"Failure to Understand Bitcoin Could Cost Investors Billions" (Bitcoin's flaws)

[AnonyMint]

Appears I was correct and Bitcoin core developer gmaxell was wrong. But he proposed a way to use Zerocoin offchain instead, which might be workable.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.msg5663322#msg5663322

Two orthogonal issues.
First, an adversary could make a 1 Satoshi input and DOS on the (3) step. You ban that address but adversary has billions more at neglible cost.
I suppose you could set a minimum input amount to avoid this. But still no problem for the adversary, he passes his BTC through a mixer can comes to hit you again and again.
I am sorry to bring you bad news Gregory but with a non-atomic operation you can always be DOS-attacked.  Zerocoin may be the solution?

Transaction fees and confirmation times should slow down the attacker.

As for slowing down, the adversary can have many parallel addresses in play so I don't think so.

Transaction fees might work if they are significant enough. I haven't studied how much the tx fees are in Bitcoin much. I think I read that certain txs can be 0 for some cases?

If the adversary is mixing through CoinJoin transactions (hehe, uses what he also DOS-attacks against itself), then the blockchain tx fee is going to be shared between all parties of the CoinJoin transaction, so could it be insignificant?

Edit: I've just realized the adversary can eliminate the transaction fees too, by spending those banned amounts as he normally would (e.g. day trading), thus he doesn't incur any extra cost.

Edit#2: unless all decentralized CoinJoins share their ban lists (which is quite impractical to achieve as it is the antithesis of decentralization), adversary can just round-robin through them..

So I've won the argument. Checkmate.

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[AnonyMint]

Re: REDDIT: I am Tim Berners-Lee. I invented the WWW 25 years ago...

For the kiddies who don't understand what we did for you...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=513051.msg5665257#msg5665257

I am reviewing (inventor of the World Wide Web) Tim Berners-Lee's comments and will quote some that I think are particularly interesting to us. Click the links to read more of the comments that followed.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0ywqf?context=3

How do you feel about the supposed dark side of the internet, such as the black markets? (Silk Road etc.)

Complicated question. I am not a great expert on them. Simple answers include of course that illegal things are crimes on or off the web. But anonymity is tricky. We have a right to be anonymous as a whistle-blower or under an oppressive regime but not when we are bullying someone? How can we build technical/social/judicial systems for determining which right is more important in any given case? Relates to tor...

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0ya43?context=3

What are your thoughts on the increased surveillance on internet based mediums like GCHQ's monitoring of all the Yahoo video chats. Do you personally think it should be controlled, non existent or fine the way it is now?

I think that some monitoring of the net by government agencies is going to be needed to fight crime. We need to invent a new system of checks and balances with unprecedented power to be able to investigate and hold the agencies which do it accountable to the public.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0xkrj?context=3

Edward Snowden- Hero or Villain?

Because he

• had no other alternative
• engaged as a journalist / with a journalist to be careful of how what was released
• provided an important net overall benefit to the world

I think he should be protected, and we should have ways of protecting people like him. Because we can try to design perfect systems of government, and they will never be perfect, and when they fail, then the whistleblower may be all that saves society.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0y3qr?context=3

Thank you very much for doing an AMA.

I can not thank you enough for what you have done in inventing the web and bettering it and making content and information accessible and usable for all!

I just wanted to say thank you. I devote my time to designing and developing interactions and experiences that a simple, intuitive, and delightful.

I don't know what I'd be doing if it wasn't for your work. I don't know where the world would be without your work.

Many, many thanks!

You are very welcome! Use it any time you like ... :-)

Okay kiddies, I see he started in 1976 and I started with a TRS-80 around 1978 when I read this book when I was 13, and I immediately understood how a microprocessor worked. My serious programming started when I got a hold of my friend's Apple II over the summer of 1983, then I bought a Commodore 64, then an Atari ST, etc..

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0xpno?context=3

what was your first computer?

