Sounds cool. You have linux support expected soon?

Thank you Mr. Finney! You have helped change my life and give me purpose, without even knowing it.

You are an inspiration and I am so grateful that brilliant minds like yours find ways to do so much positive work for the world! Take care buddy

Also, we are putting together questions with the moderator and there will be a Q&A.  If there are any questions you think should be asked, put them here, in this thread.

Check out the event page to get an idea of focus/theme.  Then post some questions here!  New perspectives and input is always valued.

I'm working on this event as well.  Here is a small map of the campus and the Vidalakis Dining Hall.  Unless you've gone to school there, the campus can be a little confusing.

     http://www.vlab.org/images/vault/465.png

This one is going to be really good; Phil Z and Nico Sell alone make it worth attending!  Hope to see some bitcointalkers out there

---

Some additional details

• -   $40 presale tix
• -   $15 for students, not just Stanford/MIT students
• -   Food included, and it's usually really good
• -   Reception is a great opportunity to meet and speak with interesting people

If you can make it, make sure to find Tony or myself (Frank) so that we can invite you to a post-event get together.  Like Tony mentioned, privacy and bitcoin are both very important and the crossover is obvious.  Come on by and let's talk about it all.  This is how we change the world.

Dear OP, with all due respect, I couldn't make it past your third item before immediately putting together this response.

Do some research and then come back to revise your post.  I suggest reading the white paper and searching through btctalk threads.  You have fundamental misunderstandings and an obvious lack of background on the available resources.

Take care!

I used private internet access and I'm a little worried no one has mentioned them.  Any experience with them?

Accepts bitcoin.  Fast.  Multiple access points across the world.  No logging.

I know this is an old topic, but if you are concerned about leaving paper trails; localbitcoins is your best bet. 

Bitinstant also cost more.  Usually you can buy at market price on local. 

If you want to be VERY anonymous; do an OTC trade online.  This way you only interact with the seller online and you don't deal with any banks or exchanges that have a lot of your information.  No paper trail and no face to face.

People give factions of the government way too much credit. 

That's a good idea.  Do it!

Haha, thanks for the offer.  I'll let you know if I decide to go down the same path as TF!

It's hilarious what some people will do for money.  The people getting paid to change their signatures don't even care.  So it's just slander.  Cheap advertisement for TF's anti-ripple campaign.  But for why, why do this?  

Why not just educate people if you have such profound knowledge?  Reason being, the arguments are frail.  Ripple is controversial in some respects but a scam is simply not true.  It's a payment system and it's the best one yet.  I bet most of the people being paid to change their signatures haven't even read the ripple wiki and haven't even used the application.  

So since education doesn't work, resort to slander.  And resort to the biggest boldest type... in red, to try and seem authoritative.  But to me, and other semi-intelligent people, it's childish at best.  

This behaviour sure doesn't lend any credibility to TradeFortress' campaign.

Unless you have built something which adjust money supply; it will run into the same deflation bitcoin will.  Fixed supply = deflation; the amount of the fixed supply is practically inconsequential.  The number of bitcoins doesn't even matter; even with 1 btc, we could divide it infinitely and trade pieces of it.

I will repeat; copying bitcoin because bitcoin is flawed doesn't fix the problem. 

Alt coin creators need to think "what problem does this solve"?  And then really analyze how it solves it. 

Exactly Milly6! 

If opinions are for sale; I'd like to buy yours tradefortress.  For 10btc, I'll buy your signature.  It will say "Cheap tricks $5 bucks; all genders welcome, bigger is better."

Really, what's the difference?  If all that matters is the coin, why wouldn't you do this? 

What a joke.

Great points.  Any proof-of-work coin will run into similar problems.  Copying bitcoin because bitcoin is flawed doesn't fix the problem.  But that's exactly what so many alt coins are doing right now. 

BTW, thank you OP for this thread.  It's a great discussion and relatively balanced opinions. 

Let me sum up the good, bad, and neutral, from my perspective.

Bad:
Close source for the time being
Not enough gateways

Neutral:
OpenCoin is using half of the native currency, XRP, to develop it.  (they needed something to attract investors and talent. Bitcoin couldn't do this)

Good:
Consensus > Proof-of-work.  Read up, it's the best feature.
Use any currency to buy something in any currency
Best payment system to date
Decentralized exchange
Ultra fast transactions; much faster than bitcoin
True microtransactions are possible
Incredibly scalable. No need to worry about the network collapsing under the pressure of the level of transactions Visa does per hour.

