If your password is decent and unique to bitcointalk.org, then brute-forcing isn't going to be possible via the Internet. I can't imagine anyone being able to do more than a few hundred attempts per second, which is far slower than if you had the password hash.

The main reason why the login captcha is necessary at all is that whenever some site's username/password database is leaked anywhere on the Internet, hackers would come and try all of those logins here, grabbing a few accounts from people who shared passwords, and sometimes slowing down the forum from the rapid barrage of login attempts. These codes are sufficient for preventing that on any large scale. For individual users, the main thing is to not share passwords, not even with minor variations between sites.

You can now bypass the login CAPTCHA by bookmarking the link generated for you here: https://bitcointalk.org/captcha_code.php

If it causes problems, I might restrict it to Jr Members and above or something, but currently anyone can do it.

I read Kurzweil's book several years ago, and it was really stupid. It's the extrapolation fallacy in book form:

He seems to believe that progress just happens regardless of everything else. In reality, progress happens because people make it happen, and it can be stopped if we hit a wall in research or if society changes to no longer allow for effective/useful scientific progress.

If human-level AI is created on traditional computing systems, then a singularity-like explosion of technology seems likely. There are existential risks there, but also potentially ~infinite benefit. But I'm not convinced that we're close to human-level AI. Deep neural networks can do some impressive things, but they don't actually think or plan: they're like a very effective form of intuition. I don't think that we will find human-level AI at the end of that road. In the worst-case scenario we should eventually be able to completely map out the human brain and simulate it on a computer, but that'll be many decades into the future at least.

Many leftists have a habit of thinking that since progress continues continuously and exponentially, we should just assume post-scarcity any day now. Which is exactly how you damage society and the economy so badly that you stop all progress completely...

16,224 sMerit is held by autobanned users (including the initial sMerit).

The rules used to be looser, but a year or two ago I tightened them. Now IIRC only low ASCII is allowed, and you need at least one letter. Even prior to the current username restrictions, the username was interpreted as ISO-8859-1, so Unicode wasn't allowed. Unicode is allowed in display names, but most people can't change their display names.

I guess you'd ban Satoshi, then? Feel free to publish your browser history if you "have nothing to hide".

Privacy is good. Tor's approach to it is bad, or at least very incomplete.

I don't like CloudFlare. I consider it quite likely to be some sort of government-run honeypot; or if it isn't already, then it could be easily transformed into one. Far too much of the Internet goes through CloudFlare.

However, I was just reading a couple of things from the Tor project ([1], [2]) which really annoyed me. The blame for Tor getting blocked everywhere belongs squarely at the feet of the Tor project for their failure to come up with any anti-DDoS solution whatsoever. Large sites cannot function by accepting connections from everyone without any possibility of rate-limiting. Probably this is a core flaw in the design of the Internet itself, but for now we have to live with it. If you say "well, the sites should just accept every Tor connection and treat them all as perfectly-good traffic", then you're actually saying "the sites should spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on handling every attacker as if it was legitimate". It's insane, and it's not going to happen.

There are very obvious ways of handling this while also preserving privacy. One idea is CloudFlare's Privacy Pass, which Tor categorically rejected for no good reason. (Note: I am not so confident in Privacy Pass's exact blind signature scheme, though the Tor people didn't actually use that as their reason for rejecting it. And it is a good idea at its heart.) You could extend the Tor protocol to give hidden services a way of requiring a proof-of-work from the client before handing the connection off to the application, and then sites could at least safely offer a hidden service option to Tor users. You could even think about extending TCP to require a client proof-of-work, which would address the DDoS issue beyond Tor. But instead Tor has done nothing.

TBH, Tor's unwillingness to handle this, as well as the overall weakness of Tor's anonymity when compared to the cutting edge in academic research, makes me think that Tor may be infiltrated by anti-privacy interests.

Since I don't use Tor for bitcointalk.org, please post for the next few days whether things are getting better or worse on this front, or staying the same. The increase in captchas may be a temporary condition. I will continue to investigate options.

I just now enabled Cloudflare's "onion routing", which is supposed to fix that, though I have some concerns about it, so we'll see how it goes.

Edit: It doesn't seem to actually be doing anything yet, though. Maybe it takes some time to come into effect, or maybe there's some other issue.

Right, he never spoke a word of Japanese. IIRC the first Japanese translation for the software was submitted while Satoshi was still around, but by someone else. We don't even know which kanji should be used to write his name.

My suspicion has always been that Satoshi was just an ordinary guy. He needed to be smart, but not a genius. Some random high school math teacher working on it as a hobby on the side, for example. I don't particularly believe that Satoshi is anyone notable inside or outside of Bitcoin. (Also see my post here.)

