Bitcoin: The Digital Kill Switch

[thenight]

I still don't understand about bitcoin

[AnonyMint]

I still don't understand about bitcoin

What do you not understand? You mean everything about bitcoin and P2P currencies and how they work, etc? This is not the thread for that discussion please. For that go to:

http://weusecoins.com

If you don't understand the threat I alleged that exists due to a design flaw in Bitcoin, then I can try to explain again if you first tell me your level of understanding up to now?

[AnonyMint]

"If an attacker can muster 51% of the Proof-of-Work capacity of a P2P system, the attacker can take over the system. There are differences of opinion as to the degree of malicious behavior an attacker could do. However, one unarguable mathematical conclusion is that an attacker that had for example 60 to 90% of the Proof-of-Work capacity could process 60 to 90% of the transactions. If this attacker did not do any thing noticably malicious and did not charge a transaction fee, then virtually all customers would not find it necessary to offer a transaction fee, because over just 3 blocks of waiting time the 60 to 90% becomes 94 to 99.9% of all transactions.* If this was sustained for sufficient months or years when the production of new coins had ended (or declined significantly), then all the other miners would go bankrupt because their costs are not subsidized. Such attacker would then control virtually 100% of all transactions processed. Note this 60 - 90% could be built up over time, because offering free transactions to a percent of the market (when no new coins are being minted), drives some percent of the other miners bankrupt thus increasing the percent the attacker has— it is a snowball effect."

But what would it cost to offer free transaction processing to 60% to 90% of all transactions for months or years? And at the end of it, what would the attacker actually have achieved except to destroy BTC, which would seem like rather a pyrrhic victory !

You have not read this thread. We already discussed this. I will not re-explain it again (not because I am angry but just because it becomes noisy if I say the same thing over and over), and I am tiring of going back to find the posts for readers (I have limited time). Please just read the entire thread, then you will get it.

In short, the monopolist can use transfer pricing to subsidize and win. Bitcoin would not be destroyed, it would be their main tool for control and taking all the profits from mankind.

[itsunderstood]

I thought this article was interesting for a couple reasons, I have bolded the key comments.

[NOTE: It seems to be a clever way to deflect news freshness to remove the date of the interview.  This vice.com website should put the date up, I couldn't find it.]

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/engineering-the-bitcoin-gold-rush-an-interview-with-yifu-guo-creator-of-the-first-asic-based-miner

Engineering the Bitcoin Gold Rush: An Interview with Yifu Guo, Creator of the First ASIC-Based Miner

By Alec Liu

[...]

 Mining is sort of magical. I remember hearing a story at a team meetup in Beijing. There was this miner who had moved from Brazil, and he basically expressed that, sure, this thing is making me some money, but what it has really done is changed my life. He couldn't believe that this was real, mining around the clock in front of his house.

This machine liberates people. Suddenly, you can figure out what you want to do as a human being because it takes care of your living expenses. Eventually you’ll be able to hook it up to APIs where it will automatically order your groceries for you. It’s crazy but it’s going to happen.

QUESTION: If ASICs are the technological pinnacle, what’s next for bitcoin and mining?

Of mining’s technological evolution? Yes. In terms of major technological developments, it will be a while. What’s going to happen is that there is going to be a die shrink in order to reduce power consumption and increase speed based on smaller gate sizes. Eventually we’re going to reach the theoretical wall because of physics. The atoms will be too small. I don’t know when that will be hit, but the sooner the better.

If bitcoin is a $1 billion market, and it only takes less than $1 million to secure the network right now, that’s not a lot of money for someone to try and take over the mining scene. The faster the technology progresses, the more secure the network is, because it will be that much harder for a malevolent entity to mess with the system. We want to reach 14 or 10 nanometers as soon as possible. IBM/Intel is playing with 7 nanometers right now. The sooner the better so we’ll never again have this scenario where one company like Avalon essentially controls more theoretical computing power than the entire network’s hash rate. This will never happen again.

[...]

Bitcoin is an enabler based around the ideals of peer-to-peer, open source, and decentralization. That’s the future and bitcoin is the vehicle that will take us there. It takes the banks and the humans and the Federal Reserve out of the equation. Without those institutions, we can do things more freely and easily. It allows us to get things done without all of the friction, and whatever we do will be built around these ideals.