If you want to make money, make something unique.  Solve another problem.  Here's a short list of problems in the world off the top off my head:



Journalism is reactive and low quality.  It needs to be objective and investigative journalism is important. 

Same with politics; reactive not objective.

We still rely on fossil fuels.

We need more bitcoin based businesses for the bitcoin economy to evolve from a speculative thing to a store of value to a useful currency.  There are parts of the world that would benefit greatly from the technology but just don't know about it.  Go bring bitcoin to Argentina, Iran, Africa, etc.



Cliche as fuck, but don't follow; lead.  So much effort is wasted on trying to emulate successful ideas.  Use that energy to do something new.  Don't be a parasite. 

Correct, and google authenticator is a sleek application. Super easy to use and steps up your security.  Many sites use 2fa.  Consider locking your emails down with 2fa as well since hacked emails account for a lot of break-ins.

tl;dr - There will be a panel discussion at Stanford June 18th. Ripple, Coinbase, Winklevoss twins, SV bank, Forbes writer Kashmir Hill. $50, cheaper for students.

http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=469


When
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
6:00 - 7:00pm  Networking and Refreshments
7:00 - 8:30pm  Panel Discussion and Q&A

Where
Munger Bldg 4, Paul Brest Hall,
555 Salvatierra Walk, Stanford Univ
Parking Address:
Parking Structure 6, 560 Wilbur Way
Please allow some extra time for parking; availability may be tight due to increased event activity at Stanford.
 
Introduction
Susan Athey, Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business
 
Moderator
Kashmir Hill, Senior Online Editor, Forbes

Panelists
Fred Ehrsam, Co-founder, Coinbase
Chris Larsen, CEO and Co-Founder, OpenCoin, the company developing the Ripple protocol
Wendy Cheung, Director of Compliance and BSA Officer, Silicon Valley Bank
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Principals, Winklevoss Capital
 
Event Description
What if currency wasn't something that exchanged hands physically, but moved instantaneously between networks, countries, and continents? What if it wasn't regulated by a government, system of banks, or any entity at all? And, what if it was completely open source?

This disruption of what we view as currency isn't just theory, it is already a $1.5 billion dollar movement. Leading the charge is Bitcoin. Launched in 2009, Bitcoin moved to decentralize currency in a big way by leveraging cryptography (instead of government authority) to digitally coin and transfer money. Users can choose to use the currency veiled in anonymity while steadily gaining ground as a valuable, peer-to-peer currency.

With over 11M bitcoins in circulation, the virtual currency is gaining significant traction. Thousands of companies and online retailers, and as many as 140 non-profits currently accept payment in bitcoins. The market value of a single bitcoin was as low as pennies at the outset, has risen as high as $266 and now hovers in the $100-120 range.

The emergence of an alternative currency has had a domino effect. As more people "mine" (create) new bitcoins, more retailers and organizations scramble to adopt the infrastructure to accept this new form of payment. Non-profits have also been early adopters and virtual currencies have provided new ways to fund and extend their work.

The spike in consumer interest has also lead to new currency exchange systems like Mt. Gox---the current most popular online exchange, and Ripple--an emerging platform that calls itself the world's first open transaction network to facilitate exchanges between all kinds of currencies, including Bitcoin. And the rise of Bitcoin has also spurred new similar virtual currencies such as Litecoin. The interest has not gone unnoticed by VC's. Andreessen Horowitz recently completed an angel round for an undisclosed amount to fund OpenCoin, the developer of Ripple.

This fascinating area is also fraught with its own concerns. The characteristic potential anonymity of Bitcoin has led to virtually untraceable funding of illicit activities. The government, which has been slow to recognize virtual currencies, is starting to take notice considering the booming growth of this largely untaxed, unregulated currency.

Whether you are bitcoiner yourself or are brand new to virtual currencies, join a panel of experts on June 18th 2013, to learn about the past and future potential of virtual currencies.

blockchain.info with 2 passwords and 2fa. 

VPN, Bitcoin, Tor, PGP. 

This is the world we live in and those are the tools you have to fight back.

Why?  What are you afraid of? 

I don't get this smear campaign.  Reminds me of politics.  Ripple doesn't slam bitcoin, why are you paying people to slam ripple?  It's beyond education, many people will post an anti-ripple message just for the money. 

What is your incentive, OP?