firstbits squatter

[trout]

Look at this transaction

Apparently it "squats" (reserves for the sender) a lot of readable first-bits addresses.
The transaction appears nonstandard since all outputs are of 1 satoshi.

While there's hardly any doubt about the purpose  is quite clear - some  of the firstbits are 1cheap 1lottos 1lockup 1eat  1noon etc, -
I wonder what dictionary he used. There are clearly lots of non-english words,  I'm uncertain about the language.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Who included that TX in a block? I thought dust TXes are not mined.

[jarhed]

Look at this transaction

Apparently it "squats" (reserves for the sender) a lot of readable first-bits addresses.
The transaction appears nonstandard since all outputs are of 1 satoshi.

While there's hardly any doubt about the purpose  is quite clear - some  of the firstbits are 1cheap 1lottos 1lockup 1eat  1noon etc, -
I wonder what dictionary he used. There are clearly lots of non-english words,  I'm uncertain about the language.

I don't get it. "squats" as keyword search was useless.

[trout]

I don't get it. "squats" as keyword search was useless.

they get readable firstbits address, such as
http://blockchain.info/fb/1noon

nobody else willl be able to get this firstbits address: even if they have another
address starting with 1noon, their firstbits will be of the form 1noonx


What makes this massive squatting useless though is that the sender apparently has all the private
keys to those addresses, so he won't be able to sell them to anyone that has some basic understanding of bitcoin.

[jarhed]

I don't get it. "squats" as keyword search was useless.

they get readable firstbits address, such as
http://blockchain.info/fb/1noon

nobody else willl be able to get this firstbits address: even if they have another
address starting with 1noon, their firstbits will be of the form 1noonx


What makes this massive squatting useless though is that the sender apparently has all the private
keys to those addresses, so he won't be able to sell them to anyone that has some basic understanding of bitcoin.

So what with the sending of a Satoshi? Offline address generation also provides Private Key along with whatever vanity address.

[atypicalgilgamesh]

This was not the only squatting he did.

If you look closely you will see that the total output is .10421666 BTC.
Now obviously there can't be 10,421,666 satoshi outputs.

One of the outputs in the transaction is of a reasonable amount.

What he did then is use this reasonable amount to create subsequent transactions of the exact same kind.
Here are the transactions in order:
http://blockchain.info/tx/d850e1a3d8cbf17f2176dc38136fa7741e48df5548da77b126fa89ef997daf3d
http://blockchain.info/tx/7fa828efc70747c6509c369d6962853f089ceb38b2a563692b8fb0079a739c56
http://blockchain.info/tx/8639b13e82cdd4da78b1b3d7e8f127ff6676be82a506742363f3b74ca21ffbf3
http://blockchain.info/tx/b14cb1d40e6ddc47d2843fa12dbd20c42baadb3bc8fa331ea22f431d086ceb3d


And then finally the last reasonable output is used in another transaction with a single output:
http://blockchain.info/tx/d0bdf77250a0da2f489ffe871ba3b7c874943465d11dd6386852e7ac835bafd2

Now the output from this transaction is spent, but I was too lazy to follow it from there.

The reason that this was included in a block was that the fees were so dang high (.1465 BTC in total, a nice pay day).
And obviously the miner either set his dust amount to 0 or he is not using 0.8.2 (I believe that is when dust was added, correct me if I'm wrong)

[jarhed]

This is like staring at a lava-lamp..........stoned. My question is, why should I or anyone cares?
Am I missing something important here?

[DannyHamilton]

This is like staring at a lava-lamp..........stoned. My question is, why should I or anyone cares?
Am I missing something important here?

The idea behind firstbits is that it allows you to identify an address without having to use a really long impossible to remember bitcoin address.

Assuming the following:

• My bitcoin address is 1Danny49wgfnwlkhiw4sf9wfp9wfeasps9fgu
• A transaction has been received and stored in the blockchain to this address
• No earlier transaction has ever been received to any address that starts with the characters "1Danny"

Then I can tell people that they can send bitcoins to my firstbits address "1Danny".

It's easy to remember and convenient for brand recognition (imagine McDonald's receiving bitcoin payments and advertising their bitcoin firstbits address as "1McD").

So, someone has gone and generated LOTS of addresses that use common words in the beginning of the address.  This means that they are sitting on these addresses and nobody else can use those words as a firstbits address, since the person sitting on them is the first person in the blockchain using an address that starts with that sequence.

Now the person doing this might believe that they can re-sell control of these addresses to people who desire them, but anyone with any knowledge about bitcoin at all will realize that the addresses are not secure since the seller would know the private key and could steal any bitcoins received there.

[dserrano5]

Now the person doing this might believe that they can re-sell control of these addresses to people who desire them, but anyone with any knowledge about bitcoin at all will realize that the addresses are not secure since the seller would know the private key and could steal any bitcoins received there.

"Hopefully" (for the squatter) not everyone will have the needed knowledge and will happily be parted from their coins by buying one of those privkeys and loading it.

[jarhed]

This is like staring at a lava-lamp..........stoned. My question is, why should I or anyone cares?
Am I missing something important here?

The idea behind firstbits is that it allows you to identify an address without having to use a really long impossible to remember bitcoin address.

Assuming the following:

• My bitcoin address is 1Danny49wgfnwlkhiw4sf9wfp9wfeasps9fgu
• A transaction has been received and stored in the blockchain to this address
• No earlier transaction has ever been received to any address that starts with the characters "1Danny"

Then I can tell people that they can send bitcoins to my firstbits address "1Danny".

It's easy to remember and convenient for brand recognition (imagine McDonald's receiving bitcoin payments and advertising their bitcoin firstbits address as "1McD").