I'd kind of like to believe that Satoshi was the NSA or whatever, since that would imply an intelligent conspiracy. I'd feel much better about the world if I believed that there were intelligent, driven conspiracies in places of power, even if they weren't benevolent. But in reality I think that we live in a world driven by inertia, stupidity, short-term greed, and lack of vision; nobody is pulling strings to see any grand plans fulfilled. So I don't consider it likely.

I've also been feeling that way on an intuitive level. I don't like the Republicans, but I can't stand the Democrats. A decade ago they used to at least pay lip service to a few good things like opposition to war and some individual freedoms. I actually became a libertarian from the left. But now they're very pro-war and maybe as bad on free speech etc. as the Republicans due to their focus on identity politics. However, I have to keep reminding myself that the Republicans will do plenty of harm if they gain a lot of power, and in fact it may be an improvement if the Democrats get the House (but not the Senate) in the upcoming election because it'll make it harder for anything at all to get done. Even though it'll be absolute hell to have to listen to a Democratic Speaker for 2+ years...

If the Democrats gain both the House and the Senate in the upcoming election, then I'm calling it right now: Trump will get so amazingly frustrated that he will do something massively stupid/illegal and end up getting impeached (via the support of many Republicans). I'm not sure whether this would be good from a libertarian perspective.

Kavanaugh is better than anyone who a Democrat would nominate, so that's one good thing, though it's still disappointing. I don't even really trust him on the 2^nd amendment -- probably he would support all sorts of incremental regulations. Though maybe his experience with his nomination will make him more radical, which might be interesting.

Only a few local sections don't have sources now.

Unlike the Donator/VIP memberships, I do plan on reducing the cost of copper membership if the price rises a lot, so that shouldn't happen. (Though the membership price doesn't float automatically.)

I suggested something like that previously.

I do think that some alert system would be good, though the old alert system's propagation method and especially its single-key authentication was really bad, so I don't mourn its loss specifically. A new system could work by polling DNS TXT records + signatures (eg. alert.bitcoincore.org.    TXT    "predefined_alert=2 time=... sig=ABCD+/012..."), with many domains+keys controlled by many people and perhaps a requirement that at least a few of them agree before displaying an alert.

I don't care about traffic much; I just want there to be a good forum. (In fact, maybe lower traffic would currently be more helpful for that, on the whole.) I don't do any collection/analysis of traffic stats beyond the public stats. That traffic bump is very clearly due to the hype from/driving that massive bubble, though, and it's happened many times before.

I think that a lot of people stumble onto bitcointalk.org, but many of them (perhaps on average the best among them, who have the most "better things to do") don't bother to register and participate. The YouTube idea was motivated in large part by the idea that you'd be targeting people smart/thoughtful enough to watch a smart/thoughtful video, and then they'd get engaged enough by the video that they'd go to the trouble of registering and participating on the forum. I want good, long-term users, not anything that would even show up in a traffic graph.

I don't think that advertising would generally be helpful, and the forum has never advertised. In the vast majority of cases, the only ads that would work would be things that would offer immediate gratification, and those would tend to attract the wrong sorts of people. Maybe some very-highly-targeted ads could be constructive, but it's not something that I'm going to think about anytime soon.

I've done a bit of work toward SEO optimization of the forum over the years, though a lot more could be done. Lately it's been a bit more in my mind, mostly because it annoys me that those clone sites sometimes appear above bitcointalk.org in search results. That really shouldn't happen.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs^[1], banks, funds, or anything else that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 8 or 9 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Ad blocking

Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:
- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.
- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.
- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Designing ads

Make sure that your ads look good when you download and edit this test page:
https://bitcointalk.org/ad_test.html
Also read the comments in that file.

Images are not allowed no matter how they are created (CSS, SVG, or data URI). Occasionally I will make an exception for small logos and such, but you must get pre-approval from me first.

The maximum size of any one ad is 51200 bytes.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first. Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

If you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 5" means 2 slots for 5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.02.
- The bidding starts at 0.02.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start. I have a small bias toward ending auctions on Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.
- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

---

[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.

No ICOs/investments.


Sorry, I'm still not convinced.

Auction ended, final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
4 0.10 ChipMixer
1 0.08 ni23457
2 0.08 lightlord
2 0.06 modernbuddha

Here's a draft of a welcome message for new users. The user will see it on the screen confirming their registration, and it'll also be available in the help center at any time.

Some text in the intro was obviously inspired by xtraelv's signature, which I really like.

Please provide your suggested additions/changes. However:
 - I don't want to put in a lot of exact numbers such as all of the merit/activity thresholds, since then I need to remember to update them.
 - I don't believe in creating definitive rule lists.
 - There's no need for this to be a complete explanation of everything on the forum. It's just the basics.

---

Welcome to bitcointalk.org, the Bitcoin Forum! You can access this welcome message from the "help" link in the top menu bar at any time.