I got a M6800 evaluation kit in 1976, and built a bunch of 3U high cards, put them in a rack with a car battery in the bottom of the crate as UPS. All hand-soldered on veroboard, and programmed in hex. 7E XX XX was a long jump, and 20 XX a relative jump IIRC. The display was an old TV and some logic and a bunch of discarded calculator buttons lovingly relabeled with transfer letters. Those were the days....

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/cg0x8rw?context=3

Do you think in the (not too distant) future we'll look back and think ourselves lucky to have witnessed a neutral, free, and uncensored world wide web?

I think it is up to us. I'm not guessing, I'm hoping. Yes, I can imagine that all to easily. If ordinary web users are not sufficiently aware of threats and get involved and if necessary take to the streets like for SOPA and PIPA and ACTA. On balance? I am optimistic.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1bzzgk/we_are_activists_and_academics_who_support_reform/c9boz5m?context=3

How can all of us non-US people help with this? Just by mentioning "Your senseless laws will create dangerous precedents and will "inspire" other law-makers around the world!"?

Well, what country is free from laws or proposed laws which threaten internet freedom? Check your own country for things like CFAA, laws to allow spying or censorship, not to mention bilateral agreements agreements with the US which commit a government to enact such laws in the future!

Oh wow, Tim Berners-Lee just posted on reddit.

Gonna go on an off topic rant here that you will probably never read but!

You are an idol to a young computer scientist. Thank you for your contributions.

[AnonyMint]

And now our friendly core Bitcoin developer stoops to ad hominem even as he has lost the argument. He isn't even man enough to show respect to someone who showed him his protocol is broken.

This is not the culture of open source. This man should not be entrusted with being a core developer of our world currency.

And he won't be! I guarantee you that.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.msg5665741#msg5665741

Derp.

You just can't resist the ad hominem even after I've shown you were wrong all along about DOS attacks on your protocol.

Sigh.

[AnonyMint]

The solution for anonymity of the block chain (which is not IP anonymity so it is only one component of what we need in an altcoin)...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.msg5670270#msg5670270

So how is there unlinking of output amounts from input amounts?

Derp. Your output is equal to your input. Privacy comes from equalizing amounts.

And thus my original statement was correct:

Comments please on my technical statement herein?

A decentralized CoinJoin will have difficulty forming transactions ... that look like this if anyone can join:

https://blockchain.info/tx/e4abb15310348edc606e597effc81697bfce4b6de7598347f17c2befd4febf3b?show_adv=true

Also my statement that the CoinJoin protocol can be DOS-attacked was correct.

It was a bit difficult to explain these facts w.r.t. to gmaxell's semi-coherent, incomplete explanations of his protocol. But I think I was able to help him to specify the essential requirements of his protocol.

As for this specific topic, it basically seems like the level of the misery is just increasing.
My advise: talk less, do more - it will solve all your problems, I promise!

The solution was provided by gmaxell. Use Zerocoin which is an atomic operation from inputs -> available outputs. But it won't work for Bitcoin's current block chain design, because even if we could (which we currently can't) we don't want to put the Zerocoin accumulator on the block chain because we don't want to trust the PQ thus we want to the accumulator to have a preset short-term lifespan and all inputs and outputs must specify themselves with that time limit. However this can't work in Bitcoin because inputs have to sign the output addresses. Thus in Bitcoin the specification of the output addresses would make it a non-atomic operation thus it can be DOS-attacked.

The solution for an altcoin (or Bitcoin if we can make such a radical change) is to make the transaction id a nonce and have the inputs and outputs sign that nonce. If the outputs are greater than inputs, then the transaction is invalid. In the rare event the outputs are greater than inputs, then we know to throw away and don't reuse the Zerocoin accumulator's PQ (because its trust is compromised) and try again.

