I basically agree with you...especially regarding the need to build on a trusted hardware and firmware platform...open source hardware is very important.  For the same reasons that bitcoin could only work as an open source project, a truly secure computing platform needs to be built on an open hardware and firmware platform (where you don't have to trust anyone, you can verify for yourself that the system is secure).  As for the hardware behaving correctly, fault tolerance and error correction can be built into the software that runs on top of the cheap hardware.  It might not be possible to prove that such a system is 100% correct in its implementation as a result, but a 99.999% probability of correctness may be sufficient for most applications.

Operating System research tends to take a bottom up approach to the problem...I think the community of language researchers actually have a lot more to say about how to build truly secure systems...one of my favorite quotes is:

''Operating System: An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one.'' – Dan Ingalls, in an article in Byte Magazine, 1981.

I disagree.  We have all of the building blocks to make a truly secure language/operating system.  I actually hope the rise in popularity of crypto-currencies will spur investment in new operating systems that address these problems.  Windows, Unix, and OSX are all based on 40+ year old technology.  It's the huge amount of infrastructure and investment built around these old OSes that is holding back progress.  Not only is a secure operating system (one free from viruses, malware and the like) possible to build, it's not even terribly difficult (but it will take a lot of effort and require a large amount of investment that might require many years to recoup).

Citation please.  My family business is tax preparation.  Both my mother and sister are IRS enrolled agents and represent individuals and organizations before the IRS.  I have consulted them on the matter and according to them, there is absolutely no issue with a charity accepting donations in bitcoin.

They also make great hats. 

Thanks, we certainly appreciate the compliment. 

By the way, we are in need of a skilled PHP/JavaScript developer with some knowledge of various shopping carts.  I am looking for someone that might want to take on a few integration projects (i.e. creating plugins for other shopping cart software and helping merchants integrate their store fronts).  It's something that someone could do in their spare time.  I'm hoping to find an individual that is reliable and that I could confidently refer merchants to and that would become an expert in the bit-pay platform.  Over time if the relationship works well and as we grow, this could lead to a formal role overseeing our professional services.

It's not clear to me that 3 minute blocks and faster difficulty retargeting has any advantage and I believe it is less secure, not more secure.  Also, the community is rapidly building out infrastructure around bitcoin, few developers have the time or motivation to support a new and unproven block chain like solidcoin.  Most of the value in a crypto currency is determined by its level of adoption, not by minor tweaks in the protocols.  Even if solidcoin was a marginal improvement (which I don't think it is), I'd have trouble committing scarce resources (i.e. time) to it and sacrificing time that could be used to advance the bitcoin infrastructure.  I think very highly of the core bitcoin developers.  The developer of solidcoin seems to believe himself to be a superior computer scientist to the bitcoin developers.  He may or may not be a talented computer scientist, but I know for certain that the developers of bitcoin are talented computer scientists.  I believe their deliberate and considered approach to tweaking the bitcoin protocols adds *substantial* value to bitcoin.  

We've witnessed the demise of several bitcoin forks already...in my mind, those failures have substantially raised the bar for any competing bitcoin fork.  Very few people are going to jump on any bitcoin fork unless it has an absolute and undeniable advantage over bitcoin.  I don't think solidcoin comes anywhere close to meeting that bar.

Bit-pay has developed an easy-to-use plugin payment module for opencart.  The bit-pay module can:
 
1.       Create an invoice based on an order total in USD or BTC
2.       Create a unique payment address for each sale
3.       Auto-forward the bitcoins to the merchant’s wallet, or sell them and transfer USD by ACH
4.       Track your sales summary and trends

Opencart is a powerful open-source shopping cart platform for online merchants.  Many merchants in the bitcoin community use OpenCart, and many of them have been unable to process payments for several weeks now.
 
We moved the OpenCart module to the top of our list, ahead of other planned developments, so that we can meet the immediate needs of the bitcoin community!
 
