Thanks, that looks rather nice as well but it lacks built-in encryption. Still, can be useful for an underlying communications layer - if anyone has other suggestions, please post so we can have an arsenal of options in one thread.

OpenGarden link - http://opengarden.com/ android/windows

Yes, I'm aware of that product and I think it is fantastic, but as their page states:


So unless they're making their own mesh, I'm not sure how that would solve anything. Is that what you meant, they're working on another network besides the one employed by their cards?

Edit: On further inspection the gateways are possibly self-sufficient, but I'm not entirely sure if that isolates them completely - as bitcoin mining pools and verification nodes are mostly on commercial networks and/or Tor.

I've made a post in "Discussions" that was spurred by all this renewed interest in Bitcoin and controlling/regulating it.

Please read:
    
Future Proofing - Mesh Networking As Insurance Against ISP Attack

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=274018.0

I respectfully suggest looking at http://hyperboria.net/ and running a node. Even better if you can run one on dedicated hardware and link up with your friends.

I think the next step in desperation will be a commercial internet attack, in the form of demonizing Tor nodes and anything used for privacy.

It's becoming painfully obvious to me that the efforts to control and regulate Bitcoin are reaching an increasingly fevered pitch. Whether you agree or not with that kind of control isn't the point of this post, but what could happen as the awareness created by these attempts percolate through the internet and countries around the world.

The topic of "what if they do 'x' to stop Bitcoin" has been debated quite a bit, and I'm not trying to repeat that here. I'm just thinking we need to implement some robust communications that don't depend on commercial internet service providers. Fortunately, there are other very smart people who have been doing the same thing for different reasons. And as the whole three-letter-agency debacle has shown, commercial networks are increasingly compliant towards controlling government entities.

Enter Hyperboria. What is it? From their main page: Link - http://hyperboria.net/


I hope a few of you are nodding at this - the keywords, security, scalability and decentralization resonated strongly with me.
Best part is, you don't need to have dedicated hardware right away - you can participate in the network and be routed over the commercial internet with end-to-end encryption from the start.

The big difference between this and Tor?

It doesn't rely on ISPs if you have set up a local mesh with your friends. Naturally, this growth pattern will be restricted to smaller groups before being able to 'link up' with other meshes over long distances, but we had better start now -- because the future I see is ISPs being asked to monitor/restrict Bitcoin traffic, restrict Tor nodes, and a whole litany of other nasty things that haven't yet come to pass.

We need insurance, and we need it before they crack down on the commercial internet.

Please consider running a node, if you believe in the key values of Bitcoin you should also believe in making the communication network it uses just as free and available.

Thanks for reading.

What bothers me about this article is how encryption reversibility is "exponentially hard", but in the same sentence it is "exponentially easier"?

How about some actual figures? I'd like to know if I'm reading about something that will be on our doorsteps in short order, or is still a vague and distant concern.

Make sure to mention to the VC's in the "Risks" section that your experiment could cause the entire network to experience a hard-fork. But something tells me that won't make it into the slide-deck, will it?

Because of how this is built, it exploits everyone's contributed hashpower without returning anything to those that don't opt-in to the system.

Please consider very carefully the possible issues this will cause, including possible "hard fork" scenarios if this method of alt-coining becomes popular.

There are hazards here that bear careful consideration, don't let the overall 'protocol' description throw you - this is a "Tragedy of the Commons" in the making (Common resources used without consideration for those who choose otherwise).

You've been warned.

Works pretty well for being free, I think. Not sure what you mean by orderbook depth not updating - it does for me.

I think the actual commentary will come when he's about to be sentenced, and then in jail.

That snake deserves exactly what he gets. (No, I never participated in his scheme.)

It is highly recommended that you switch to another method when using Tor, if you haven't already.

"Tails" is a bootable distribution that incorporates all the latest security fixes, and can be loaded on a thumbdrive as well.

Reference:

https://tails.boum.org/download/index.en.html

I guess we learned another thing about centralization being bad, if all those servers hosting .onion sites were spread far and wide, it would've been more difficult to engineer this kind of thing.

Nice design aesthetics. Looking forward to the android release.

Sometimes when I read crazy ideas like these, I have to wonder if we're either on the precipice of something horrible - like two halves of plutonium banging together and going critical, or something great, like the birth of the internet. The main issue here is the risk taken in doing so. If your baby 'breaks' bitcoin (For whatever duration - either temporarily or permanently), will the usual sentiment I see from software engineers the world over - usually along the lines of "Well, if 'X' couldn't handle it, then 'X' is stupid and deserved to die." - going to be enough to placate the angry mob of now-bereft bitcoiners?

Of course, the flip side is supposed to be "well, if we didn't do new things no progress would be made" -- but I've yet to see anyone say "Lets test this idea out responsibly just in case we totally fuck something up." It's all SHOVE it into the live production network and see what chaos it causes - "Oopsie!, we're just trying new and crazy ideas guys, so sorry for screwing over the rest of the community."

There has to be a better way than working on the jet engine while at 30,000 feet in the air - just saying.

Upon which point it will resemble the BATS IPO:

I've been thinking about the fundraising part, and I can concede that being able to eat and keep a roof over your head is equitable. I'm just concerned about the nature of fundraising when it is paired with:

 
Upon further consideration, that is the real 'meat' of my argument, in addition to the overall blockchain impact - which I'm not very pleased about, since I have no way (at this time) to say "no thank you, I will not verify your data". Bitcoin being what it is, it should be opt-in - the same way it is for what version of client you choose to run (unless we fork so hard we have to select one).

That's another problem, isn't it, it takes off and then we're talking not only about multiples of bandwidth/storage, but the ability of the main bitcoin devs being able to pick up the pace for future expansion and improvement. And since I've never bought the early-stressor argument either, please don't try it, it isn't very convincing.

Is a PRNews piece, which you have to pay to get placed on, really worthy material for the "Press" section? Isn't this just a variant on paid product placement?

I know it is a long shot, but man I'd love to see a large bank just chuck the Euro and replace it with Bitcoin and a mix of other currencies. The repercussions would be epic, and one hell of a milestone.

When Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn described TCP/IP in their whitepaper published in 1974, they didn't follow up with requests for compensation. That is how a protocol works, it is submitted, reviewed and then vetted by professional peers - and either taken up into projects and worked into hardware/software, or abandoned if it is found wanting.

The fact that this protocol release is imitating an early 2000's tech-bubble IPO is extremely worrying, and I have grave doubts about the entire undertaking, even if your ultimate aim is to "improve bitcoin". You don't want to "compete" with bitcoin, but you'll gladly craft a system that takes "Tragedy of the Commons" to new heights of exploitation.

The blockchain isn't your personal hard drive to stuff with whatever you wish, it is a payment system and a global currency. There seems to be quite a lot of greed-driven behavior in bitcoin, and I'm sorry to say that this effort is no different.

Release the protocol and behave like the noble founders of the internet did, or get money signs in your eyes and behave like the monied interests that most people despise. It's your choice.

So, if I understand this correctly - what is the ratio of actual bitcoin transactions to protocol overhead?

If this becomes onerous, how do you justify creating a system that isn't opt-in in the first place?

Why not just maintain your own ledger?

Is the encoding for this protocol going to have an adverse resource impact on the blockchain, and by extension, the time it takes new users to acquire the entire thing before being able to use the official bitcoin client?

Reference:
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1438/is-there-a-limit-to-how-much-extra-data-can-be-put-into-blocks-via-scripts

I think I understand the direction, but I'm wary of the net effect.