[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I'm not concerned by items 5, 6 and "optional". I also don't know enough to agree or disagree about 2.

For point #2, check out my previous post & response:

Also, all the servers are in US, so it would be TRIVIAL for any law enforcement to get to the foolish ones who willingly offered their IPs & home addresses.

OrgName:        SoftLayer Technologies Inc.
OrgId:          SOFTL
Address:        4849 Alpha Rd.
City:           Dallas
StateProv:      TX
PostalCode:     75244
Country:        US
RegDate:        2005-10-26
Updated:        2012-01-27
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/SOFTL

OrgName:        CloudFlare, Inc.
OrgId:          CLOUD14
Address:        665 Third Street #207
City:           San Francisco
StateProv:      CA
PostalCode:     94107
Country:        US
RegDate:        2010-07-09
Updated:        2011-11-03
Comment:        http://www.cloudflare.com/
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/CLOUD14

Oh, MEGA LOL. Cloudflare is an honeypot on it's own.
http://exiledonline.com/isucker-big-brother-internet-culture/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/cloudflare-ceo-our-marketing-strategy-is-sign-up-all-of-the-worlds-international-criminals-tctv/

I will update the list... completely forgot that the servers are in US.

[1715000222]

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[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Updated list of the foundation's bugs:

1. The name "The Bitcoin Foundation" wrongly suggest that it is the central authority that controls Bitcoin.
2. The hosting company of the BitcoinFoundation.org is (with high probability) a Government-run honeypot.
3. There is no safe way for people to have a vote in the Foundation without giving up their identities (which could prove fatal in case of Bitcoin users are declared terrorists, or government tries to confiscate Bitcoins from them).
4. Lack of clear privacy policy. No mention about security of member's personal data (are the servers encrypted or whatever).
6. The organization is not for profit which means it can't go bankrupt should it provide a crappy service as long as big businesses are prepared to open their purse they can operate indefinitely. (a scary thought)
7. The foundation servers are in US, making it trivial for FED & law enforcement to raid them & gather all TBF member data.

(optional) - The CEO of MtGox (with all the problems with anonymity, taint listing, AML shit, KYC shit and arbitrary account freezing in this exchanger) is a founder.
(optional) - The lead dev who owns the git access and is a founding member and a member of the board of directors for the next two years is a conflict of interest.

[jgarzik]

And a lead dev who owns the git access

Fact check:  that is incorrect on multiple levels.  No one person "owns" git access... if that is even a concept.

Multiple developers share git write access -- but that is completely irrelevant, because anyone can fork the git repo the moment a disliked commit appears.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

And a lead dev who owns the git access

Fact check:  that is incorrect on multiple levels.  No one person "owns" git access... if that is even a concept.

Multiple developers share git write access -- but that is completely irrelevant, because anyone can fork the git repo the moment a disliked commit appears.

Valid argument noted... Will change to (optional)

[Portnoy]

And these opinions seem to be based on the fact that you don't seem to understand all definitions of the word
"foundation". 
....

Do you want to be that people will be misled?

No one is being misled, but some may not have a full understanding of certain English words. They can be educated, if they are not willfully ignorant. 

[jgarzik]

It's quite difficult to wage a war against good intentions. Best of luck to you if you think you're fighting the good fight.

Al it takes is to use reason and look at the facts. So far there's been little of that and a lot of trickery, falacies and ad hominems.

Yes, on the troll side.

If you are looking for simple facts, there are these:

• There is not a single technical change to the protocol or reference client that may be highlighted as disliked/evil
• There are plenty of technically component people here who may fork the reference client, should any such change appears
• There are alternate client implementations, in various stages of completion

There is zero hard, technical evidence of anything supporting the trolls positions.

There is zero evidence of anything beyond the dev team wanting to complete Satoshi's decentralized vision.

[jgarzik]

1. The name "The Bitcoin Foundation" wrongly suggest that it is the central authority that controls Bitcoin.

[as mentioned before] this is a fair point, but really bike shedding at this juncture.

2. The hosting company of the BitcoinFoundation.org is (with high probability) a Government-run honeypot.

What is a proven better DDoS protection service?

3. There is no safe way for people to have a vote in the Foundation without giving up their identities (which could prove fatal in case of Bitcoin users are declared terrorists, or government tries to confiscate Bitcoins from them).

An understandable criticism, but I think this is within the realm of member policy.

4. Lack of clear privacy policy. No mention about security of member's personal data (are the servers encrypted or whatever).

A fair criticism, AFAICS?

6. The organization is not for profit which means it can't go bankrupt should it provide a crappy service as long as big businesses are prepared to open their purse they can operate indefinitely. (a scary thought)

Bogus criticism:  the foundation will disappear if its members dislike its actions.  Thus there is a free-market economic feedback mechanism and members are the customers.

Another, just like making it easy to fork the code, you can fork the foundation:  there is no barrier to doing your own foundation, and doing it better.  People will join the better foundation, even devs.

7. The foundation servers are in US, making it trivial for FED & law enforcement to raid them & gather all TBF member data.

True, though I don't see this as a problem.

