I dont' know how to feel about this.Jim Harper and Amy Weiss to join BF

[slaveforanunnak1]

http://www.coindesk.com/dc-veterans-jim-harper-amy-wiess-join-bitcoin-foundation/

[tvbcof]

Harper:

...and strengthen financial privacy for law-abiding consumers.

That pretty much implies identification of 'law-abiding' participants so it isn't difficult to see where this train is headed.

Weiss:

In addition to her White House job under the Clinton administration, Weiss also worked for the Recording Industry Association of America, the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Campaign.

I dunno how you feel about it, but I know how I do.  Confirmation of the direction that the Bitcoin Foundation is leading us.  Of course people will console themselves by trying to believe that the Bitcoin Foundation is meaningless and has no influence.  Sadly this is utter hog-wash.

[franky1]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

now presuming nothing about this changes the bitcoin protocol. i see that although these two public faces have held employment in very expensive salaried jobs before and that the bitcoin foundation wil probably be paying them the same handsome large figures. i think that people with experience of politics can be useful (in the very narrowest of requirements) to ensure the otside media get their facts right and that other politicians learn what bitcoin really is about. basically removing the fud and speculation that is thrown around so much.

i still think employing americans to concentrate on american policy is the stupidest idea. we need people from international law and media instead.

[kik1977]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

now presuming nothing about this changes the bitcoin protocol. i see that although these two public faces have held employment in very expensive salaried jobs before and that the bitcoin foundation wil probably be paying them the same handsome large figures. i think that people with experience of politics can be useful (in the very narrowest of requirements) to ensure the otside media get their facts right and that other politicians learn what bitcoin really is about. basically removing the fud and speculation that is thrown around so much.

i still think employing americans to concentrate on american policy is the stupidest idea. we need people from international law and media instead.

True! So bad the BF is basically a USBF..

[FenixRD]

I, like many, will be keeping a watchful eye on it, but at the end of the day the Foundation is just one small group of people. There is already a group of prominent community members in a fledgling alt-foundation.

Additionally, and far more importantly: While there is not yet a universal replacement or alternative for QT (AFAIK), the existence of btcd makes writing one a lot simpler, and interestingly will probably become the community-preferred version, since bitcoind (on which QT is built) artificially limits Bitcoin quite a bit — many valid Tx types are not relayed by QT nodes and also not included in blocks  found by miners running a setup based on it. This is just because the devs haven't had time / bothered to test for bugs, so they're arbitrarily ignored. Limited time for things, and the top of their list wasn't adding this functionality back in.

The moment just one of the larger pools integrates btcd (which they'd be incentivized to do as soon as even a small percent of Txes start to use these features, or even before, in anticipation), that changes everything. And that will surely happen soon, so I'm immediately far less worried about any influences the Foundation has over Bitcoin as a whole. They may have a strong say in QT, but a major alternative negates the problem.

Decentralize ALL the things!

[QuestionAuthority]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

now presuming nothing about this changes the bitcoin protocol. i see that although these two public faces have held employment in very expensive salaried jobs before and that the bitcoin foundation wil probably be paying them the same handsome large figures. i think that people with experience of politics can be useful (in the very narrowest of requirements) to ensure the otside media get their facts right and that other politicians learn what bitcoin really is about. basically removing the fud and speculation that is thrown around so much.

i still think employing americans to concentrate on american policy is the stupidest idea. we need people from international law and media instead.

True! So bad the BF is basically a USBF..

Why is it bad that it's U.S. centric. Bitcoin started in the U.S., most of the really big criminals of Bitcoin are from the U.S., the lead dev is from the U.S. and the major businesses that use Bitcoin are too. It's natural that the only major organization supporting Bitcoin would focus on the Unraveling States of Americunt.

[corebob]

...
i still think employing americans to concentrate on american policy is the stupidest idea. we need people from international law and media instead.

Why not go whole hog and rely completely on the man down the street?

[Zimbabwecoin]

Jim Harper and Amy Weiss seem pretty well connected. Certainly they should be able to be effective at what they do. A little bit of paying lobbyists can go a long way. Hopefully they will take us in the right direction.

[FenixRD]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

now presuming nothing about this changes the bitcoin protocol. i see that although these two public faces have held employment in very expensive salaried jobs before and that the bitcoin foundation wil probably be paying them the same handsome large figures. i think that people with experience of politics can be useful (in the very narrowest of requirements) to ensure the otside media get their facts right and that other politicians learn what bitcoin really is about. basically removing the fud and speculation that is thrown around so much.

i still think employing americans to concentrate on american policy is the stupidest idea. we need people from international law and media instead.

True! So bad the BF is basically a USBF..

Why is it bad that it's U.S. centric. Bitcoin started in the U.S., most of the really big criminals of Bitcoin are from the U.S., the lead dev is from the U.S. and the major businesses that use Bitcoin are too. It's natural that the only major organization supporting Bitcoin would focus on the Unraveling States of Americunt.