QUESTION: How will the recent FinCEN guidance affect mining?

I am not a lawyer but the way I understood it, people who mine are not going to have a problem. Mining pools (organizations that allow users to contribute processing power for their share of the bitcoins) might have to deal with certain regulations, such as applying for licenses.

For individual users, it should be okay, since apparently, using bitcoins to pay for goods and services is fine. Once you have the intention of turning that into dollars or some other fiat currency, then problems might arise. Ultimately this is simply guidance. Our motto used to be, ask for forgiveness, not for permission. But recently I came to terms with an even better maxim, since we’re technically not doing anything wrong. Act and defend your position. And our position is bitcoin. We believe in it.

[...]

Notice how "humans" are equated with "institutions" by this super-smart ignorant kid here?

Notice how he says "once we eliminate the bad institutions like banks, humans and the Federal Reserve, then things will run smoothly."  HEY YOU, HUMAN, do you see yourself as the same ilk as the bamks, and the Federal Reserve?  What sort of thinking is represented here, by this young "genius"?

The road to hell.  Paved with bodies and good intentions.  This guy sounds like most of the developers I have supported.  Total pie in the sky dumbasses, paving the way to tyranny.  Nice guy tho, no doubt.

Also notice how he has no real knowledge or answers about FINCEN?  He says there may be licensing fees.  Does he realize thats how the tyranny controls the common people?  How much does an FCC license cost, for example?  Also, what happened to UHF and VHF airwaves in America?  His answer to this last question displays a complete lack of any deep knowledge, people like this should be kept away from technology, but instead, this kid represents the next modern army, indeed if he is this smart+stupid at 25 years old (let's say, not sure his real age), then isn't it better to mine the schools for 13 year olds to replace him when he finally wakes up?

Notice his next comment:  "Ask for forgiveness not permission." becomes simply "Act, and [then] defend your position"   ...Do you think this will resonate nicely or poorly, with the control structures of Earth's nations?  Obviously acting without permission, is not what the authority will allow.  FURTHERMORE once young men like this are jailed, and put to work for the authority, what kind of menace shall they become, due to the threats upon their life?  How hard is it to send a honeypot jailbait spear into this dude's world, and then blackmail him?  He admits regulations (and code and statues) may continue to affect the world, but he doesn't see them applying to him.  Dissonate much?

It is hilarious to consider the inconsistencies of this young man.  What is there to say?  As I have said, this wave will envelop all of humanity.

[AnonyMint]

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/29/cyprus-confiscation-of-assets-is-global-plan/

I fail to see where even Bitcoin creates some alternative for they can confiscate whatever they want at any time.

Not exactly correct.

[...]

Even if the government gains 51% attack capability, as long as we have numerous P2P currencies, then we can continue transacting.

The main threat comes if we only have one P2P currency or if all P2P currencies have the same attack vector (e.g. merged-mining) and same kind of Proof-of-Work. Or the government amasses significant mining share and then gives it away free, thus bankrupting all the miners (in Bitcoin and Litecoin which stop paying mining rewards from debasement eventually).

[...]

Thanks AnonyMint as I see you here have quoted Martin Armstrong and clarified his lack of knowledge about bitcoin.  Your thread here has accomplished a lot toward your goal of saving humanity I bet.  Nice work.

I have bolded your points as to the short term survivability of the hash based crypto currencies.  As mentioned, I think your point about "government amasses significant mining share" is the key waypoint ahead.   ...I think this point could be made further by theorizing as to a couple key questions:

1: How cheap are GPUs, for the US government and/or NATO and/or BRICs nations?

2: How many humans does it take, to babysit and/or administrate a bunch of mining units?  Assuming you have 1 million prisoners who can each babysit/administrate a cluster of 1000 GPUs (feasible, with hierarchical top-down oversight), that'd be 1 billion GPUs.   So how many terahashes is 1 billion GPUs?  Would it be enough to take 51% of the blockchain?

One key aspect of my proposed hard-disk Proof-of-Work scheme (if it works as I expect it to), it that then every user of Bitcoin can also be a miner, simply by downloading the client. Nothing to buy. Batteries included (because the design uses very little electricity as I explained in a prior post).