If you are using OpenCart and you would like to accept bitcoins, apply for a merchant account with Bit-pay to get started.
 
https://bit-pay.com

The opencart extension can be directly downloaded here:
https://bit-pay.com/downloads/bitpayOpenCartExtension-0.1.zip

It is also available via the opencart extension marketplace:
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension/info&extension_id=3119&filter_search=bitcoin&sort=e.date_modified&order=DESC

Awesome article Erik!

Anonymous donations are very common.  You are correct that either the person claiming a deduction or or the charity needs to have records.  I think you're confusing anonymity and record keeping.  As far as the IRS is concerned, they only care that you can prove to them that you made the donation (the proof can be in many forms and is only actually needed should you get audited).  The charity does not have to know who made the donation.  In fact, my previous employer allowed donations through payroll deduction and you could select an option to remain anonymous.  Obviously, the employer would know who made the donation, but the charity would not.  And those donations are definitely tax deductible.

All this proves to me is that someone is deliberately trying to make it look like mybitcoin.com is hosted at the some place as onlyonetv.com:


Someone changed mybitcoin.com to return a redirect response to the ip address where onlyonetv.com is hosted.  I didn't want to get involved in this thread, but felt this needed to be pointed out.

Very nice!  How are you calculating the cost to mount a 50% attack?  Am I correct in reading that you estimate it to be $12.7 billion?  That's far greater than what I've estimated in the past.  That would be awesome if accurate, but I think that's probably way too high.

I think you are misinformed.  Anonymous donations are quite common (at least in the US).  The ability to make truly anonymous donations using bitcoin might actually be a highly desirable feature.  All the IRS cares about is that you can prove that you actually made the contribution that you claimed on your tax form should they decide to audit you.  Half the time that I've donated, the charity gave me a blank receipt and let me fill it out.  And, as far as a receipt goes, just about anything goes...the IRS has no standard form for such receipts.

I can't comment on bitcharity.org, but one thing you could do is inform the charity of any donations to those addresses (and the charity themselves could monitor transactions to those addresses).

According to my tax adviser, you only need a receipt from the charitable organization for cash donations.  For donations of property where you declare a value, you also only need a receipt if it's $5000 or less.  If it's over $5000, then an appraisal is required.  If anyone donates more than $5000 using bitcoin, you might consider getting a letter ruling from the IRS (or just sell the bitcoins and give them the cash and avoid the hassle).

Edit: but don't trust me, it's all right here: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106990,00.html

There is plenty of free market demand for well moderated forums.  Freedom of speech is not an obligation for others to listen.

I don't need tools to ignore certain people or threads, I just do.  I just want a place where I can engage in serious discussion about bitcoin without having to wade through pages and pages of people's personal quarrels and other nonsense.  I also want a forum where people new to bitcoin can land and not be completely turned off by such nonsense.  I suggested shutting down this forum not because I'm against having unmoderated forums, but because this is the oldest and hence most popular bitcoin forum.  And in my opinion this forum is no longer deserving of being the place where people are first introduced to bitcoin discussion topics.  I'm sure another unmoderated forum will be started in short order and it can stand on its own merits.

Are there any good moderated forums for bitcoin that people can recommend?  I don't really like the thought of someone having that kind of control over forum postings, but this forum has degenerated to the point where I think such a forum is an unfortunate necessity.  And, btw, this kind of thing is not unique to bitcoin.  Almost every community that achieves some degree of popularity has to take such steps at some point.  I would also recommend shutting this forum down (an action that I think, while unfortunate, is probably in the best interest of bitcoin).

Excellent!

You calculated that based on the entire amount that moved in that transaction, however I'm sure not all of the transactions in that block are mtgox.  The first one seems to be a confirmed mtgox transaction from and address that had ~384,000 bitcoins. 

How about trying to get one high quality bitcoin article per week.  Not too long and not too short and put some time into editing.  Have the author submit something, then review and edit it a few times before publication.  I think you'll find plenty of people that would be willing to write such articles and you don't need to pay them anything.  You could probably find people to help with the editing as well.

That's actually a great article.  Tell people something may be a little bit too advanced or risky and that they should stick something more appropriate for their level of sophistication and they'll want it all the more.