It's not inherently bad, just inherently risky. The probability of undesired outcomes is high, should Bitcoin become heavily centralized. It won't, and already things are happening that negates any threat that could emerge.

The risk is derived from the same mechanisms that can corrupt any centralized system which is otherwise intended to behave democratically. When it involves lobbyists, politicians, regulators, etc the result is a revolving-door phenomenon. Thus, the fear is the Bitcoin equivalent of what is termed "regulatory capture."

[QuestionAuthority]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

now presuming nothing about this changes the bitcoin protocol. i see that although these two public faces have held employment in very expensive salaried jobs before and that the bitcoin foundation wil probably be paying them the same handsome large figures. i think that people with experience of politics can be useful (in the very narrowest of requirements) to ensure the otside media get their facts right and that other politicians learn what bitcoin really is about. basically removing the fud and speculation that is thrown around so much.

i still think employing americans to concentrate on american policy is the stupidest idea. we need people from international law and media instead.

True! So bad the BF is basically a USBF..

Why is it bad that it's U.S. centric. Bitcoin started in the U.S., most of the really big criminals of Bitcoin are from the U.S., the lead dev is from the U.S. and the major businesses that use Bitcoin are too. It's natural that the only major organization supporting Bitcoin would focus on the Unraveling States of Americunt.

It's not inherently bad, just inherently risky. The probability of undesired outcomes is high, should Bitcoin become heavily centralized. It won't, and already things are happening that negates any threat that could emerge.

The risk is derived from the same mechanisms that can corrupt any centralized system which is otherwise intended to behave democratically. When it involves lobbyists, politicians, regulators, etc the result is a revolving-door phenomenon. Thus, the fear is the Bitcoin equivalent of what is termed "regulatory capture."

And then we all move to Litecoin or fork Bitcoin. That's the good news about cryptocurrency, the people determine what it is and what it isn't. We will play in their sandbox only as long as it suits us.

[runam0k]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

Just an aside, but sometimes you need to prove you are the *only* owner of the priv key, which is tricky.

[BeepBeep2]

"Harper said the Bitcoin Foundation is already a credible voice in Washington DC."

...GTFO.

[Armis]

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

Just an aside, but sometimes you need to prove you are the *only* owner of the priv key, which is tricky.

all it proves is that you CONTROL things, it doesn't prove that you own them, that distinction is becoming ever so important.


as for the opening post,

I speculated that today's news of their arrival would result in a media-hype bump worth $50 (coinbase $625 start up to $675), sadly it seems the news only got about a $29 bump ($625 to $654).  oh, and this was in addition to the news that a US judge ordered Gox funds frozen (well at lease some of them), that alone should have been worth $50.  Seems like the media-hype button isn't working like it used to anymore.

.

[FenixRD]

"Harper said the Bitcoin Foundation is already a credible voice in Washington DC."

...GTFO.

Lol.

as long as they dont add ID verification into gavins QT program. the only ID bitcoin needs is the privkey to prove you own the specific public key in the bitcoin ledger.

Just an aside, but sometimes you need to prove you are the *only* owner of the priv key, which is tricky.

I assume you mean from a Joe Avg user perspective? Fairly trivial,  cryptographically. (Nontrivial to invent, but trivial for me to understand).

[r0ach]

Meet Amy Weiss
- Vice President of Public Affairs for the United Nations Foundation
- Senior Vice President of Communications for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
- Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee
- "Weiss"

Ok, so she's a communist that supports the UN, RIAA, and she's part of an ethnocentric, racial supremacist cult, sounds great!

[gweedo]

Bitcoin foundation hasn't done one good thing for the community.

[alphacenturion]

There are two side to this coin.

There is no doubt that Harper and Weiss can be influential in gaining more public "respectability" for BTC and hence give us holders an enhanced ROI quicker.

My concern is they help steer the ship in the direction of the old money and influence that has guided the planet for the last 2000 years.

People saying its ok we can fork the blockchain and that the people decide are delusional - the vast majority of the global population are still asleep and the more that are encouraged to climb aboard the good ship Bitcoin the more difficult it becomes for us idealists to steer in the right direction.

What we can do is switch to a new coin/movement which is why I for one am paying close attention to cryptos such as Darkcoin and the such.

[Cryptofreak82]

http://www.coindesk.com/dc-veterans-jim-harper-amy-wiess-join-bitcoin-foundation/

smells jewish to me!

[runam0k]

Just an aside, but sometimes you need to prove you are the *only* owner of the priv key, which is tricky.

I assume you mean from a Joe Avg user perspective? Fairly trivial,  cryptographically. (Nontrivial to invent, but trivial for me to understand).

Is it possible to prove that (a) there is only one copy of a particular private key and (b) you control it?

This would be great for auditing purposes.

[lordbah]

Damn hard to trust someone who worked for RIAA.