[AnonyMint]

If you are really serious to read high quality discussion then AnonyMint, tortilla, DeathAndTaxes, and others make more rational discussions over at:

cryptocrypt.org

You can join by invitation only. You can send tortilla a request for invitation I suppose, if you've exhibited a high signal-to-noise ratio in your posts on this forum.

[Zarathustra]

P.S. John Williams (proprietor of ShadowStats.com) thinks we will have hyperinflation. He is entirely mistaken. We will have severe deflation.

You are both entirely mistaken. As soon as we have severe inflation or deflation, the game will be over and dark age begins. Japan and all other 400%-Debt/GDP economies are trying to maintain zero percent inflation until they can't.

[AnonyMint]

P.S. John Williams (proprietor of ShadowStats.com) thinks we will have hyperinflation. He is entirely mistaken. We will have severe deflation.

You are both entirely mistaken. As soon as we have severe inflation or deflation, the game will be over and dark age begins. Japan and all other 400%-Debt/GDP economies are trying to maintain zero percent inflation until they can't.

Dark Age is severe deflation, but the difference is that almost nothing has value any more. Food becomes the unit of currency and becomes much more expensive, e.g. rice was money in Japan for about 600 years during its Dark Age. This means the maximization of the division-of-labor collapses back to barter money, which means productivity and new knowledge production collapses.

Agreed there exists now the threat of falling into a Dark Age. And that is why I am working so hard on a technological solution. I know you don't believe it is possible to avoid a Dark Age. You might be correct, but you also might not be. I told you upthread that my strategy is to make it so the hackers can avoid confiscation and control over their activities, so that we can create 1000X more productivity in the Knowledge Age space. I hope this can offset the collapse of 47% into technological unemployment along with a $223 trillion global debt morass with a $2000 trillion derivatives and unfunded future social liabilities.

Wait to see the outcome.

P.S. And I thought I was the pessimist in this forum, you are more pessimistic than me.

[Zarathustra]

Agreed there exists now the threat of falling into a Dark Age. And that is why I am working so hard on a technological solution. I know you don't believe it is possible to avoid a Dark Age. You might be correct, but you also might not be. I told you upthread that my strategy is to make it so the hackers can avoid confiscation and control over their activities, so that we can create 1000X more productivity in the Knowledge Age space. I hope this can offset the collapse of 47% into technological unemployment along with a $223 trillion global debt morass with a $2000 trillion derivatives and unfunded future social liabilities.

Never ever. More technology means more complexity, which is not the solution. It is the problem.

Societies - as the opposite of humanity - have never been something different than 'problem solving societies' (Tainter). Societies are growing rampant, endlessly until the end. They are permanently investing in additional complexity/energy/debt to solve exponentially growing problems. The Game is over as soon as the ever shrinking marginal return of additional complexity/energy/debt reaches the tipping point.



http://dieoff.org/page134.htm

[podyx]

Can anyone tell me if this is legit concerns??

[AnonyMint]

More technology means more complexity, which is not the solution. It is the problem.

Societies - as the opposite of humanity - have never been something different than 'problem solving societies' (Tainter). Societies are growing rampant, endlessly until the end. They are permanently investing in additional complexity/energy/debt to solve exponentially growing problems. The Game is over as soon as the ever shrinking marginal return of additional complexity/energy/debt reaches the tipping point.

Malthusian nonsense. I wrote about why Malthusians are always wrong:

http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#2nd_Law_of_Thermo

You conflate the failure of socialism with the success of technology.

Without technology you'd be freezing your ass off in a cave with no fire.

This is why I ignore you. I allowed for the possibility that socialism fucked everything up so much this time around, we may fall into the abyss of a Dark Age.

But I am not going to let that happen. And I have the power to stop it (where my work will be leveraged by all the hackers).

Now you watch and observe.

[Zarathustra]

Malthusian nonsense. I wrote about why Malthusians are always wrong:

No, Tainter; and historic fact. Diminishing return on 'additional investment in additional complexity' until the tipping point (vulgo:the end of the society).

