I've been playing around with Windows to Go on a USB thumbdrive lately.  I downloaded the Windows 8 Enterprise trial ISO from Microsoft and installed it on freshly formatted hard drive in an offline PC.  From that Enterprise installation I created a live and bootable Windows 8 Enterprise USB using the Windows to Go feature.  You can choose to use Microsoft's BitLocker encryption on the USB drive from the Windows to Go installation wizard.  Once Go is finished installing, you can boot up that installation of Windows on any capable system.  On boot you'll be prompted for the BitLocker password to decrypt the drive.

On any systems you use with your USB drive you'd just want to make sure any network cables are disconnected before you boot up.  The first time I booted from my USB drive I just went ahead and uninstalled all network devices.  I installed Armory and have used it for a few small offline wallets.  I think this gives you something almost as secure as a dedicated offline computer for Armory with more flexibility.  The way I've set it up you need the BitLocker decryption key, the regular Windows password, and the password for the Armory wallets in order to sign transactions to be moved to an online system for broadcasting.

Of course, you can do something similar with Linux, but I wanted to try it out with Windows because Armory updates typically go out to Windows first, and I wanted to avoid worrying about dependencies and stuff like that.  What's nice is that I think you can do this for free.  You can get the trial Enterprise ISO directly from Microsoft.  The standard installation is limited to 90 days, but you just need to install it in order to create a Windows to Go USB drive.  After that, you don't need it anymore.  The Go installation will tell you it's not activated with a watermark, but being unactivated, as far as I can tell, just means you can use some Windows features like the Windows store - stuff you don't need on an offline installation anyway.

I guess it's a slight step down from a dedicated Armory offline computer because I it's conceivable that a wallet compromising virus could travel from the hard drive of host computer onto the USB installation; although, from my USB Go installation I've never been able to access the drive resources of the host computer, so I assume there some partitioning going on to protect against that sort of thing.  Anyway, like I said, probably a slight step down in security from the recommended Armory setup, but a step up in security, I think, from VMs on network connected computers.  Plus you get a lot more flexibility since you could more easily travel with an encrypted USB that you can use on your main laptop or any other computer.

Just something I've been playing with.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make is seem like you were endorsing cashing out to USD.  I understood that you were poking fun at the idea.  In any event, everytime I actually perform a bitcoin transaction or make an offline wallet, I'm reminded of how cool bitcoin is.  

Since yesterday is the first time I've actually had no bitcoins anywhere other than my own private offline wallets.  I've typically kept at least a little bit in online wallets or an exchange or two, but I think I'm done with that until this infrastructure matures more and I have more trust in third parties.  The risk of losing my bitcoins concerns me more than their value dropping and not having the immediate ability to convert them to USD on somebody else's balance sheet.

I understand that's not going to be everyone's risk assessment.  I'm sure a lot of people who bought in the past couple months will decide differently.

Sorry for the thread hijack.

When the market gets really crazy and bad news starts piling up, I don't try to profit anymore.  I'm happy with what I've made and can comfortably weather the storms.  No, the first thing I do is move my BTCs from exchanges into offline wallets.  I don't want them seized and I can move them so much more easily than USD.

First, Wow.  When I first came on board, MtGox daily volume in USD was often just a couple thousand USD.  That bitcoin businesses are now talking in terms of tens of millions of USD is really remarkable.

Second, that's quite a condition to agree to.  Seriously, is that typical?  That seems like a huge penalty to sign up for in case things go wrong.  Are there any conditions in there about hardships or factors that could except MtGox from being penalized?  I have to think the DDoS and trading engine problems of the past month or so haven't helped them prioritize getting the keys ready for the CoinLab guys.

And this is exactly why VC interest is more relevant and important than ever.  The startup costs of a bitcoin exchange in the US have significantly increased.

How would a distributed, blockchain currency self regulate to dampen volatility?  In order to do that it would be dependent on some source for its information about what price people were trading it at.  Would it use one source?  Many sources?  Who would maintain these price feeds?  Would not the price feeds be susceptible to hacks where invalid or disruptive data could be delivered to influence the way the currency self-regulates?

It's a nice thought, but it just adds a layer of complexity and potential exploitation to something that in its growing up years can already be manipulated and exploited pretty easily.  It's easy to forget how young this idea is.  If it's to persist into the future at all and become a significant player in global economics its journey there will be volatile, that's just the way it will go.

FML, the spec forum has follow me out.

This.  I've already spoken to my accountant about my obligations, and I'm happy to settle up with my government.  In any event, if you don't even want to pay capital gains, then stay in bitcoin.

I'm still confused by this whole discussion, and I think people aren't thinking this through and are failing to appreciate the nuance of what it would even mean to regulate bitcoin, or any other payment system built on the distributed, blockchain model.

Can we all pause for a moment and try to explain what it would even mean to "regulate bitcoin"?  By its nature, a distributed, majority rules rule, blockchain system is resistant to top-down, state imposed regulation of itself.  In that sense, neither bitcoin, nor litecoin, nor any other system based on this model can simply be regulated upon in the sense that some authority declares it should behave a certain way and then it is so.  Again, the system is resistant to that by design.  I get the sense that people are worried that the system will be regulated in this sense.  It practically cannot be.

On the other hand, points of contact with the traditional financial system (e.g. banks) can be regulated upon in a top-down authoritarian way.  Regulation at these points of contact is practically impossible to prevent.  In some cases regulation in this sense may even be desirable.