As a member of the forum, you are surrounded by legends; phenomenal successes and catastrophic failures. The forum was created by Satoshi Nakamoto and saw the first exchange, the first altcoin, and the first ICO, but also catastrophic software flaws, massive thefts, and incredible scams. You too have an opportunity to become part of the forum's history: whether and in what way you do so is up to you.

Table of contents

• The purpose of the forum
• Forum rank
  • Posting images and wearing signatures
• Common rule violations
• Languages
• Beware of scams
• Getting help

The purpose of the forum

This forum exists to provide a platform for the free (but ordered) exchange of ideas. If you have an idea to express, then it is probably possible to do it here as long as you follow the rules.

A lot of people come here primarily looking to make money. The forum administration is very happy that people are able to use the forum in order to better themselves; indeed, one of the reasons for Bitcoin's creation was to break the artificial barriers which prevent so many people around the world from attaining prosperity. However, if your attempts to make money conflict with the forum's primary goal of enabling discussion, then you are swimming upstream, and you will not be sucessful in the end.

If you view the forum as some sort of "job" where you complete some basic tasks and get paid, then you will almost certainly be disappointed, and the forum administration will not be sympathetic. If you do make money using the forum, then it will be through innovation and entrepreneurship, not any sort of mindless busywork.

Forum rank

When you start out, you are a Newbie, and you will run into various annoying limits. These limits will be reduced to the point where you shouldn't usually notice them after you have participated in the forum for a few weeks. If you are on the forum to talk, then that's all you really need to know about rank. Don't worry about it too much, and you will eventually rank up.

If you want to maximize your rank, then you need to increase two statistics which are listed on your profile:

• Activity, which is maximized by posting once per day on average. Posting more than that is useless in raising your activity.
• Merit, which is gained by making good posts.

If you make ten thousand posts in a week, your activity will be capped and you will still be a Newbie. If you make ten thousand useless posts over any period of time, you will gain zero merit and you will still be a Newbie. You can rank up only by making good posts consistently. It's quality over quantity.

When trying to write quality posts, a lot of people act as though they're writing a book report for school: putting facts that we already know into their own words. Nobody wants to read that, and you will not get merit for it. Moreover, the length of your post and the quality of your English are only minor factors. In trying to write a quality post worthy of merit, you should offer new ideas, personal experiences, or perspectives that other forum users will actually find new and interesting.

Posting images and wearing signatures

Users of Newbie rank cannot post images or wear signatures. If you want to do these things, then you can either rank up (explained above) or pay for a copper membership.

Common rule violations

These are the most common rule violations that newbies make. There are other rules than these.

• Plagiarism: If you copy some text from somewhere, then you should have a good reason for it, and you must link to the source. Doing otherwise is plagiarism. Changing a few words around doesn't matter. If we find that you plagiarized, then you absolutely will be permanently banned, even if we find it years after you did it.
• Multi-posting: Do not post twice in a row in a topic. Instead, edit your old post.
• Low-content posts: Do not post low-content garbage like "agreed!", "nice project!", etc. You can be banned for this, and it's also pointless if you want to increase your rank, since you will never get merit for such posts.

Languages

If you are fluent in any language other than English, then it is highly encouraged for you to post in your local board. These boards often have tight-knit communities which will be able to help you, and in some ways you might be at an advantage compared to English-only posters.

In the English sections, only English is allowed. It is not necessary to speak perfect English, though you should be understandable. Try your best. If you're unsure whether your English is good enough, ask in your local board or in the Beginners & Help section

Here are the local boards:

AUTOMATIC_LIST_OF_LOCAL_BOARDS

Beware of scams

This is a pseudonymous forum which emphasizes personal freedom and therefore also personal responsibility, so scammers are common. When trading, it's best to assume that everyone is trying to scam you, and act accordingly. Use an escrow, and take note of each user's trust ratings next to their posts and on their profiles. When you are more familiar with people around the forum, you should define your own trust list rather than using the default.

Getting help

First, search for your problem to see if anyone has asked about it before. If you don't find anything on it, ask in the Meta section. If you don't speak English well, either ask in your local section or PM the moderators of your local section.

If you think that a post is breaking the rules, use the "report to moderator" link on it. Do not PM moderators directly.

Did you read the full disclosure? 0.14.x would always crash, but 0.15.0-0.16.2 could in some circumstances not crash, accepting the creation of counterfeit BTC as if it were normal.

As I've said before, I'm not really worried about it. Especially at those high prices (plus the risk of being red-tagged), it's enough of a barrier that it should still serve its intended function of creating a significant cost/barrier for garbage-posters.

BTW, if any merit source goes rogue and sells a ton of merit, then I will probably go through the transaction graph and undo all of the transactions touched by that sold source-merit. Merit ain't no immutable cryptocurrency!