[AnonyMint]

Malthusian nonsense. I wrote about why Malthusians are always wrong:

No, Tainter; and historic fact. Diminishing return on additional investment in additional complexity until the tipping point (vulgo:the end of the society).

That is socialism debt capital, not knowledge work capital. You conflate the problem with the solution respectively.

[Zarathustra]

More technology means more complexity, which is not the solution. It is the problem.

Societies - as the opposite of humanity - have never been something different than 'problem solving societies' (Tainter). Societies are growing rampant, endlessly until the end. They are permanently investing in additional complexity/energy/debt to solve exponentially growing problems. The Game is over as soon as the ever shrinking marginal return of additional complexity/energy/debt reaches the tipping point.

Malthusian nonsense. I wrote about why Malthusians are always wrong:

http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#2nd_Law_of_Thermo

You conflate the failure of socialism with the success of technology.

Without technology you'd be freezing your ass off in a cave with no fire.

This is why I ignore you. I allowed for the possibility that socialism fucked everything up so much this time around, we may fall into the abyss of a Dark Age.

But I am not going to let that happen. And I have the power to stop it (where my work will be leveraged by all the hackers).

You are a collectivist. You are trying to maintain the society (collectivism), which is a world of doing business with aliens. It is the opposite of anarchy, which is self-sufficiency in a world of self-sufficient communities, which means: no business and no labor division with aliens.

[Zarathustra]

Malthusian nonsense. I wrote about why Malthusians are always wrong:

No, Tainter; and historic fact. Diminishing return on additional investment in additional complexity until the tipping point (vulgo:the end of the society).

That is socialism debt capital, not knowledge work capital. You conflate the problem with the solution.

You don't understand the role of debt. Debtless humans don't suffer from productivity gains. Debtless humans in the rain forests nearly live still the same life style as 100'000 years ago.
Productivity increase and output increase is the result of tax/tribute and its derivative: the debt/interest.

[AnonyMint]

You entirely don't understand knowledge production. This causes you to conflate and confuse everything. I don't need debt to program the computer, generate knowledge and increase productivity. I don't need a constantly growing tangible capital with its debt base to perpetually increase knowledge. You are conflating the effects of tangible limitations and knowledge production. Welcome to the virtual reality of knowledge and the internet. Perhaps you've been asleep under a rock for the past 15 years.

Start your education here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.0 (Economic Devastation thread)

Don't post any more nonsense in this thread. Go refute in the thread linked above which is not moderated by me. Readers can go there to view more of your nonsense.

[notme]

Malthusian nonsense. I wrote about why Malthusians are always wrong:

No, Tainter; and historic fact. Diminishing return on additional investment in additional complexity until the tipping point (vulgo:the end of the society).

That is socialism debt capital, not knowledge work capital. You conflate the problem with the solution.

You don't understand the role of debt. Debtless humans don't suffer from productivity gains. Debtless humans in the rain forests nearly live still the same life style as 100'000 years ago.
Productivity increase and output increase is the result of tax/tribute and its derivative: the debt/interest.

As Adam Smith wrote, landowners are the only stakeholders in a capitalist economy that don't suffer from productivity gains in the long run.  (Read Smith's Weath of Nations for why.... it is public domain by now.)  Stakeholders outside the economy will obviously not be effected by it (except possibly by pollution), so I don't really see your point there.

Now, whether or not what we have can rightly be called capitalism is another question entirely.

[AnonyMint]

Now, whether or not what we have can rightly be called capitalism is another question entirely.

On that point, see this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg5656763#msg5656763

Zarathustra is conflating the ill effects of debt and tangible capital (which is actually inertia and liability, not assets) with the gains in prosperity that all arise from technology and human ingenuity.

