split fine hairs, Aahzman, the final crypto key would like (not exactly like but something) like this:   (xxx.yyyyyyyyyy.zzz)  Where each other those three points are required to tell the decoding engine how to work out the details and solve the block.  Since only one crypto key would be needed, whatever amount of data that is above (3 x's 10 y's and 3 z's = 16 characters x 7bits = 112 bytes) ... so maybe for 100 megs, only 112 bytes would be needed.  But for larger sizes, I couldn't yet say until it was explored by my team.


Thanks again.

So you are guessing. If you read between the lines in Rationale for a Large Text Compression Benchmark, you will see they have an estimate of how much compression they expect is possible. The estimated entropy of the text, together with the pigeon hole principle (mentioned in this thread), puts an upper bound on the maximum compression that is achievable. That page estimates about an 8:1 compression ratio; assuming 8 bit characters (Wikipedia uses UTF-8). They even include a proof that a program can not be any shorter the length of the shortest possible program is not computable.:
Code:
The entropy of this and all compression benchmarks is unknown. Unfortunately there is no direct way to compute it.
In the absence of a known probability distribution, we may define the information content, or Kolmogorov complexity K(s), of a string s as the length of the shortest program that outputs s [11].
K(s) is independent of the language used to write the program, up to a constant independent of s, because any program written in language L1 can be rewritten in L2 by appending a compiler for L1 written in L2.

Kolmogorov also proved that K(s) is not computable. The proof is simple. Suppose that K(s) is computable. Then you could write a program to find the first string s whose complexity is at least n bits, for any n as follows:

  s := ""
  while K(s) < n do
    s := next(s)  // in some lexicographical ordering
  output s

Now let n = 10000. The above program is shorter than n bits, but it outputs s and K(s) = 10000, which is a contradiction. This proof can be applied to any language by making n sufficiently large.

I have seen cryptographic hash functions described as "compression" in the documentation for Freenet. The SHA-256 hash of the test file in that contest is:
2b49720ec4d78c3c9fabaee6e4179a5e997302b3a70029f30f2d582218c024a8  enwik8

However, that hash is not sufficient to reconstruct the original file: even with brute-force. Leaving aside the calculations that brute-forcing sha-256 would take more energy than is in the known universe, it is still not enough. The difficulty is that SHA-256 gives you a string of a fixed length. As with all hash functions, there exists an infinite number of inputs that will give you the same hash. So, even if you use "brute force" to find an input that gives you the same hash: chances are high that it won't actually match the original. You can try to improve the odds by making sure all of your guesses are the correct size. The pigeon hole principle says that even if you generate 100MB of noise: you only have to change 32 bytes in the file to generate a collision.
783  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: Crypto Compression Concept Worth Big Money - I Did It! on: September 06, 2013, 08:45:58 AM
Einstein did know his math.

I have see this before.

Bored one day, I invented a "new math" that did not use addition, subtraction, multiplcation, or division signs. I called the new sign a "fordor". It works by simply concatenating the two numbers around the operator. For example:
1@1 = 11
22@43 = 2243
1@98 = 198

An entrepreneur type who saw me working on this said that it may be useful for data compression in computers. Even as a child, I knew that this was not the case because any compression algorithm based on my "fodor" concept would be "lossy". Look at the '198' example above: it could be the result of 19@8 or even 198@.

However the entrepreneur type ran with the idea despite my objections. Perhaps he was thinking along the same lines before seeing my work on "fordors". I later learned he applied for a patent on the idea. He wrote software and produced retail boxes. I was told one example he liked to use is that a whale comes from a sperm and and egg.

The software never sold well because it never achieved it's 90% compression claims. In a review, PC Magazine said none of their test files resembled the originals upon decompression. If you don't believe me, I may be able to find some of these references, but it would take some digging.

The point is that ideas like this are common. Ideas are a dime as dozen. Implementing ideas is the difficult part: and you are not going to do it by isolating yourself for fear that somebody is going to steal your big pay-day.

Afraid someone will steal your idea?

Re the kook comments: kooks have a niche. They can force you to think about problems in new ways to explain why an idea won't work. It has in fact been explained in several ways, the OP does not appear to understand, why it won't work.
 
784  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: BTC will never extend more on: September 05, 2013, 07:47:30 PM
And bad for customers.
So why would customers choose to use it?
For normal, everyday, mundane transactions, Bitcoin doesn't really offer the normal consumer anything they don't already have with a combination of cash, debit cards, credit cards and PayPal.

Consumers pay those services (excluding cash obviously) fees for the protections offered.

A savvy user who is shopping at a proper merchant with a good reputation can avoid those fees with Bitcoin, which has much lower fees, if any at all.