Therefor, the attacker would be trying to match the resources of humanity. Good luck suckers!  

They may not need people to manage their hard-disk server farm, but humanity will also have robots too. What ever they have, we have more of it. Because there are 6 billion of us.

Maybe that is why the Georgia Guidestones (from CNN founder Ted Turner apparently) say to reduce human population to 500 million. They are hoping they won't need us once we have robots.

The key is to make mining something that all users can do. This is actually the key design flaw in Bitcoin and Litecoin and Bytecoin and all of them, although Litecoin's scrypt Proof-of-Work claims to improve the balance (but I don't know to what extent, I think my design is orders-of-magnitude better in this balance).

Is that not a theoretical slamdunk for my design? (in theory not yet proven to work properly)

3: For the governments (NATO and/or BRICS), electricity costs nothing, because they can fob the cost onto taxpayers.  As your posted video from Catherine Fitts explains, black pools of funds controlled by invisible silent interlocked corporate cartels, mean that taxpayers will fund the electrical costs, and never even know.  +1 to the bad guys.  ...Further, in full on Marxist countries, they could just build another dam like three gorges, and provide tons of free electricity --for themselves and their GPUs, not for the people (common miners).

4: Having explained the above situation, which makes your point, the further question would be, what forces could defeat such tyranny?

I just told you above.

[itsunderstood]

[...]

They may not need people to manage their hard-disk server farm, but humanity will also have robots too. What ever they have, we have more of it. Because there are 6 billion of us.

Maybe that is why the Georgia Guidestones (from CNN founder Ted Turner apparently) say to reduce human population to 500 million. They are hoping they won't need us once we have robots.

The key is to make mining something that all users can do. This is actually the key design flaw in Bitcoin and Litecoin and Bytecoin and all of them.

Is that not a theoretical slamdunk for my design? (in theory not yet proven to work properly)

You make a further good point, that indeed, "robots" will manage the GPUs.

But then you say that "humans" or "we", will have more robots, than "them"...  And yet I would counter with this point:  We humans do not control the prisons or the courts or the legal system.  Only anti-human types, becomes lawyers, and those who destroy their humanity even further, can then become judges or legislators or worse, politicians.

However, we are not arguing, because I am agreeing with you, and we differ only as to the "hope" quotient and/or what form that "hope" will take.

And yes, the points about your design are quite good, you are correct that having the users of bitcoins also be the miners, is great.  I am sure many people reading this are interested to hear more from you.

However, Java is a joke, it has been destroyed by Oracle, and has more virus vectors and 0-day exploits than ever.  So if you propose a client that becomes as ubiquitous as say Skype, well, that client will become the #1 virus vector.  Skype of course has sealed code, nobody knows who has backdoors into it.  So I see some pitfalls along the road as you will have to have the hardness of the client, as the cornerstone of your code.  And if the code shall be open, then I suppose these same users would have to learn how to compile code?

As mentioned, most developers are clueless as to virus vectors, and programming with security hardness in mind, is akin to the earlier analogy I used about the space shuttle.  If the security guy is listened to, in the IT/DEV meetings (I have sat through many of these), well, code will take 100x longer to write, and that's a fact.  It is always the case, the some dumbass DEV manager, who got promoted for his stupidity and not his sense, will tell the security guy to STFU so we "can get something produced!"  ...See?  So you are making noble steps on a very creaky bridge, but I like your goals.  Yes, when these issues converge, then something better will evolve.

Good start tho!  Just out of curiosity, if we assume you will have the "rights" to your idea, what kind of remuneration or profit, or pay, would be acceptable to you, if your idea was to be realized?  I mean, your suggestion is that Satoshi knew he was building a "Madoff" type scheme which would crash or become the end of the world tool.  So, assuming your ethos is superior to his, what would you want, for compensation?

[AnonyMint]

The road to hell.  Paved with bodies and good intentions.  This guy sounds like most of the developers I have supported.  Total pie in the sky dumbasses, paving the way to tyranny.  Nice guy tho, no doubt.

[...]

It is hilarious to consider the inconsistencies of this young man.  What is there to say?  As I have said, this wave will envelop all of humanity.

