If national firewalls go up

[Leon]

You should be more worried about someone gaining over 50% of the network, that is much more likely than the US just deciding to attempt such a thing, and near impossible for them to achieve this goal.

[ctoon6]

You should be more worried about someone gaining over 50% of the network, that is much more likely than the US just deciding to attempt such a thing, and near impossible for them to achieve this goal.

If this became an issue, the bitcoin devs could just build gpu mining in the client. this should be set to turn on automatically, opt out only. then we would have a huge amount of people mining now, it would be far more power than any government could get. id estimate even all the cpu power would be enough.

[Vladimir]

You should be more worried about someone gaining over 50% of the network, that is much more likely than the US just deciding to attempt such a thing, and near impossible for them to achieve this goal.

If this became an issue, the bitcoin devs could just build gpu mining in the client. this should be set to turn on automatically, opt out only. then we would have a huge amount of people mining now, it would be far more power than any government could get. id estimate even all the cpu power would be enough.

I am busy hedging against exactly this possibility LOL.

[ctoon6]

You should be more worried about someone gaining over 50% of the network, that is much more likely than the US just deciding to attempt such a thing, and near impossible for them to achieve this goal.

If this became an issue, the bitcoin devs could just build gpu mining in the client. this should be set to turn on automatically, opt out only. then we would have a huge amount of people mining now, it would be far more power than any government could get. id estimate even all the cpu power would be enough.

I am busy hedging against exactly this possibility LOL.

Bitcoin is hardly being tapped as it is now. if BC does become global or even used in only a few countries, i really doubt you could own even 30%.

everyone who has a hacked console will eventually get ports of bitcoin, a ps3 alone would have at least 100mh/s of hashing power per unit, assuming it can use its gpu power.

assume on average 10mh per computer.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf says 44m has computers with internet assume only 20m want money.

200000000mh/s is what you get with only 20m, thats just half of what the census says at only 10mh per computer.
thats around 150-200 terahashes/s, if i calculate right.

i would like to see you have anything close to 3 terahashes/s

if you even tried to buy that much power you would inflate the prices of gpus so high you simply would not be able to afford it.

this all assumes that bitcoin becomes mainstream and people are willing and do install the mainline software and don't disable the miner. and this does invade ethics, but it would be required to prevent a single entity from abusing power.

[ctoon6]

In a scenario where the USA puts up a national firewall preventing miners/clients in the USA connecting with miners/clients elsewhere, would the blockchain fork into a USA chain and a rest of the world chain? And if so, would my current bitcoins be spendable independently on both chains? And then what would happen when the firewall came down again?

A great firewall of EU is also currently being discussed.

We can use an updated version of RFC 1149 "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers". Have pigeons carry the encrypted and signed block chains on USB memory sticks to miners over seas. US air force fighter jets must be avoided at all costs for reliable operation.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149

latency would kill us and bandwidth would cost a buttload of BC.

[Vladimir]

latency yes, bandwidth no

[ctoon6]

well i was thinking of more than just blocks, more like general raw data like secret leaked papers over 10k pages long and such.

[TiagoTiago]

Would international airtravel also be forbidden? And would the US finally manage to close down it's land borders?


If the answer to either one is no, the blockchain could still get updated both ways via sneakernet, you would have to raise the threshold to confirm a block getting cracked and transfers being cleared, but overall not much would change (in regards to Bitcoin, other things in the Internet would have significantly more issues).

[Vladimir]

How long does it take and how much does it cost to download 3 TB over sub Atlantic cable? Now compare it with shipping via fedex a 3TB HDD. This is what I mean.

[flug]

We can use an updated version of RFC 1149 "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers". Have pigeons carry the encrypted and signed block chains on USB memory sticks to miners over seas. US air force fighter jets must be avoided at all costs for reliable operation.

If carrier pigeons are the answer, Bitcoin isn't the problem.

[ctoon6]

How long does it take and how much does it cost to download 3 TB over sub Atlantic cable? Now compare it with shipping via fedex a 3TB HDD. This is what I mean.

18 to 24 days, thats about how long it would take to go from US to europe

but if i was going to transfer that much id upgrade to 60megabit consumer grade and it would only take 8 to 14 days, business around here can get a full 100megabit, both are unlimited. however upload would take weeks, in that case you would rent a box with 100mbit each way, with the box it would transfer way more data and be a lot easier. it would likely cost more but not much. and after shipping them HDs could only be used at most 5 times reliably.

edit: only at most 24 seconds assuming they are gigabit optic.

[ahtremblay]

If they do this, then I expect bitcoins to become the most popular thing overnight. People will run away from all the controls. Remember guys, the government can't even keep drugs out of prison. I doubt they can prevent all bits from leaking.

[paraipan]

In a scenario where the USA puts up a national firewall preventing miners/clients in the USA connecting with miners/clients elsewhere, would the blockchain fork into a USA chain and a rest of the world chain? And if so, would my current bitcoins be spendable independently on both chains? And then what would happen when the firewall came down again?

A great firewall of EU is also currently being discussed.

