BitDrop (or ShadyDeliveryNetwork), a non-robotic courier system

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I thought of this thread when I saw the SlashDot article
Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service

It seems Google cares a lot about this, for some reason.

That's unfortunate. The USPS should be allowed to die just like any other failing business. It should not be further bailed out.

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[cuddlefish]

I thought of this thread when I saw the SlashDot article
Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service

It seems Google cares a lot about this, for some reason.

That's unfortunate. The USPS should be allowed to die just like any other failing business. It should not be further bailed out.

The USPS isn't a business.

[error]

I thought of this thread when I saw the SlashDot article
Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service

It seems Google cares a lot about this, for some reason.

That's unfortunate. The USPS should be allowed to die just like any other failing business. It should not be further bailed out.

The USPS isn't a business.

I'm well aware of that. But they like to think they are, so they should be cut loose and treated as such.

[BitterTea]

I think there could be an argument made both ways, but here's some info I found...

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service

Since its reorganization into an independent organization, the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. However, it is currently borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury to pay its deficits. The decline of mail volume, due to the increased usage of email, has forced the postal service to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to maintain this financial balance.

[luv2drnkbr]

I'm in Las Vegas, USA and might potentially be willing to be a courier/node in this if it gets off the ground.  My fee would be in the 4-5 BTC minimum range though.

[TiagoTiago]

I imagine in some cities there might be lots of bicycle couriers that would appreciate the additional income and won't worry much about what the contents of the packages are

[cuddlefish]

Take it a step further: public/private key crypto (Literally!)

When you sign up, you send BitDrop a bunch of unlocked padlocks only you know the combination of. When they want to send something to you, they lock the box with the padlock and send it to you.

[TiagoTiago]

So you send the sender a padlock, and then the sender locks their stuff with your padlock and sends it back to you?

[cuddlefish]

So you send the sender a padlock, and then the sender locks their stuff with your padlock and sends it back to you?

yup

[BitterTea]

Even more secure!

Alice puts her lock on the package, sends it to Bob. Bob puts his lock on the package and sends it back to Alice. Alice takes her lock off and sends it back to Bob. Voila!

I heard this as an analogy to commutative ciphers. Theoretically a similar cryptographic system would be incredibly secure, but it requires a strong cipher that is commutative, which means that it doesn't matter what order Alice and Bob encrypt or decrypt the data. As long as everybody that encrypts also decrypts, the message stays intact.

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

This needs to happen! I would love to be a runner! Once I've completed a few jobs I'm working on, I should have plenty of time to help with coding this.

[Nefario]

This needs to happen! I would love to be a runner! Once I've completed a few jobs I'm working on, I should have plenty of time to help with coding this.

Roughly how long until you've got those jobs done?

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

I could probably get the ones I actually need to be working on done in 2-3 days. I have 1 job that would take a little longer, but I'm doing it for free, and it's not urgent, so that one can be put aside for a while.

[42kang]

Hey guys I'm new to the forum and really surprised by all the smart agorist possibilities being openly discussed. I really like all the devils advocates as they give us the foresight needed to keep the state out of our private affairs. In short this is how I see this going down with my current understanding:
________________________
Prong One:
Bitcoin currency

Prong Two:
The Agora(s)

Prong Three:
The real world delivery system
________________________
The bitcoin cloud is up and running and had proven itself, introducing a host of possible entrepreneurial activities and ideas (I love a free market, don't you). 

The Agora is a place to buy and sell, to conduct commerce, to trade or promote a service. BitTorrent will distribute the software interface and the software itself will be the network, each computer making a node in the local, national and international market.

The BitDrop network if effective concludes this round table, distributing that which it can to where it can.

In affect three or more cloud networks working in a symbiotic relationship.

Floating thoughts

posted this elsewhere but can belong here

The whole deal with bitcoin is an alternative to regulated currency, a true free anonymous market, correct?