He also thinks there is a limit to Moore's Law, I guess he hasn't heard of multi-core.

[AnonyMint]

However, Java is a joke, it has been destroyed by Oracle, and has more virus vectors and 0-day exploits than ever.  So if you propose a client that becomes as ubiquitous as say Skype, well, that client will become the #1 virus vector.

Please consider a differentiation between Java the libraries and Java the virtual machine. The virtual machine is solid. I need that virtual machine, because the higher-level languages such as Scala run on it.

http://www.scala-lang.org/node/104 (Tour of Scala)

I hate writing code that obfuscates what the code is doing. Scala if used carefully to avoid it's ability to make unreadible code, can produce code that 3 times more compact than Java, and perhaps 5 - 10 times more compact than C++. In many ways, it looks very similar to Java and C++. It is not so foreign if avoid a few gotchas.

The Java VM is open source, e.g. Android's Dalvik.

This decision can produce much more robust code that is easier to maintain and easier to understand and easier to find bugs and security flaws.

Python is I guess another possibility, but it really isn't the optimum performance, although Big O trumps:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4861

I wrote CoolPage and Art-O-Matric (coolpage.com) in C++. I know C++. I hate it.

Here is why:

http://copute.com/edu/Intro%20to%20Computers.html#Declarative (written by me)

Watch this video (very good if you are a programmer):

http://java.dzone.com/articles/lessons-jug-talk-eric-esr  (video is very humorous and entertaining even if you are not a programmer)

[itsunderstood]

Figured this part here about Avalon (I quoted the kid above) is also relevant:

http://www.bitcoinmining.com/

[...]

Of course the big question is how this will affect the difficulty for customers of non-Avalon ASIC companies? Avalon claims they’re set to ship 300 units in their first run, worth a combined 18TH/s. For comparison sake the entire Bitcoin network is only pushing ~23TH/s at the time of this writing. This means that we should be seeing difficulty nearly double, but not until all of those units ship, come online, and have been mining long enough to trigger a difficulty retarget. Assuming it takes BFL, the next nearest competitor, long enough to ship that all of the above can happen their expected profits will likely be reduced by about half. Quite a price to pay for backing the wrong horse, but nowhere near what the fearmongers would have you believe.

So batch 1 of 300 Avalon boxes, spits out roughly 18 terahash per second.

And the ENTIRE bitcoin network, spits out roughly 23 terahash per second.

So if we compare bitcoin to gold in terms of "rushes", it's like everyone has had pickaxes up until now, but some people have gotten sluice equipment and huge swaths of placer and lode claims equal to thousands of acres of Federal land.

How can one 49'er with a pickaxe, compare to a cartel that has acres of lode and placer claims, and tons of sluice and dredge equipment?

AnonyMint, I think I am contributing to your point, correct me if I am wrong, but your theorized enhancement involves lessening the effect of the ASIC devices, is that right?

[AnonyMint]

AnonyMint, I think I am contributing to your point, correct me if I am wrong, but your theorized enhancement involves lessening the effect of the ASIC devices, is that right?

Not just lessening, in theory eliminating.

Hard-disks is something all of us have and need.

And there is another angle to this... I am hoping we can store the cloud in our cloud!

I want to eliminate Google and facebook.

I am also working on a distributed social network and cloud storage.

No more data jails and government invasion of our privacy. We will own our data!

I have big ideas, but those can't build, talk. So I will need to stop talking soon.

What I am saying is that I want to create jobs for the world. I want to fix this mess we are in. Not just me of course, I mean just providing a few key innovations, and then world of all of you will do it.

[AnonyMint]

Bitcoin adoption is accelerating. A competitor needs to come fast else the opportunity may slip away:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=161785.msg1705988#msg1705988

[AnonyMint]

It is time for me to STFU and code.

If there are no more very important questions, I will exit stage left for perhaps days or ...

[bitbyte]

Good idea to start the coding. The goals you have outlined are very important.   I wish you well and hope you will enable interested parties to contribute whatever possible.  To that end, perhaps you can check your pm every now and then. 
As Obi said, May the Force be with you. 

[AnonyMint]

Force be also with you Obe Wan.

