Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed”

[The00Dustin]

By rejecting Theymos' suggestion, all you will be achieving is leaving some fraction of all bitcoins available for the first people with the QC technology to sweep up all the loose coins at will. You won't be saving them from evil devs. You will just be losing them to thieves. And then everyone else with bitcoin suffers as the market collapses from the shock of such stupidity in allowing this to happen.

Thank you sir. I concur, and your sentence structure is excellent. Also, as per you last post, I applaud you for making your motivations clear. If everyone on the board did this, the shill/disinformation paradigm would vanish overnight.

We can not protect these coins, and suffer the consequences as a whole, or we can take preventative measures, and mitigate the harm to a select few, obviously negligent actors at this point.

Would you starve due to the negligence of your brother? I am all for helping another in need, but when that need is self imposed, when does one limit their own exposure to another's poor situation?

First off, if I am keeping up, ebliever has changed his position from "Theymos is wrong" to "Theymos is right" and back to "Theymos is wrong" before you ever quoted this post from the middle position.

Secondly, taken out of context, "and then everyone else with bitcoin suffers as the market collapses from the shock of such stupidity in allowing this to happen" summarizes both arguments.  One argument is that allowing the coins to be stolen = bitcoin is worthless.  The other argument is that manipulating the coins even though not in possession of the keys = bitcoin is worthless.  The problem with both of these arguments is that they come from people worried about the value of their stash instead of being worried about the roots from and purpose for which bitcoin was created.  When considering those principles, the only way the coins should ever move is when a rightful owner or bad actor uses the keys to move them.

[beastmodeBiscuitGravy]

...
We can not protect these coins, and suffer the consequences as a whole, or we can take preventative measures, and mitigate the harm to a select few, obviously negligent actors at this point.

Would you starve due to the negligence of your brother? I am all for helping another in need, but when that need is self imposed, when does one limit their own exposure to another's poor situation?

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

Why should "the many" suffer from the (in)actions of "the few"? 'Tis a very small amount of liberty to be traded to gain lots o' security. Clear thinking from Theymos once again.

Best to soft fork in the deletion of these coins owned by negligent owners than risk them returning to the market.

[cjmoles]

But in the actual example, the only coins affected are those that have been for all practical purposes abandoned - and WILL be stolen.

Bull-fucking-shit. You ('you' being anyone or any group of people) have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not those coins are abandoned. You also have no way of knowing when or even if they will be stolen.

Again, in case you are still blind to the moral principle, the only person who has a legitimate claim on managing the risk is the owner of the coins themselves. Any lesser standard is simply theft.

If you have a mic, it needs to be dropped.

Nope.

As I understood it, in the scenario Theymos outlined, QC technology has reached a point where it is apparent the existing bitcoin protocol WILL be compromised. So a hard fork is developed that will be QC-resistant. Everyone is asked to take action (moving coins in some fashion) into the new QC-resistant haven. Those who do not are leaving their coins where they will become vulnerable to theft using the new QC technology.

So the claim that "You have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not those coins are abandoned" is not accurate. Clearly they _are_ abandoned at this point, by the failure to take action to keep or safeguard the coins. You can't dump cash on a busy street, drive away, and still claim ownership in any meaningful sense.

By rejecting Theymos' suggestion, all you will be achieving is leaving some fraction of all bitcoins available for the first people with the QC technology to sweep up all the loose coins at will. You won't be saving them from evil devs. You will just be losing them to thieves. And then everyone else with bitcoin suffers as the market collapses from the shock of such stupidity in allowing this to happen.

Thank you sir. I concur, and your sentence structure is excellent. Also, as per you last post, I applaud you for making your motivations clear. If everyone on the board did this, the shill/disinformation paradigm would vanish overnight.

We can not protect these coins, and suffer the consequences as a whole, or we can take preventative measures, and mitigate the harm to a select few, obviously negligent actors at this point.

Would you starve due to the negligence of your brother? I am all for helping another in need, but when that need is self imposed, when does one limit their own exposure to another's poor situation?