(optional) - The CEO of MtGox (with all the problems with anonymity, taint listing, AML shit, KYC shit and arbitrary account freezing in this exchanger) is a founder.

<shrug>  All this is necessary to deal with USD and other fiat exchange.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game ;p

Every single large fiat exchange will behave in exactly the same manner.

[The_Duke]

There is zero hard, technical evidence of anything supporting the trollscritics positions.

Just the fact that you try to set critics aside by calling them trolls creates some truth in what they say.

Aside from that, you are saying that there is no evidence of X before X has taken place. Which is of course true. However the likelihood that X *might* happen might have been increased. Critics don't need to wait before something bad happens, they can also warn for things that might happen.

[hazek]

It's quite difficult to wage a war against good intentions. Best of luck to you if you think you're fighting the good fight.

Al it takes is to use reason and look at the facts. So far there's been little of that and a lot of trickery, falacies and ad hominems.

Yes, on the troll side.

If you are looking for simple facts, there are these:

• There is not a single technical change to the protocol or reference client that may be highlighted as disliked/evil
• There are plenty of technically component people here who may fork the reference client, should any such change appears
• There are alternate client implementations, in various stages of completion

There is zero hard, technical evidence of anything supporting the trolls positions.

There is zero evidence of anything beyond the dev team wanting to complete Satoshi's decentralized vision.

Actually a member on the board of directors of Bitcoin Foundation has identified the same dangers that a self admitted self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body poses as I have. Are you saying he doesn't have his facts straight either?

[The_Duke]

Bogus criticism:  the foundation will disappear if its members dislike its actions.  Thus there is a free-market economic feedback mechanism and members are the customers.

Oh really? Who guarantees us that? How many people have to dislike its actions before it will go away? 50%? 51? 80? 99%? And then what? It will just *poof!* magically go away? And what about all the stuff it then apparently has already done that made people dislike it? Will that also magically be reversed?
You really think you and your fellow board members will just stop the foundation if people don't like it? Even when a lot of companies have bought the big corporate memberships? And what does that say for the "lifetime memberships"? They are actually "lifetime until enough people dislike us memberships"?

<shrug>  All this is necessary to deal with USD and other fiat exchange.

No it's not, and other exchanges prove it. It ís necessary if you want to get very rich though....

Every single large fiat exchange will behave in exactly the same manner.

But bitcoin is not supposed to bé like fiat systems, right? So how can this ever be an argument?

[hazek]

And a lead dev who owns the git access

Fact check:  that is incorrect on multiple levels.  No one person "owns" git access... if that is even a concept.

Multiple developers share git write access -- but that is completely irrelevant, because anyone can fork the git repo the moment a disliked commit appears.

Well then, no one really owns their bitcoins, they just have access to them..  

Yes the git repo can be forked and that never was an issue. The issue is that the lead dev can potentially make changes having Bitcoin Foundation defend them and attack and discredit any forks down the road which could turn into a scenario where the ignorant masses start using a client that is inherently bad for them while the fork that would attempt to correct that can get marginalized, attacked and pushed into irrelevance. That's why it's a conflict of interest because the lead dev and his team can use a powerful organization to defend their fork vs other forks, not because other forks aren't possible.

[BitBlitz]

.....Because the Linux Foundation that this is modeled after is such an extreme example of corruption

[hazek]

And a lead dev who owns the git access and is a founding member and a member of the board of directors for the next two years is a conflict of interest.

If one of the goals - a good goal, IMHO - is to finance the development of Bitcoin software, it looks natural to me that developers have an influence over the organization. If developers have no influence at all, I'd say it's worse. I find it good that developers have a say in where the money goes, which are the priorities etc.

Same thing can be achieved without a conflict of interest with an independent contract. Lead dev and dev team can specify what the funds will be spent on developing in there. This allows that if ever devs can't get funding for what they think is best, and if the community shares their opinion, they can always find someone else who will hire them as independent contractors. Now they are locked with this organization and the only way something else will get funded is if it's developed by someone else other than lead dev and his team and funded by someone else other than the current donators to Bitcoin Foundation.

And the organization is not for profit which means it can't go bankrupt should it provide a crappy service as long as big businesses are prepared to open their purse they can operate indefinitely. (a scary thought)

That's not accurate. First of all, do not confuse "profit" in its generic economical sense with "profit" in its financial sense, of "monetary profit" or "dividends". Every organization "seeks profit", in the sense that every organization aims to create something of value for its participants. Profit, in that sense, means to add value, to improve one's level of satisfaction.
And every organization that doesn't use force to keep itself may go "bankrupt". If its donors judge they are not adding value to them, they'll stop donating. That will force the organization to shrink, as happens with a company that doesn't manage to sell its products. If it doesn't shrink accordingly, or if the donation goes down all the way to zero, the organization will break.

Wrong. Donations can be made by anyone and they can be of any size. This means that if you have a deep purse you carry more weight and can buy more power which no one will notice. On the other hand a for profit business sells a service, the same service at the same price for everyone. There if they don't have many clients (which translates to broad support) they go out of business and a deep purse can't change that by buying their service over and over again because it would be obvious what is happening.