Hows about a program that once installed, you can put in your general geographical location and it will patch you in as a node in a local network for your area (each computer running the program in the area becomes a node). The program shares a distributed set of information and is continually checking itself for corrections and validations, like bitcoin. In this way I can become a node and share some weight in the data distribution then anonymously put an item I would like to sell to someone else in the local network, ask a price in BTC and then once the item is dispatched at a pick up point I can then forward the buyer the details of collecting. Or alternately I could use the programs to see a listing of things for sale in my local area, the price in BTC and then once bought wait for directions to collect.

Assuming everything is lawful and tor compatible, would this work as a agorist program? How might the details for the pick up point be communicated to the buyer?
The idea is to maintain anonymity, have a locally distributed agora which runs on a trust/rating program.

[carlerha]

I'm really excited about this! Bitdrop is a great idea. I would definitely help out as a runner and moral support

[nereer]

I think the only big problem with this plan is that it needs a critical mass of bitcoin users that isn't yet there, and may not be for some time. Is there any way to estimate the population density of bitcoin in a major metropolitan area? If you can prove it works in NYC then I can see it working elsewhere.

[FatherMcGruder]

I think the only big problem with this plan is that it needs a critical mass of bitcoin users that isn't yet there, and may not be for some time. Is there any way to estimate the population density of bitcoin in a major metropolitan area? If you can prove it works in NYC then I can see it working elsewhere.

When the system can't find an acceptable route, it should let the would-be sender know, but also contact potential nodes and ask if they'd make an exception to their travel limits.

[ParidigmShift]

Even more secure!

Alice puts her lock on the package, sends it to Bob. Bob puts his lock on the package and sends it back to Alice. Alice takes her lock off and sends it back to Bob. Voila!

I heard this as an analogy to commutative ciphers. Theoretically a similar cryptographic system would be incredibly secure, but it requires a strong cipher that is commutative, which means that it doesn't matter what order Alice and Bob encrypt or decrypt the data. As long as everybody that encrypts also decrypts, the message stays intact.

Steve Gibson actually points out a man-in-the-middle attack that easily compromises this scheme in his podcast, Security Now, episode 33.  

And so anyway, a listener pointed out that is subject to a man-in-the-middle attack, which I thought was really cool.  Someone intercepts my sending it to you and pretends to be you.

He puts his lock on, yup, sends it back to me.  I remove mine, send it back to him, he removes his.  Now he opens it, takes a look at the inside, changes it, does whatever evil thing he wants to to it.  Now he pretends to be me, sending it on to you.  So he basically does the same three-way handshake from him in the middle to you, and you don't know you didn't get the contents from me.

I think a better solution would be to use combination padlocks that have a changeable combination.  First, combinations are not like keys which need to be exchanged physically.  In this way, Alice could communicate the key to Bob over the BitDrop interface, email or anything, and optionally use GPG.  This would serve as an "out-of-band" key exchange, since there is a very small chance that any node relaying the package would also be able to intercept Alice and Bob's communications, and GPG makes that even harder.  In this way, the chance of someone having access to the key and lock at the same time are near zero.  

(Edit: key or combination padlocks also would both provide a little bit of authenticity.  If somebody tries to cut the lock off and replace it, he or she won't be able to set the physical key fitting back to that of Alice's (or the symmetric key in the case of combination locks), without knowing her key.  When Bob gets the package with no lock, or a lock he can't open, he will know that the box has been tampered with.  This is not solid against physical lock manipulation techniques such as lock-picking, brute force combination testing, or other physical exploits.)

Using combination locks also allows one to change the combination, given they know the current one.  This way, once Bob receives the package, he can take it off and re-use it with a different combination, which he communicates to his recipient.  Padlocks would continue to be passed around, and eventually become part of the system.  

Additionally, using padlocks in this way might protect runners through safe-harbour laws.  This type of statute prevents an individual from being liable as long as the action was being performed in good faith.  Similarly, the use of padlocks allows runners plausible deniability, because the runner would not have had the opportunity to know what he or she was carrying.  

[cuddlefish]

You do realize I was joking? Physical locks are incredibly weak.

[Nefario]

You do realize I was joking? Physical locks are incredibly weak.

I don't think they did.