I've said it many times, but I would happily spend bitcoins at places like newegg.com. I protect myself by shopping only at reputable merchants.


You will not see lower fees for using Bitcoin at any Credit Card accepting merchant. The Merchant Agreement prohibits this. The means that even people paying cash pay credit card fees. This leads people to think that credit cards have no fees and even pay you money every month. That money is coming out of the merchant fees that they are not allowed to pass on to credit card users.

I am interested in Bitcoin mainly for online shopping. I refuse to use a credit card for online purchases due to the replay attack. And the fine-print is scary.



785  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: newbie very important questions ..experts answer me here please .. on: September 01, 2013, 06:41:49 PM
The purpose of mining it to do the initial Bitcoin distribution, process transactions, and secure the network.

It is a lottery. Each hash is an entry into that lottery. Now that there are more than 2000 miners, the odds of winning for each miner are now proportionally smaller.

Mining was never really intended to turn your computer into a money printing machine; except to encourage initial adoption. If it was easy to generate Bitcoin, they would have no (or very little) value.
786  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: What would the effect be if ISPs are asked to block Bitcoin protocol traffic? on: September 01, 2013, 06:16:06 PM
That might be a choice if you live in one of those fancy first-world countries. Here, we have only one DSL provider and it blocks BT traffic. You can either bend over and take it or find a way around the restriction.

Here the incumbent phone companies are required to lease out their lines to resellers. The Cable companies also provide some competition (but apparently don't have to lease out their lines). Wireless is also an option (but don't have line-of sight).

I suppose most Satellite providers will block BT traffic as well.

Quote
Please enlighten me on how to differentiate when a US resident use America (or american) to speak about his country rather than the continent. English is not my first language.

US is short for "United States of America" a person living in the USA is called an "American" instead of a U.S.A'ian.

So when you see "America" or "American" by itself, it almost always refers to the USA. To talk about the continent, that would typically be specified to avoid confusion. For example: by saying "North America", "American continent (not to be confused with continental US)", or "Americas".

787  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Introducing a new altcoin called "Bitcoin" with faster, 90 second confirmations on: August 31, 2013, 10:22:25 PM
If anyone has this altcoin I am paying $3 per coin! That's more than the most sought after altcoin known as litecoin!

I am willing to buy a large number for $5.
788  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: Missed Mastercoin?! What!!!?? on: August 31, 2013, 10:18:11 PM
Ewww.
789  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: What would the effect be if ISPs are asked to block Bitcoin protocol traffic? on: August 31, 2013, 09:42:18 PM
If your ISP is blocking Bittorrent, find a better ISP.

Technically the ISP I am using right now bans Bittorrent ("no servers") but tolerates it. My bitcoin node is going up on another ISP. That ISP may complain if Bitcoins are declared illegal, however.
790  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: The Bitcoin Phenomenon on SQ1.tv on: August 31, 2013, 09:24:45 PM

---- a. I couldn't get my head around the arbitrariness of the initial value. The point at which it went from $0 USD to anything. What was that first person that paid some fraction of a government-issued currency speculating on?


I think Bitcoin Pizza did a lot to set the initial value of Bitcoin (at about $25 USD per 10,000)
791  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: CoinJoin: Bitcoin privacy for the real world on: August 31, 2013, 08:40:04 PM
(edit: deleted/rewrote some stuff about the agpl)

Ideally the implementation would be linkable into regular end user wallets so anyone can run a server, that's the more Bitcoinish way to doit, but the AGPL license prevents that as no existing wallet is licensed that way (and I doubt it will be changing).


Can't MIT licensed wallets be relicensed under the AGPL?

The AGPL says that the user is allowed to access the source code; even while interacting with a remote server.

The remote server should not be directly connected to a live wallet anyway.
792  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Real-time 51% Attack Vulnerability & Ranking Against Military Spending on: August 31, 2013, 07:56:23 PM
This metric is, in essence, equal to 51% of the present value ("PV") of all future revenues derived from bitcoin mining using current Mt. Gox prices. Revenues include both block rewards and transaction fees.

The purpose behind using PV as a measuring tool is to approximate the incentives to miners to build upon the Bitcoin network. The measure can be viewed as an aggregate of all the cost-benefit analyses done by individual miners.

We believe this is superior to other methods of calculating the attack cost, including variables such as current hash rates and current capital costs, because the model is independent of technology advancements. Under the equilibrium model, miners will continue to invest in equipment until they reach the point where marginal cost equals marginal revenue (the point of profit maximization).
some days ago it was 300 mio, now it is 770 mio. is this just because the difficulty rises?

NO, it is because they are using an economic model and the out-of-whack MT.Gox price.

Difficulty does not even factor into it.

