Just point to the vast majority of theft, crime, drug dealing and website hacks that occurs in US Dollars, Euros, etc.

But in general, slamming someone for being invested in the status quo is not the way to win converts.

Random advice.  We have a 2.5-year old.

1) Create a buffer of reduced distractions for an hour or so before bedtime.  That means no TV or other stimulating excitement before bedtime.  You must set the atmosphere.  Quiet time precedes bedtime.

2) I actually avoid sugar, close to naptime/bedtime.  I consider it crack cocaine.  No sugar within 2 hours before bed.

3) That sippy cup should contain milk or water, not juice or soda.

4) Create a familiar routine that slowly, inexorably, heads to bed.  Do the same thing, in the exact same order, every single night.  Bath, jammies, bottle, toothbursh, get into bed, songs/stories.

It may feel like you're being a military drill sergeant at first, but toddlers find comfort in familiar routine.

5) Staged crying responses.  If the fuss starts immediately after you leave the room -- or even before you leave the room.  Give it 30 seconds, then return, comfort and love, explain the routine in simple terms, leave.  If the fuss continues, wait 60 seconds, return, comfort and love, leave.  If the fuss continues, wait 2 minutes, etc.

The basic points you are trying to communicate is (a) mother and father are still there, but (b) you aren't going to give up on putting him to bed.

And sometimes it's just plain hard work.  For a while, we wound up camping out in the room for an hour or more each night, as our daughter got used to the new routine.  We would be in the room, during this time, but would not respond to efforts at play or interaction... being as boring as possible, breathing deeply with our eyes closed, pretending to sleep, ourselves.

Recent progress:

• libccoin now signs transactions.  Handling chain re-org is now the last hurdle for proper backend client support
• Building on older Debian/Ubuntu Linux now supported

Let's imagine you have 10,000 BTC.

If you send 1 BTC to someone, that results in transaction outputs (1 BTC, 9999 BTC)

If you send another 1 BTC to someone, that results in outputs (1 BTC, 9998 BTC)

A third time, (1 BTC, 9997 BTC)

etc.

Each time, the big number is the "change transaction" that sends your own money back to yourself.

A 51% hardware-based attack would cost 10000x more than a simple network-based or data-based attack.

Well, there is greater respect for you now, after having said this.  Maybe that is why you lack a highlighted "ignore" word in your profile, unlike several trolls in this thread.  (protip:  use that 'ignore' button liberally on this forum; people are marked thusly for very good reasons)

In point of fact, in this thread or in the quoted IRC conversation, I never endorsed or condemned any US government policies.  Foreign policy always makes for a lively debate, though quite off-topic, and I am very well versed in the positive and negative impact from a great many foreign policy choices of governments around the world.

For the immediate reaction (temporary IRC ban), the explanation was simple:  it was off-topic, potentially inflammatory crap we specifically do not want in #bitcoin-dev.  People occasionally attempt to get on IRC and try to troll the devs into saying something publicly that fits their agenda.  After repeated warnings... boot.

The bigger picture is simple too:  You don't tug on Superman's cape.  With today's young and very experimental bitcoin software, if you wanted to try really hard, and pick the worst thing to do to Bitcoin, it would be to try and get bitcoin involved in Iran money laundering, North Korea money laundering, Taliban or jihadi terrorist funding.

That is just a simple, pragmatic statement that saying nothing about one's personal feelings about a particular government policy.

Doing those things is not just stupid, it's fucking stupid.  Doing any of those things is working towards bitcoin's failure.

My standard advice for merchants:  run at least two nodes:

• Node with empty wallet, connected to Internet
• Node with wallet, handles all your bitcoin activity, connects only to the other node

Large merchants would be well advised to run multiple empty-wallet nodes, connecting their internal nodes only to those semi-trusted nodes they control.

(Note: free business idea!)

Another option is a semi-trusted "backbone"  This is a project I worked on for a first, but did not have the time to build it into a real business.  Run a set of nodes, and permit your merchant-customers to connect to these nodes.  In an ideal design, you would have multiple layers of security:  merchants connect to an internal backbone ("cloud A"), and the internal backbone connects to a DMZ/public backbone ("cloud B") that talks to the Internet.

You would have to consider the possibility of a rogue merchant on the internal backbone, but any payment business in theory does a bit of customer vetting.  And even so, it's still got the standard bitcoin level of security... full block and TX verification, etc.

Thanks.  I think most of these have been covered by posters in another thread.

The only other thing I would point out is that, if you have N dedicated servers, it won't help as much if they are all on the same IP network.

Bitcoin is programmed to find and connect to nodes on separate networks, to prevent someone from maliciously starting up 1000 nodes in a single data center (and then having everyone connect to those nodes by virtue of raw server count).

So, it helps if you run bitcoind on various different IP networks.

Let's see.  What if one knew ahead of time that

• the forum is full of idiot trolls
• the chat logs are watched closely by said trolls

Like I said.  Chess.


Re-read the very first link in my long post...  to a Satoshi post.  Satoshi also knew that you don't challenge the biggest governments on their biggest issues.  That's just stupid.

Absolutely.  Or even better, maybe the plugin would permit you to send somebody bitcoins in exchange for a file, or file storage.

Transactions will not always be free.  Any time there are a lot of transactions being sent, free transactions get the lowest priority and might have to wait to make it into a block.  If blocks are often full, you will need to pay a transaction fee to get priority.

Help fix it

Average people can help simply by running a full node that accepts incoming connections from the Internet.  Just download the client and run it, 24/7 -- ideally with an empty wallet for maximum security.  Or maybe make a bitcoin clone of torservers.net, a vehicle where people may donate to strengthen the network.