His assertion (I deleted the nonsense post) that knowledge can't prosper in a decentralized society (a.k.a. anarchy) is unfathomably incorrect. It is so incorrect, that he should not be included in the discussion here, because it is just noise which buries the important discussion in this thread.

I've told him by private message that if he can make comments without making a long quotation of the prior post, then I will allow his comments if they don't just repeat the same nonsense without any sufficient citation or factual backup. I don't want to bury this thread in nonsense.

If he feels that is censorship, then fine he can create his own thread. I rarely have to delete posts, but he goes on and on and on with the same nonsense asserting there can be no sharing of knowledge and no network effects once we have decentralization.

His thinking is the antithesis of everything the internet has done and brought to us.

He is correct that the complexity of the power vacuum of socialism is collapsing. But his mistake is conflating that collapse with the rise of decentralization, which is actually a knowledge networking effects phenomenon.

If you get that wrong, you've got everything wrong. It is that important.

P.S. my personal apology to him for being forced to delete his nonsense posts. It is not personal. I am just keeping the thread signal-to-noise ratio high. I have allowed silly posts of others to remain, because they didn't go on and on and on post after post.

[notme]

Now, whether or not what we have can rightly be called capitalism is another question entirely.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg5656763#msg5656763

Zarathustra is conflating the ill effects of debt and tangible capital (which is actually inertia and liability, not assets) with the gains in prosperity that all arise from technology and human ingenuity.

His assertion (I deleted the nonsense post) that knowledge can't prosper in a decentralized society (a.k.a. anarchy) is unfathomably incorrect. It is so incorrect, that he should not be included in the discussion here, because it is just noise which buries the important discussion in this thread.

Right, he is confusing increasing gains along shrinking measuring stick (fiat money) for prosperity.

[Zarathustra]

Now, whether or not what we have can rightly be called capitalism is another question entirely.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg5656763#msg5656763

Zarathustra is conflating the ill effects of debt and tangible capital (which is actually inertia and liability, not assets) with the gains in prosperity that all arise from technology and human ingenuity.

This is Fiction and Theology. Fact in the real world and history is this: anarchist, debtless communities do not increase production and productivity. Collectivist societies do.

You are a collectivist. You are trying to maintain the society (collectivism), which is a world of doing business with aliens. It is the opposite of anarchy, which is self-sufficiency in a world of self-sufficient communities, which means: no business and no labor division with aliens.
A decentralized society is still a society (labor division). It is not anarchy, which is self-sufficiency beyond labor division with aliens.

You don't understand the role of debt. Debtless humans don't suffer from productivity gains. Debtless humans in the rain forests nearly live still the same life style as 100'000 years ago.
Productivity increase and output increase is the result of tax/tribute and its derivative: the debt/interest.

There is no such thing as a 'knowledge production' in an anarchist environment. Knowledge production is at least hundred fold slower within anarchist, debtless, stateless communities than within indebted, collectivist societies. Historic fact against theologic fiction.

Start your education in anthropology and the difference between non-growing communities (anarchy) and rampant growing societies (patriarchy/collectivism), instead of posting theologic nonsense about your idol: progress, which in fact is destruction by labor division (collectivism)

[Zarathustra]

Now, whether or not what we have can rightly be called capitalism is another question entirely.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg5656763#msg5656763

Zarathustra is conflating the ill effects of debt and tangible capital (which is actually inertia and liability, not assets) with the gains in prosperity that all arise from technology and human ingenuity.

His assertion (I deleted the nonsense post) that knowledge can't prosper in a decentralized society (a.k.a. anarchy) is unfathomably incorrect. It is so incorrect, that he should not be included in the discussion here, because it is just noise which buries the important discussion in this thread.

Right, he is confusing increasing gains along shrinking measuring stick (fiat money) for prosperity.

You can't find 'increasing gains' within an anarchist, stateless environment:



Increasing gains (vulgo: destruction) start as soon as you collectivize/civilize these free people and 'educate' them at the institutions of the collectivists.