So, someone has gone and generated LOTS of addresses that use common words in the beginning of the address.  This means that they are sitting on these addresses and nobody else can use those words as a firstbits address, since the person sitting on them is the first person in the blockchain using an address that starts with that sequence.

Now the person doing this might believe that they can re-sell control of these addresses to people who desire them, but anyone with any knowledge about bitcoin at all will realize that the addresses are not secure since the seller would know the private key and could steal any bitcoins received there.

Got it.
I wasn't aware we have the firstbits concept, very neat and sweet.

There's even a WIKI....https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Firstbits

Uh.
So.......If said party is trust-worthy enough, they can actually license the use of such firstbits and insured against miss-use via contract.

Other than that, the blockchain bloat will need a solution. SatoshiDice is like a constant reminder of a need for balance.

[No_2]

This is like staring at a lava-lamp..........stoned. My question is, why should I or anyone cares?
Am I missing something important here?

The idea behind firstbits is that it allows you to identify an address without having to use a really long impossible to remember bitcoin address.

Assuming the following:

• My bitcoin address is 1Danny49wgfnwlkhiw4sf9wfp9wfeasps9fgu
• A transaction has been received and stored in the blockchain to this address
• No earlier transaction has ever been received to any address that starts with the characters "1Danny"

Then I can tell people that they can send bitcoins to my firstbits address "1Danny".

It's easy to remember and convenient for brand recognition (imagine McDonald's receiving bitcoin payments and advertising their bitcoin firstbits address as "1McD").

So, someone has gone and generated LOTS of addresses that use common words in the beginning of the address.  This means that they are sitting on these addresses and nobody else can use those words as a firstbits address, since the person sitting on them is the first person in the blockchain using an address that starts with that sequence.

Now the person doing this might believe that they can re-sell control of these addresses to people who desire them, but anyone with any knowledge about bitcoin at all will realize that the addresses are not secure since the seller would know the private key and could steal any bitcoins received there.

Could the buyer not vanity generate a matching address later?

[gweedo]

Are firstbits that important still? Firstbits and every short address site will be killed off by the payment protocol so yeah.

[smoothie]

The more first bits you use the harder it is to generate it right?

taking a word like "home" and generating first bits could net you many of different addresses.

Not sure how that is squatting when all that needs to be different is a character in the address.

[DannyHamilton]

Could the buyer not vanity generate a matching address later?

Firstbits belongs to the First address in the blockchain that starts with those bits.

So, no.

[DannyHamilton]

taking a word like "home" and generating first bits could net you many of different addresses.

But only the FIRST of those addresses to appear in the blockchain gets to use the word as its FIRSTbits.

Not sure how that is squatting when all that needs to be different is a character in the address.

In which case it would have a different firstbits label.

[SgtSpike]

These addresses belong to me.  I wasn't really expecting anyone to catch on to those transactions in the blockchain, but I plan to use them on physical Bitcoins in the future.  They have been generated and stored offline, and will be air-gapped even to the point of printing them for usage.  Certainly, there is a risk in people trusting me, but I hope to build up a reputation as Casascius has done.  I think these coins will turn out quite nice with specialized and completely unique firstbits!

I've stopped generating them.  I found around 36k of a 151k dictionary.  I don't plan to generate any more - I have plenty for what I plan to do with them.  There are still a number of good patterns, names, and English words yet to be claimed.  I would love to see other people generating them and making use of other unique firstbits combinations.

[No_2]

Could the buyer not vanity generate a matching address later?

Firstbits belongs to the First address in the blockchain that starts with those bits.

So, no.

At last a clear definition!

Thanks....

[No_2]

These addresses belong to me.  I wasn't really expecting anyone to catch on to those transactions in the blockchain, but I plan to use them on physical Bitcoins in the future.  They have been generated and stored offline, and will be air-gapped even to the point of printing them for usage.  Certainly, there is a risk in people trusting me, but I hope to build up a reputation as Casascius has done.  I think these coins will turn out quite nice with specialized and completely unique firstbits!

I've stopped generating them.  I found around 36k of a 151k dictionary.  I don't plan to generate any more - I have plenty for what I plan to do with them.  There are still a number of good patterns, names, and English words yet to be claimed.  I would love to see other people generating them and making use of other unique firstbits combinations.

Cam you or someone else please explain to me the methodology by which you got 0.00000001 transactions to register on the blockchain, assuming individual transactions for > 0.001 are not permitted.

[franky1]

dang it they got my name...

http://blockchain.info/fb/1frank

[SgtSpike]

dang it they got my name...

http://blockchain.info/fb/1frank

But now you can get it on a coin!  Eventually...

These addresses belong to me.  I wasn't really expecting anyone to catch on to those transactions in the blockchain, but I plan to use them on physical Bitcoins in the future.  They have been generated and stored offline, and will be air-gapped even to the point of printing them for usage.  Certainly, there is a risk in people trusting me, but I hope to build up a reputation as Casascius has done.  I think these coins will turn out quite nice with specialized and completely unique firstbits!

I've stopped generating them.  I found around 36k of a 151k dictionary.  I don't plan to generate any more - I have plenty for what I plan to do with them.  There are still a number of good patterns, names, and English words yet to be claimed.  I would love to see other people generating them and making use of other unique firstbits combinations.

Cam you or someone else please explain to me the methodology by which you got 0.00000001 transactions to register on the blockchain, assuming individual transactions for > 0.001 are not permitted.

It's total transaction size.  Since the change address was larger than the minimum requirement, then the whole transaction is allowed.  You couldn't (easily) spend the 0.00000001 BTC out of one of those addresses by itself, but send 1 BTC to it, and you can pull 1.00000001 out.