The wider spread, on different IP networks, the better.  Our accessible P2P network is something like 0.2% the size of the Azureus Island (total accessible Azureus/Vuze), and an even smaller fraction of the total active-at-any-one-time bittorrent userbase.  In file sharing terms, we are barely to the level of a popular torrent.

If you can afford it, get an ASIC or FPGA unit, and mine.  Mine p2pool or at a smaller pool, rather than a big pool.  The more decentralized the mining power, the better.  But even just running a full node is a huge contribution.

Test the pre-release of the next Bitcoin client, 0.8.  Automated, might-crash-and-eat-your-data builds at http://jenkins.bluematt.me/job/Bitcoin/  

If you are a programmer, help implement and test SPV mode clients.  There is a long list of projects that will improve the decentralization, performance, diversity and resilience of the network, that simply are not coded yet.  There are many tests, but many more need writing. There are high standards, but we will answer all technical questions if you have the patience to ask them!  This is one of those engineering projects where any mistake can be, literally, costly.

And that is just the technical side.  On the cultural side, do something that makes bitcoins interesting, appealing and friendly to others.  Pick a project, an idea, a blog post that gets people excited about bitcoin in a positive, uplifting way.  Think about how bitcoin can improve a person's or business's way of life.

As for the bigger picture, it is important that readers review

• The logic behind Satoshi's Admonition, no don't "bring it on"
• My own Bitcoin Mini-Manifesto
• Sun Tzu's Art Of War
• And learn how to play chess.

In short, if you care about bitcoin, if you want bitcoin to survive long term, you need to play a long game.

In particular, big governments have committed billions of dollars and a small specops army to interdicting what they consider their major enemies.  Just about the worst thing you can do is look at the targets of the Big Guys -- Iran, North Korea, Taliban, jihadi terrorists -- and put bitcoin squarely in their crosshairs.

Right now bitcoin is weak; a few thousand listening nodes run by hobbyists are all that holds the network together.  The switch from GPU/FPGA to ASIC will bring an increase in network strength -- but it also consolidates hash production power in a tiny handful of startup companies.  If you think bitcoin can right now sustain a targeted cyber attack, you are dead wrong.

On the legal front, it is also quite clear that law enforcement is taking an active look at bitcoin.  There is an active SEC investigation into Pirate-related activities (good; clear out the swamp).  The DEA is most certainly looking at Silk Road.  The FBI produced an in-depth report on bitcoin, and talks actively about bitcoin at anti-money-laundering conferences.

It is therefore logical to conclude that IRC, forum and other activities are being continually monitored for evidence that can be used in a court of law.

That makes it all the more rich when anonymous forum trolls hurl charges of "cowardice!" and "treason!" when these trolls are neither (a) using their real name, nor (b) contributing in any meaningful way, nor (c) a High Value Target.  Teenaged crypto-anarchists may love to mock the "sheeple" who follow the laws of their jurisdiction, but at the end of the day, they just move back into their parents' house if they run into trouble.  Not that easy for me.

Just like a great many of people I would like to introduce to bitcoin, I am a law-abiding US citizen, using my real name, in public, volunteering my time to work on multiple bitcoin implementations.  Businesses like WordPress are law-abiding businesses.   It is logical and normal to expect people to follow the laws of their country.

That is the most revealing, the most saddening part about this thread.  In a short-sighted attempt to be a morally pure crypto-anarchist, you could ruin the true monetary freedom bitcoin brings, for the billions on this planet.

Thank you for the entertainment.  This thread is completely full of mindboggling silliness.

1) RE "why?" Gavin nailed it on IRC:

Offtopic crap, followed by a transparent attempt to keep the offtopic discussion going.  After warnings and repeated kicks are ignored, you get banned.  Typical IRC B.S.

2) Apparently the IRC command "/ban jeremias" automatically banned all of Finland, thanks to his hostname and IRC server/client parsing, another LOL moment.  Finland was un-banned immediately ;p

3) jeremias was unbanned after several hours (by me, with no one prompting or requesting this).

As to the bigger picture...  that's coming in the next post.

picocoin's library successfully validates both main and testnet3 block chains, including scripts.  ("chain-verf" test in its testsuite)

It is working on Linux, MacOSX, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.  The library compiles on Windows, but the client requires additional Windows work to be functional.

+1

If you want bitcoin to survive in the long term, if you like bitcoin, don't go waving it around as the currency of Iran, or the Taliban, or anything of the sort.

Or, to quote Satoshi during the Wikileaks/Manning furor, No, don't "bring it on".

Seeing a signature twice is the normal case:

• once as an unconfirmed transaction via "tx" message
• once as a confirmed transaction, via "block" message

It is critical to keep "block" message relaying (propagation) times as low as possible, to avoid creating incentives for miners to skip transactions.  Thus, a signature cache ensures that "block" messages are largely already verified, by the time they are received.

pynode is quite incomplete, as the TODO notes.  bitsofproof is farther along in many ways.

The point is that these are well known techniques, and it is disappointing that these are being "discovered" when the knowledge is readily available for anyone who looks.

Edit: correct.

Yep, pynode figured many of these things out, long ago.  A block (including TXs) cache is very useful.

For long running nodes, the signature cache is also very helpful.  Over time, transactions are accepted into the memory pool and signature cache.  When a new block arrives, the majority of transactions found in that block will have had their signatures pre-checked and cached, making acceptance of that block go more rapidly.