They are assuming that miners can instantly respond to the price of Bitcoin. It may be true in 6 months if the glut of ASICs are not profitable; but not now.
793  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Faster transactions? on: August 31, 2013, 08:46:33 AM
Actually, there is an upgrade going on: the GPU-> ASIC transition.

The network hash rate is increasing so fast that the next difficulty adjustment is going to be huge.
Code:
<phillipsjk> ;;diffchange
<gribble> Estimated percent change in difficulty this period | 23.33054 % based on data since last change | 39.67409 % based on data for last three days

So blocks are coming about 23% faster now. (or 40% faster, depending how you count.)

The increase has got to level out eventually, but there is supposed to be a lot of hardware arriving in the fall.
794  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: newbie very important questions ..experts answer me here please .. on: August 31, 2013, 08:27:13 AM
hey bro !!! what u mean Huh
if the days of 120day roi are gone its mean all this customers who made pre-orders from bfl,kncminer,bitfury octoper delivery is stupid ppl and dont know what they doing !?!?!?

That is entirely possible. Mining is a zero-sum game because the difficulty automatically adjusts based on how much hash power network has.

That target is one block every 10 minutes, or 144 blocks/day (about 3600 BTC per day). With the recent increases in difficulty, the blocks have actually been coming faster (since the difficulty is only adjusted every 2016 blocks).
795  Economy / Speculation / Re: Track Record Forum Members on: August 31, 2013, 07:44:44 AM
I found the Bitcoin Astrology thread interesting, so I decided to trawl it for predictions. Especially in light of this comment:
Haha, finally a technical analysis chart in Speculation that actually predicts something accurately  Grin

just generally & not taking these Bitcoin charts in to account, ... . Sparks should start to fly on Saturday & Sunday will be grim for many (forced liquidation being the order of the day I imagine) the aspects being serious, discouraging & a time to need to face present realities  Shocked

The Chart from that week shows a slow steady rise from just under $4.9/BTC to just under $5.0/BTC. (Saturday and Sunday were April 14 and 15, respectively) Miss, though to be fair, Otoh said it was not a full prediction.

...
Bitcoin's horoscope for today May 30, 2012:

Being out in the centre of activities will find you absolutely in your element today. Your popularity is soaring so there is no sense in holding back. Allow yourself to step forward confidently with as much panache as you can muster.

Bitcoin's horoscope for the week of May 31, 2012:
... At this rate, nothing will ever happen. May I suggest that you take the initiative?
These don't make direct predictions. On May 30, the price was down slightly. During the following week, the price climbed from $5.15/BTC to $5.45/BTC. I will call this prediction a draw. The June 1 daily horoscope does not really predict anything either; BTC rose 10 cents that day.

My diary has had this current week marked as 'all in' for months  Tongue

It is not clear if this is a prediction or 20/20 hindsight. Otoh seems to start their week on a Friday. The Chart from June 8 to 14 shows a rise from $5.63/BTC to $5.95/BTC (approximate). I am going to call this one a good prediction.

Summary: -1 +0 +1
796  Economy / Services / Re: FreeBitCoin on: August 30, 2013, 08:07:33 AM
I would not advise running this software on the same machine as a Bitcoin Wallet. Running it inside a virtual machine may be OK.

Probably a spammer using you to break CAPTCHAs.
797  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: ASIC mining. What coins can be mined with this gear? on: August 30, 2013, 07:55:50 AM
Yes, you are correct: ASICs are optimized for double SHA-256 on a small nonce.

If the alt-coin does something weird like single or triple SHA-256, some ASICs may not work. Fortunately for people interested in alt-coin mining, the Alt coin authors usually change as little as possible when creating a new coin.

Unfortunately, few Alt coins actually bring anything new or interesting to the table. I like the ideas behind namecoin myself.
798  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: Is anyone else extremely frustrated? on: August 30, 2013, 07:40:33 AM
No, but I keep the bulk of my FIAT in a bank account which is covered by CDIC. It is also not possible to remotely steal FIAT from my wallet.

799  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: Is anyone else extremely frustrated? on: August 30, 2013, 06:46:51 AM
With an Activity of 546?
Really? I think I hear Penn & Teller coming...

Still have not got my ducks in a row. I can't actually spend the coins I bought 2 weeks ago because I don't currently have a secure computer set-up. The receive address was generated off-line with a Knoppix LiveDVD and Vanitygen. The private key is stored in two locations 10km apart, so I still have my Bitcoin if I survive a city destroying event.

It is possible I am being *too* paranoid.
800  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: have 4 blades total 40GB need to offer for sell .. how to do if i am newbie ! on: August 30, 2013, 06:06:51 AM
You can now get them new for less than half that price:
5 pack for 26BTC (about $3160 USD)

You can try Bitmit.net, but I have not decided how much to trust them just yet.
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