So, should we burn all those coin who's owners refuse to move their coin kept in an unencrypted hot wallet on an antiquated windows operating system because they're also not secure and could be stolen and dumped on the market?  Where does it end?  And, since when has it become fashionable to control other's stake in the project?  Are "we" becoming that "third party" the project was designed to eliminate?

[The00Dustin]

Instead of destroying Satoshi's stash, how about if we create an address and move the vulnerable coins there for safekeeping?

You are far from the first person to suggest this, but this replaces decentralization with authority and pseudonymity with deferment to said authority.  While some might actually believe this is OK it doesn't change the fact that no one can definitively prove that they mined any given coins except by way of a signature from the private key of the address the coins were mined to.  Moving the coins doesn't protect them from a bad actor if the proof of ownership is a signature from the private key that can be compromised, and there is no other way to prove ownership.  However, otherwise destroying or rendering the coins inoperable does break fungibility and arguably causes more harm than the theft that can't otherwise be prevented.

[Syke]

So, should we burn all those coin who's owners refuse to move their coin kept in an unencrypted hot wallet on an antiquated windows operating system because they're also not secure and could be stolen and dumped on the market?  Where does it end?  And, since when has it become fashionable to control other's stake in the project?  Are "we" becoming that "third party" the project was designed to eliminate?

Exactly. All bitcoins are vulnerable even today, just some more than others. Just look at the history of major bitcoin heists over the years. Sometimes the market takes a temporary tumble due to such heists. The responsibility to secure those bitcoins is solely the responsibility of said owner.

[ebliever]

First off, if I am keeping up, ebliever has changed his position from "Theymos is wrong" to "Theymos is right" and back to "Theymos is wrong" before you ever quoted this post from the middle position.

I'm going to apply JRR Tolkein's line about elves to myself and bow out of this thread: Go not to the elves for advice, for they will say both yes and no. 

[jukka]

destroying somebodys coins would be the end of the btc. how could you trust this if your coins could just suddenly be burned!

[jukka]

Worst idea ever.

maybe not the worst, but pretty close to it!

[andulolika]

destroying somebodys coins would be the end of the btc. how could you trust this if your coins could just suddenly be burned!

I agree completely first of all im not sure if all that btc vulneralities are real or just fud, and second thing i don't understand is why/how would theymos have the voice to do such thing, he has the "keys" of the forum but respecting to bitcoin all im seeing from him is a pursuit of own interests.

[jukka]

but, if everybody would be forced to move their coin in some period, would that be the answer? in "fiat world" goverments peridiocally force people to change their cash to new ones when they make changes to prevent people making fake money.

[arcanaaerobics]

but, if everybody would be forced to move their coin in some period, would that be the answer? in "fiat world" goverments peridiocally force people to change their cash to new ones when they make changes to prevent people making fake money.

What you're saying is true, many countries issue new paper money and new coins with new designs and colors. The old replaced ones will lose their value by the end of the replacement process, this is done mainly to combat counterfeit and to force those who have stashed moeny in their homes to get it out as that money is taken of circulation causes many economic problems. All that is only possible because the currency is controlled by a single entity: the central bank, and nobody from the common people has a say in it. Here we are talking about a decentralised currency where everyone counts, can't you see the ongoing fight about the blocksize ? a consensus is needed to force a move to a new standard for Bitcoin and a debate is necessary before that can be accomplished.

[David Rabahy]

The Bitcoin client's built-in solo miner paid directly to a public key, not an address. So there's over a million BTC in the form of unspent 50-BTC block rewards which are vulnerable to a break in ECDSA. This is the main concern.

Unspent addresses are OK, at least until quantum computers get so fast that they can break keys within the few minutes between when you spend from such an address to when it gets confirmed. Contrary to what someone said earlier, SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160 are OK. QC halves the number of bits of security for symmetric crypto. SHA-256 has 128 bits of security under QC, etc.  Whereas all asymmetric crypto used today is totally broken (ie. the complexity of breaking a key is polynomial w.r.t the key's length under QC, though it still might take some time).