Can we please get clear about which sense of regulation we're talking about here.

It's showing up green in my browsers.  If it isn't for you, then you should not log in.

Will you please offer an argument for why adding decimal places is farcical?  Also, in what time frame do you see this problem becoming apparent?  The second question is important because it's a near certainty that lots of things we now depend on will be gone at some time in the future, but that isn't something we typically get bothered about now.

I guess.  I haven't seen any announcements in a while.  Though, I did notice that their about page not lists Jodie Brady as their CFO, which, unless I missed it, is something new.

iReport isn't "The Media".  It's basically CNN's message board.  Also, if MtGox were raided by state authorities, you'd be doing it wrong to sell your bitcoins for state money, because out of state money and bitcoins, it's the former that's more easily frozen and/or seized by banking and state authorities.

That goes without saying.  Every cryptocurrency is immune to regulation with respect to physical cash transactions.  But, hopefully it's obvious enough that I don't mean to include ordinary physical cash transactions when I speak of interacting with the traditional financial system.  I'm referring to things like online exchanges.  And in the case of online exchanges I'm referring to those that use banks to store and move customers state money funds.  

Or no fork.  There is no cryptocurrency variant that is immune to regulation where it transacts with the traditional financial system.  Forking bitcoin or creating new alt-coins simply will not solve the problem, to the extent that is a problem, of regulation at points of contact with the traditional system.  Users can already go both routes.  If you choose to only transact in bitcoin, then you can effectively choose to transact within an unregulated system.  If you want to move into and out of bitcoin and the methods you choose to do so interact directly enough with the traditional financial system, then you'll likely brush up about regulations.

Just FYI, when you register the intro syntax text they send out doesn't note the "address" command that you have to use/send to get a standard bitcoin address so that you can fund your wallet.  Maybe they left it out on purpose so people wouldn't start really using the system yet because it's still so new.  In any event, it's pretty slick.  It's about as easy as it gets.  Now if they can make it secure...

Regulation of bitcoin in some sense is inevitable and probably desirable, but it's important to recognize that the only sense in which bitcoin can be realistically regulated has to do with the ways that bitcoin interfaces with the traditional financial system.  So, exchanges, like MtGox, can be compelled to behave in certain ways by the financial regulations of their jurisdictions.  They can be held to standards of accounting and reporting, say, and face fines or interference for not complying.

A unique aspect of bitcoin is that transacting only in the bitcoin ecosystem, away from points of contact with the traditional financial system, is to transact in a system that is pretty strongly resistant to typical top-down regulation from entities like states.  Users can more easily choose whether they operate in the regulated space or the unregulated space.

In a discussion on regulation, I think it's important to make this distinction.  If somebody, like some members of the Foundation, are pro-regulation, it doesn't necessarily mean they believe that bitcoin itself should or will be regulated - it probably just can't be regulated in a practical way.  What they are likely talking about are regulations to do with certain ways that bitcoin comes in contact with traditional financial systems where states already enforce regulations.

I think it'd be interesting to get all of Satoshi's known writings and archive them in one location in chronological order.

I agree.  I'm not going away from bitcoin or bitcointalk, I'm just leaving the trolling game and the speculation forum.

Here's the thing - I really like bitcoin.  Every time I actually use the system, I'm instantly reminded of why I thought this thing was so cool in the first place.  In a way, I've become a victim of my own trolling, just as some of you have suggested.  Here's my story.

I found out about bitcoin in late February/early March 2011.  A few weeks after investigating the idea I decided to start mining.  My decision to mine instead of buy outright was motivated by the fact that I was in the market for a new gaming PC anyway, and so mining was a sort of hedge against the market working against me.  I turned my machine off a few months after the 2011 crash.  I also bought a fair number of bitcoins before May 2011.

I was enthusiastic about bitcoin and new to markets and trading.  The 2011 crash was depressing and it changed me.  This, despite that I was lucky to more than double the number of bitcoins I mined and bought before the crash.  The project began to look like the sort of thing that was being torn apart inside an out.  I became a vicious troll, because, in a perverse way, I wanted to help what seemed like the project's inevitable end.

At some point my awful trollishness became too much and I issued an apology for my tone, but not my content.  I trolled on, just with less vitriol.  As the project recovered I began to fight with myself.  My trollish character had sort of developed a mind of its own, even as I began to appreciate bitcoin's innovation and value again.  I developed a sense of obligation to the community to post as Proudhon The Toll because of a community expectation and, in a way, to balance out over-zealousness with the same thing in the other direction.

When I switched gears and began posting bullishly not long after this most recent crash I was playing to the joke that I had become a sort of contrary indicator.  "Playing" the character of a more even-headed optimist made me realize that, well, that's not really a character, because I am actually optimistic about bitcoin, even if cautiously.

This is sort of a good-bye to the speculation forum, though I might stick around and respond here for a little while.  I intend to spend more time discussing bitcoin, and cryptocurrency in general, in political/economic/and philosophical contexts, and so you'll find me posting on bitcointalk.org and other places in areas more suitable for those sorts of discussions.  It's been extremely educational, depressing, exciting, frustrating, and fun around here.  I think I've ultimately learned what I needed to learn from the speculation forum - I'm not a bitcoin trader, I'm an investor and a user.  And yes, my paper wallets are safe and sound.