Be me not to fail that remind Obe Wan, individually held PHYSICAL gold & silver be still very important for STABILITY of the force:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160612.msg1702981#msg1702981

Teach you did the balance Yoda.

[DigitalDoom]

AnonyMint, I think I am contributing to your point, correct me if I am wrong, but your theorized enhancement involves lessening the effect of the ASIC devices, is that right?

Not just lessening, in theory eliminating.

Hard-disks is something all of us have and need.

And there is another angle to this... I am hoping we can store the cloud in our cloud!

I want to eliminate Google and facebook.

I am also working on a distributed social network and cloud storage.

No more data jails and government invasion of our privacy. We will own our data!

I have big ideas, but those can't build, talk. So I will need to stop talking soon.

What I am saying is that I want to create jobs for the world. I want to fix this mess we are in. Not just me of course, I mean just providing a few key innovations, and then world of all of you will do it.

Thinking maybe it's time you head on to bed!

Although I love the ideas, I'm all for anti-establishment, anti-government, anti-corporate empire...Hell...anti-ANYTHING! 

Thinking big is the only way to think!

However, I think you've reached the point of delusions of grandeur here....maybe it's time for sleep

Good stuff though!

[fumblefingers]

@AgonyMint:

I've only read through the first two pages of this post, but I keep wanting to say this.

If you have half the chops you claim, (and I am by no means trying to disparage you), then do what you want.

Build it. If bitcoin really has this fatal flaw that you see, a couple of decades is nothing. While bitcoin has a good head start, P2P things I think are durable. If you build a client that is superior, it might take a while , but it will catch on. Especially if you do it now as opposed to ten years from now.

If your arguments are valid, they'll hold up, and people will use your invention, but only if you make it.

As far as virtual currencies go, there can certainly be more than one. Look at the history of fiat currencies. The world uses several main ones, and dozens of smaller ones.

Quit 'agonizing' over what you see as an inevitable future. There is no such thing. If you really have the ability to do what you say, you owe all of us the duty to do it.

[AnonyMint]

As I mentioned up thread (yesterday), GATA did run an article and it is an interview with Jon Matonis. They did ask him about my allegation at the 18:30 min point and Jon denies it. I've been trying to contact Jon but don't know if I have the correct email address and no reply from him. Does anyone have a way of contacting him and making him aware of the diabolical Bitcoin flaw that I have alleged?

Jon thinks the open source community can fix any back door discovered. Well we are trying to prove that is true that we can fix it, but I think Jon does not understand that the fix can not be made in Bitcoin, because Bitcoin refuses to change their "debasement will terminate" design.

If someone could help me get this info to Jon and get a reaction from him, that would help a lot with my motivation.

I may still have Bill Murphy's @ GATA's email address and will try to contact him.

I will also try to contact Doug Casey, since they mention Doug Casey has objected to Bitcoin. I will try to bring Doug up-to-speed on the positives and my allegation if I can get through to him.

http://www.goldmoney.com/podcast/jon-matonis-on-bitcoin-and-crypto-currencies.html

[AnonyMint]

It is all over the internet now, as promised.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Bitcoin%3A+The+Digital+Kill+Switch

[AnonyMint]

Micropayments is an inherent weakness in Bitcoin, because there is no incentive in the protocol for miners to include transactions, in exchange for the new coins being minted per block.

Most of the overhead is in hash computation.

This should be something I address, that in itself will be a major win over Bitcoin.

Straight Bitcoin isn't designed for really small transactions.  If you're sending less than something like $1 worth of bitcoins, you should expect to pay 10% or more in fees. More if you're trying to send $0.10 or less.

There is no magic fairy wand we can wave and make Bitcoin suddenly great for gazillions of tiny transactions; plan your businesses accordingly. As transaction volume increases, there will be more competition for space in blocks and fees are likely to rise.

And please avoid filling your customer's wallets with "dust" that they'll pay huge fees to spend; a payout should be at least a couple of cents, not a fraction of a penny. I think there is pretty good consensus among the core developers that sooner or later we'll make "dust" outputs non-standard, so they are not relayed or mined by default (details to be worked out, we need to implement a good algorithm for auto-adjusting the definition of "dust").

[Joerii]

Scary.