Oh.  What does it mean to be "paid directory to a public key, not an address"?  Let's compare https://blockchain.info/tx/0e3e2357e806b6cdb1f70b54c3a3a17b6714ee1f0e68bebb44a74b1efd512098 to https://blockchain.info/tx/4d32d3caa4fc7121e48c59e895ff50aa4a80763aea107e7fc82749885aac5e99 and try to see the difference.

There is a security difference. See the following.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_version_1_Bitcoin_addresses[/url]

Ok; so we can derive a Bitcoin address from the private key.  The same algorithm is used in both transactions, right?  We still don't see the relevant difference.

[BurtW]

Ok; so we can derive a Bitcoin address from the private key.  The same algorithm is used in both transactions, right?  We still don't see the relevant difference.

If an amount is paid to a public key then the public key is shown in the public blockchain for anyone to get/see/use.

A Bitcoin address is the double hashing of the public key.   So BitcoinAddress = hash(hash(PublicKey))

So if you pay to a Bitcoin address what is shown publicly in the blockchain is the Bitcoin address not the public key.

Now theoretically to crack a payment to a public key you would need to reverse only the ECDSA, PublicKey -> PrivateKey

But to crack a payment to a Bitcoin address you would need to reverse SHA and RIPEM and ECDSA

BitcoinAddress -> reverse hash -> reverse hash -> get PublicKey -> PrivateKey

So, you can see that since the hashing algorithms are not vulnerable to QC then payments made to Bitcoin addresses are basically not vulnerable to QC.

BUT

If you make a payment from a Bitcoin address to another Bitcoin address and have the change come back to the original address then the public key for the original address is now exposed.  So, just do not do that - always send the change back to a brand new address.

Modern deterministic wallets always send the change back to a new address.  The new blockchain.info wallet is a deterministic wallet and does this correctly.

However the very popular old blockchain.info wallet (and others like it) always sent the change back to the original address unless you explicitly told it not to so there are a lot of transactions that did expose the public key, those would also be vulnerable to QC attack.

[cuddaloreappu]

we destroy satoshi coins..

then months later satoshi comes alive and asks where are my coins

what will u do..

it is satoshi wish to use that coin or not to use

if thieves could sell out million of coins so is the same risk with satoshi who if decided to sell those million coins is acting completely within his freedom

[AgentofCoin]

Ok; so we can derive a Bitcoin address from the private key.  The same algorithm is used in both transactions, right?  We still don't see the relevant difference.

...
Now theoretically to crack a payment to a public key you would need to reverse only the ECDSA, PublicKey -> PrivateKey

But to crack a payment to a Bitcoin address you would need to reverse SHA and RIPEM and ECDSA
...

This is my understanding as well and is the reason why Theymos was originally talking about old non-moved coins.
A majority of the early mined coins are still sitting unmoved in publickeys.

Does anyone know when and in what version did they add bitcoin addresses to Bitcoin?

[BurtW]

According to him, coins prior to Bitcoin-Qt version 0.5 are affected.

Plus all old blockchain.info wallet transaction as I stated above.

[KenR]

destroying somebodys coins would be the end of the btc. how could you trust this if your coins could just suddenly be burned!

No,that won't be the end of BTC but the end of those coins only.Maybe the can have an impact on the older coins.Coins should be burned because logically no one knows who owns them and anybody can pull claims they do.I think theymos makes sense here.

[BurtW]

Coins should be burned because logically no one knows who owns them and anybody can pull claims they do.

You don't really know anything about how Bitcoin works do you.

How did you become a Hero member without leaning anything?

I was in a cranky mood and I am sorry I posted in such a foul mood.

[KenR]

You don't really know anything about how Bitcoin works do you.

No I don't.I'm just a random user fascinated by 1's and 0's.At times I'm good at solving the Ciphers and encrypting my porn links with SHA and MD5. 

How did you become a Hero member without leaning anything?

I don't know maybe Shit Posting ?

[Dabs]

I was about to answer Burt's question, but KenR already answered it. Something like that. I'm pretty sure I can find a Legendary member who has no clue too (excluding sold forum accounts.)