[hazek]

.....Because the Linux Foundation that this is modeled after is such an extreme example of corruption

Ah yes, let's compare an operating system to a money system, I'm sure controlling either must be on the same level of desirability by the power hungry. 

[hazek]

Off topic:

I wonder if this is how it must have been when people in America at the very beginning were arguing whether or not they need a central bank. I wonder if the same sort of attacks through the use of sophistry, trickery, fallacies and ad hominems were used against those opposed when they were warning of the dangers such an institution poses down the road.

[ArticMine]

.....Because the Linux Foundation that this is modeled after is such an extreme example of corruption

Ah yes, let's compare an operating system to a money system, I'm sure controlling either must be on the same level of desirability by the power hungry.  

Actually the control of the operating system can be used to control Bitcoin and also fiat at the same time and Microsoft's control over Windows poses a very serious threat to Bitcoin far greater than any of the concerns over the Bitcoin Foundation. In this day and age I would take control over the Operating System over control over money any day, because by controlling the operating system I also get control over money.

[BitBlitz]

Forget it.  I'm done reading all this black helicopter crap.
I'm glad to see a group willing to put an effort into improving Bitcoin's visibility and viability as a [more]mainstream economy.  Done!

[strello]

Updated list of the foundation's bugs:

1. The name "The Bitcoin Foundation" wrongly suggest that it is the central authority that controls Bitcoin.
2. The hosting company of the BitcoinFoundation.org is (with high probability) a Government-run honeypot.
3. There is no safe way for people to have a vote in the Foundation without giving up their identities (which could prove fatal in case of Bitcoin users are declared terrorists, or government tries to confiscate Bitcoins from them).
4. Lack of clear privacy policy. No mention about security of member's personal data (are the servers encrypted or whatever).
6. The organization is not for profit which means it can't go bankrupt should it provide a crappy service as long as big businesses are prepared to open their purse they can operate indefinitely. (a scary thought)
7. The foundation servers are in US, making it trivial for FED & law enforcement to raid them & gather all TBF member data.

(optional) - The CEO of MtGox (with all the problems with anonymity, taint listing, AML shit, KYC shit and arbitrary account freezing in this exchanger) is a founder.
(optional) - The lead dev who owns the git access and is a founding member and a member of the board of directors for the next two years is a conflict of interest.

First, I would like to thank you very much, ShadowOfHarbringer, for collating this list of the numerous issues surrounding the launch of "The Bitcoin Foundation".

I would like to add my name to the list of those having grave concerns about this initiative. I am surprised and disappointed that so few people have expressed their concern so far about TBF.

I agree fully with all your points so far, and would like to add my feelings.

Personally I strongly feel that the fact that all founder members are from the USA, or based there, with the sole exception of Mark Karpeles, and the fact that the Foundation is registered in the USA, not only exposes Bitcoin itself to problems with US law, but denies the international, decentralised nature of Bitcoin. As a non-USA citizen, I already feel excluded, and that this Foundation is presenting itself, and therefore Bitcoin, as an exclusively US venture. There is very little in their slick corporate PR on the website which mentions of the International nature of the Bitcoin community.

I am surprised that no International Bitcoin users have expressed their dismay about this.

Secondly, I find it extremely naive of them in their "Mission statement" to announce that Bitcoin is "a non-political online money". Or perhaps this is actually a clear indication of their cynical plans to "legitimise" and depoliticise Bitcoin. The use of Bitcoin is extremely political in many ways, and can in the future become even more so as it grows. It can, and will, in my opinion, influence and undermine the control that the corrupt banking institutions have over everyone's lives. It can be or become a tool for citizens in repressive regimes to use currency without state control. It deeply concerns me that the Bitcoin Foundation cabal seem to be actively and aggresively pushing Bitcoin into the corporate arena, and seeking to undermine the potential for personal choice and freedom from corporate oppression. A clear recent example has been the possibility to donate to organisations such as Wikileaks which the US/ Corporate machine tried to suppress.

Again, I am surprised that so few Bitcoiners seem worried about this slide into apathetic, apolitical corporate compliance.

I appeal to all Bitcoin users to carefully consider all of these issues, and to register their rejection of this cynical attempt to hijack our wonderful social experiment in it's infancy.

[boonies4u]

The anti-TBF or at least the paranoid can't seem to agree on a lot of issues. I guess you guys aren't really a "side" yet.

Some people are calling it THEIR money, and how dare the devs try to mess with it. Some people are saying it is a social experiment, and how dare TBF try to depoliticize it.

Also, if TBF tries to depoliticize bitcoin and they succeed... I highly doubt bitcoin users will be labeled terrorists.

For as many reasons to like something, I guess there are just as many reasons not to like something. (not trying to say this is a two-sides issue)

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I agree fully with all your points so far, and would like to add my feelings.

Well, to be 100% clear, only 3 or 4 of the points are mine, the rest are somebody's elses.

I highly doubt bitcoin users will be labeled terrorists.

...but you cannot guarantee that.

So this counter-argument is useless.