We can use an updated version of RFC 1149 "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers". Have pigeons carry the encrypted and signed block chains on USB memory sticks to miners over seas. US air force fighter jets must be avoided at all costs for reliable operation.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149

jajaja can´t stop laughing man, great idea and hope we never have to use it. A mesh network, like a parallel internet of some kind, of Foneras with OpenWrt and ROBIN would be great but in my city I think 1 person of 1000 heard about it. Shame on us

[MoonShadow]

Someone could create a wireless connection from Alaska to Russia and act as a bridge. Sarah Palin says she can see the "other side" from her home...

That wasn't Russia, it was a cerebral hemorrhage. (It's kinda hard to come up with another explanation for someone who can figure out we have elections, but is otherwise so unbelievably stupid...)

I can't believe I missed this bullsh*t.  There are, in fact, at least three points in Alaska that a person standing on the ground can actually see Russian territory; that fact that this statement was not intended to be taken literally notwithstanding.

Good God, some people are just sucked into the whole MSM image machine.  Do people really think that anyone that can get elected to any governorship in America is actually stupid?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/09/can_you_really_see_russia_from_alaska.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing

[tvbcof]

...
Good God, some people are just sucked into the whole MSM image machine.  Do people really think that anyone that can get elected to any governorship in America is actually stupid?
...

Sadly it does seem to be the case.  I credit the MSM and influences which guide their direction as much anything for this unfortunate reality.

[NRF]

as I understand it as long as one node in the US could still connect to the outside bitcoin world, transactions could theoretically flow

someone will figure out a way to get through the firewall, "internet in a suitcase" type devices will be in the hands of dissident groups.

long range radio wifi links across the border to Canada maybe?

Yep, in that case my personal bitcoind will have you guys covered.  My work network has endpoints in New Zealand (Where I am located), LA (the US) and Ireland (EU).  I would imagine there are a few bitcoind daemons connected like that (at least I hope so, I dont want the sole responsibility to keep bitcoin internationaly linked  ) .

[mobile4ever]

nahh.. a few "backbone" bitcoin nodes will connect via ssh tunnels/VPN's and that's it.

They are gonna need to shutdown a bunch of satellites and cut a bunch of undersea cables to get somewhere.

In the end of the day (unlike bittorrent) we can dig up old modems and FIDO tech. As long as one can place a phone call bitcoin is going to keep working.

Someone takes a flash drive to each continent. Done.

[tvbcof]

nahh.. a few "backbone" bitcoin nodes will connect via ssh tunnels/VPN's and that's it.

They are gonna need to shutdown a bunch of satellites and cut a bunch of undersea cables to get somewhere.

In the end of the day (unlike bittorrent) we can dig up old modems and FIDO tech. As long as one can place a phone call bitcoin is going to keep working.

I'm someone who actually has used a modem and degraded POTS line in the recent memory.  That might help to explain my agitation over uncontrolled block chain bloat.

As it happens, I also have a better than average exposure to backbone network topologies and various filtering techniques.  This make me paranoid that it may be possible to disrupt just about any network traffic deamed in need of disruption...up to and including all unrecognized encrypted traffic.  It would be difficult on various fronts (technical, political, economic) but theoretically possible and in a sufficient 'emergency' populations will tolorate a fair amount of pain.

I doubt that any Bitcoin-like system could cope with the challenges which could be thrown at it with complete grace.  But I also believe that if Bitcoin is not at least considering some of the potential challenges and the considerations are factoring into core implementation decisions then Bitcoin itself makes a quantum shift in terms of it's potential (in my mind at least.)

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

In a scenario where the USA puts up a national firewall preventing miners/clients in the USA connecting with miners/clients elsewhere,

The US government would have to go through a considerable legal fight to put such thing in place.

But, assuming they've done it (or assuming we're talking about a shameless dictatorship), and assuming they want to forbid bitcoin, they don't need to stop there (forbid international connections).
It's relatively easy to track down most bitcoin nodes, as is the case with all p2p networks I'm aware of. So, a totalitarian government trying to block a particular p2p network would not only block foreign access, but would also cut Internet access of every internal IP it sees running a node in this p2p network - that's what France is doing right now, cutting Internet access of those who use p2p file sharing to upload copyrighted content. In the case of France it seems the effect is more modest since they are required to prove that you actually was uploading a particular forbidden content, and they don't cut your access immediately, it seems you're given some warnings before. A more unscrupulous government could just shut you down for running the p2p node. Eventually even put a few people in jail just to make an example.
Using p2p darknets as Tor or I2P to avoid being seen may not be enough, as the same attack could be done against such networks - I read somewhere that it's already very difficult to access Tor from within China, as all relays and most bridges are blocked.

That would make running such p2p node so difficult and dangerous inside this jurisdiction, that only a small percentage of the population would have the technical skills to do it - not to mention the guts to take the risk.

It's sad, but while governments can control ISPs, they can do considerable damage, even to p2p networks as bitcoin.

[Bigpiggy01]

Well I'm in China and BTC still works just fine from here despite a national firewall being very much in place

The US government or whatever other country was stupid enough to try something like this would fail pretty hard even with the manpower allocated to the Great Firewall here they can't keep up. Sure tor and facebook are blocked in a few places here but then you use a new node and the net is back.