I recently removed my "like" from Bitcoin on Facebook, along with all the other likes for groups having to do with agorism, anarchism, voluntaryism, free-staters, etc.  I figured why make life any easier for all the three-letter agencies out there?

The best way to protect your privacy is to do business under a pseudonym.  That way, your bitcoin address is tied to your pseudonym (which can gain reputation, just as in the "real" world), but your pseudonym is not tied to your real identity.

Which country doesn't have a flawed monetary policy?

No, your address cannot be determined from blockchain.info.  At any point in time there might be 10,000 or more instances of bitcoin-qt or other full-node software running.  Blockchain.info is only connected to a small subset of these.  A transaction might get passed through many nodes before being "seen" by blockchain.info, so there is no way to know if the IP address stored on their site is the true originator of the transaction.

Having said that, I still think it is a very bad practice for blockchain.info to be recording IP addresses (with friends like that, who needs enemies?).  They should, at a minimum, publish a list of all listening addresses, and the client needs to have the option of rejecting a list of nodes.  In the absence of these measures, a good way to protect your anonymity and also help the network is to leave the client running all the time.  Soon there will be hundreds of transactions recorded on blockchain.info as having originated from your IP, when in fact none may have.

rDaULLEL18y5gy7Me8qnZ1SybJWSJA56JZ

I like this guy!

If there are many people making many, small transactions using pseudonyms, they can't possibly keep track of and/or arrest everyone.  

Someone could issue a Chaumian-blinded currency tied to the price of gold (or some basket of commodities) using Open Transactions.  This person could demonstrate sufficient backing for the currency by proving that they control a bitcoin address (using digital signatures) which has an amount of bitcoins in it at least equal in value to the amount of currency outstanding.  Hopefully Monetas or someone else is working on this as we speak.

I haven't undertaken a detailed analysis of what happened yesterday, but bitcoin is still what I would call "thinly traded," and it only takes a few people taking profits (who might have bought in only a few days ago) to exhaust the bids and spook the market.  Plus, Mt. Gox trading platform issues don't breed a lot of confidence.

Where is the evidence that most of the "early adopters" cleared out?  This conjecture was also posited after the June 2011 bubble but later shown to be false.

Also, if you want your threads to be read, try to come up with more descriptive titles.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Alonzo.  I see troubled waters ahead for the world's debt-based economies, so I'm not keen on investing in stocks either.  I do think we may temporarily see more upside to equities as inflation kicks in.  I may pick up more physical gold in the next few months if the price bottoms out.  As for Bitcoin, I've always viewed it more as a tool than an investment, so I'm not too worried about downside risk.  It will be interesting to see how Bitcoin, Ripple and Open Transactions work together (or independently) to rewire the world's financial infrastructure.  These are exciting and unpredictable times in which we live.

I'm curious, what is your opinion on gold, and where do you see the "smart money" going next?  Gold to me seems to be in the "slow burn" phase, as you describe it.  Shall we all hop into equities and place our trust back in the central bankers and captains of industry?  Go for a ride on Bernanke's and Obama's magic carpet?

I haven't seen any explanation of where the leaked data came from.  All the ICIJ states is that "a computer hard drive packed with corporate data and personal information and e-mails arrived in the mail."  Arrived from whom?  How credible is this story?

I'll just leave this here...


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63877.msg1296575#msg1296575

Moral of the story: never brag about your security.

Sure.  Since the bitcoin exchange rate has gone up a little, I can include shipping to Argentina for the 0.4 BTC quoted.

The number of people participating in the Bitcoin ecosystem has definitely increased dramatically in the past few weeks.  My node used to see 25-60 connections; it has 120 now.  I had to double the bandwidth of the connection in order to accomodate the traffic.

My thoughts:

1. Maybe the usd is worth less than we think it is.
2. As FreeMoney said, it is also a distribution method, and all we are really paying is about five cents per transaction (which I imagine will be revised downward soon).
3. Perhaps a good metric to determine if BTC is overvalued is price divided by total BTC exchanged per day.
4. Many people (like me) run a node without mining and without compensation, for the good of the network.
5. We are not in any sort of steady-state equilibrium, and temporary distortions are to be expected.

My understanding of the https protocol is that only the host name is visible to an attacker.  Once they are sure the site is locked down, I'd appreciate knowing what the specific vulnerability was.

I have two 4GB SODIMM modules for a total of 8GB.  These are brand new, but unfortunately my system needs 7-7-7-20 timing and these are 9-9-9-24.  These should work in most laptops, but please double check at http://www.corsair.com/en/learn_n_explore/
Asking 0.4 BTC for the pair, including shipping within the US.  Please inquire about shipping elsewhere.  Thanks for looking.



Corsair CMSO4GX3M1A1333C9
Specs:
Memory Configuration: Dual Channel Memory
Type: DDR3
Package - Memory Pin: 204
Package - Memory Format: SODIMM
Tested Voltage: 1.5
SPD Voltage: 1.5
Speed Rating: PC3-10600 (1333MHz)
SPD Speed: 1333MHz
Tested Speed: 1333Mhz
Tested Latency: 9-9-9-24
SPD Latency: 9-9-9-24

Product page: http://www.corsair.com/en/corsair-memory-4gb-ddr3-sodimm-memory-cmso4gx3m1a1333c9.html

I keep spending Bitcoins, yet the value of what I have left keeps increasing.  I don't see a problem here.

On another note, we might do well to be a little less consumerist.  The planet will thank us.

Edit: OMG, post 666! 

Maybe someone wants to introduce someone else to bitcoins by sending them a gift card in the mail?