The law sturle is referring to is not agains cracking WPA networks or accessing them, it has nothing to do with criminal or otherwise use of the software, it merely bans possession of the software (the law is in fact broader banning a whole load of tools related to "computer security"). They need not prove you used or had intention of using the software for whichever purpose, simply having the binary or code is against that law.

Is the law moronic, yeah of course. doesn't invalidate it though.

Not sure what probable cause has to do with this?

Yeah but the catch is that while the genie may be out, you're in (prison) ^_^

Making things disappear of the internet is pretty damn hard, impossible maybe, but that won't stop a government trying and prosecuting who it wishes on the way.

A second or third generation ASIC really depends on the future survival of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin continues to grow, perhaps even thrive, then it's trivial to predict that these companies will continue to invest in new products to meet demand once first-gen becomes less sought after.

The Bitcoin network is designed to produce a specific amount of bitcoin per day on average, so the arrival of ASICs will not affect this in the long run, nor will it noticeably shorten the time it will take to completely mine Bitcoin. There is quite some life in mining ahead.

If there are no transaction, it means bitcoin has died completely. Even just the act of mining creates transactions, and anybody wishing to use bitcoin for anything must eventually transact. If bitcoin survives, it will be a non-issue, if bitcoin collapses and dies out... well, again a non-issue really.

I think the whole community has in it's best interest the survival of bitcoin and its growth, but I'm not sure why you are singling out BFL as having a special responsibility. It is in fact probably more the "responsibility" (though I really don't like this term in the context we are discussing) of businesses making money directly in the BTC economy, which includes exchanges, services and stores.

In real life it isn't a single company making one tiny part of the overall industry ecosystem which lobbies governments, it's generally down to a larger umbrella group to actually do the lobbying on behalf of the industry rather than on behalf of a single business.

In some way, that's what the (apparently much hated) Bitcoin Foundation could/should be(come).

uhm, sempre che bitcoin non sia una truffa in partenza, per ora no, ma c'è sempre una prima volta ^_^
Ora ad esempio ho buttato una dozzina di BTC alla piattaforma di p2p lending che ha aperto qualche tempo fa... il tempo dirà se è proficua o una fregatura

Ah, poi ho azzardato un preorder per un Jalapeno, quindi probabilmente la risposta presto sarà si (anche se ho pagato con soldi non con BTC).

...gets you regulated out of existence.

Now, this is just provocation. I don't "predict" that will happen... truth is, I don't know.

Exchange rates of hundreds or thousands of dollars to the BTC are possible, i suppose, but I wouldn't bank on them. If what you are truly asking is what  you can expect to take out of BitCoin if you invest now and wait 5, 10 or 15 years... well, then it's a pure gamble.

Looking at what has happened so far, we can easily say there is an interest in Bitcoin from the community, and there are some more or less legitimate businesses which do indeed use Bitcoin, even though they are mostly limited in reach and type of services provided. While amongst ourselves it may seem to be gaining traction and acceptance, we do witness the full power of its weaknesses when it comes to scams and government interventions. This is for the better and the worse, of course. A good portion of Bitcoin's current value comes from it's intrinsic unruliness... should for instance Silk Road shut down, while a great thing from a moral and health point of view, it would hurt Bitcoin value.

Basically, never make the mistake of playing against the risk of not making money, think about how much you are willing to completely loose, and invest that amount.

If it really doesn't fail (or get killed) in the next 5 years, and the community continues to grow like it has so far, it's not unlikely for bitcoin to be worth anywhere from 20 to 200 dollars apiece. more, I would be surprised.

I'd be glad to be ^_^

Uhm, are you underclocking/undervolting your cards? 800-1200 with 2x 7970s seems a little on the low side of things... targeting 75°C with cgminer I has around 600 on a single 7970.

Anyhow, I've looked around the various pools and some specific cases aside (as organofcorti mentions, I'd stay away from yours tbh) they are mostly similar to each other.

At the moment I've been on Bitminter for a while and it's nice... large enough to have some reasonable stability at a (potentially) very low cost. Ineed by default you are "donating" 2% of your earnings (not a bad rate) and having in return instant crediting. You can disable this perk.
I havn't tried the other two suggested above.

Deepbit or 50btc will charge you much more but if you're after less varibility of income they obviosuly have their large size on their side.

In the end it really boils down to what features you're after. If you want 100% payout then you can look at things like p2pool, but it's already slightly more complicated to set-up.

UE is Unione Europea / Union européenne / Unión Europea etc.
Several countries in Europe will say UE instead of EU (European Union) as it is how it is said in our local language.

Regrettably credit card is really not a viable option, as said above me, for bitcoin purchase. Funding exchanges with bank transfer, however, is really much less hassle than it sounds and you can easily do it for smallish ammounts (e.g. € 50)

I would suggest you use this method as it's porbably the safest and most reliable.

If you only want a handful of coins to play a little, and you have a computer with a decent graphics card, another option is to earn some coins mining using some very simple solution (for instance a pool which offers an inbuilt no-work miner). You can probably earn 2 or 3 BTC in a few weeks if you have a reasonable GPU.

Well hello

I'm Andrea*, nice to meet you all ^_^

I've been lurking for a while and have been a rather "small" and occasional bitcoin user/miner for some time now, but It's getting more and more interesting.

*I'd like to specify I'm a man... Italian, you see