Armory Crowdfunding Finished! [UPDATE - *BETA*]

[Indemnified]

I'm only motivated by money if it's enough to cut down my hours or pay off a significant portion of my house.  So, I decided to see if I could pull off the first one with crowdfunding in exchange for keeping my software awesome and open source.  I'll let you know how it goes


[/quote]

So....................... How is it going?

[1713239850]

1713239850

[etotheipi]

Update:  I'm distributing the encryption seminar, finally!   It is titled:  Understanding Encryption:  Using Boring Math for Something Useful
The presentation has a good mix of math and concepts, so there should be something for everyone.  If you don't know any math, feel free to skip the math slides and just try to absorb the concepts.  I think everyone can get something out of it!

I have already sent it to everyone who donated >=$10 already and whose email address I have.  If you have donated but have not received the seminar, please email me at etotheipi@gmail.com and I will attach it to a reply email.  The seminar is available for both MS Office (*.ppt) and OpenOffice/ODF (*.odp).  

If you received a copy, please don't forward it to anyone else -- this is a reward for donating!  In fact, if you want to make your previous donation more effective, tell your friends about how great the seminar is, and send them to my donation page if they want to acquire a copy, too  Thanks for your support, and I hope you learn something from it!

... I'll let you know how it goes

So....................... How is it going?

I think it's been pretty successful so far!  I'm at 1/6 of the funding at about 1/4 the funding time.  I'll need a bit of a push to meet my goal, but it's tough to say that it hasn't been successful alread.  I think it's already more money raised than some people would've expected, and I still have 3 weeks left!  I'll be releasing some new features soon, hopefully to generate more interest.  Stay posted!

[ptshamrock]

I Like the Presentation!  It `s quite useful ..I learned somethign thx !

[etotheipi]

I Like the Presentation!  It `s quite useful ..I learned somethign thx !

What's your math background like?  I'm curious how much non-math-y people will get out of the presentation.  Since I am a mathematician, it's difficult for me to judge

[etotheipi]

Thanks to Cypherdoc for making an extremely generous donation.  There's another hero in the house!   I am now at 20% of my goal, and three weeks to go!  Thanks so much to everyone who has supported me so far!  I am becoming very optimistic that I can actually make the goal and become an official part-time Bitcoin[-related] developer!

Anyone else have comments about the encryption seminar?

[cypherdoc]

i thought the seminar was excellent altho the math was over my head.  it also clarified several principles of cryptography and quantum computing that i had been confused about.

you have a very clear way of writing and expressing your thoughts which i admire and its coming thru in your implementation of Armory.  i've been experimenting with some of the other wallets compared to yours and its becoming clear to me that this offline wallet feature is truly the ONLY way to 99.99999% secure your wallet (% for illustrative purposes only!).  eto please provide the actual probability of inserting malware into the usb key!

the alternative wallets either are not encrypted or offer a server based solution which quite frankly i'm not comfortable with.  i'm sure the Blockchain.info and Electrum guys are totally honest but what if they get kidnapped or knocked over the head a few times and forced to corrupt their servers?  MultiBit looks good too but even with its USB stick solution one still has to bring their keys into RAM at the point of signing tx's which exposes them to malware in waiting.

this was helpful for me and was written by piuk himself concerning server based solutions:  http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2240/what-are-the-risks-of-using-strongcoin-com-as-an-online-wallet

the various splitting of keys solution also bothers me but i won't get too much into that since i probably don't understand it well.

perhaps i am being unfair to the other wallet services and suffer from a lack of knowledge.  i'm sure their services will satisfy a majority of people. however, personally, i prefer to be in total control with my keys locked away in my safe with no one to blame but myself if i lose some coins. 

the other thing thats very important here is that when one chooses a product one also chooses the person/people behind it.  i have followed eto's writings ever since he's joined the Forums and his knowledge is astounding.  its helpful to watch the discussions between him and other developers and you will get a sense of where he stands.  another very telling sign is when another developer (Jim618) from a competing wallet (Multibit) campaigns for eto to get crowdfunding; that says alot.  the fact that Armory's beta version is already functional and operational w/o any bugs that i can identify is impressive as well.

these 2 posts by eto were instrumental to me in investing further into Bitcoin last year even tho many of the concepts were over my head:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3008.msg565787#msg565787 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=29416.0

tl;dr

short version: eto's one bad boy!

[cypherdoc]

let me make one recommendation that might help in marketing Armory.

add vanitygen.

it may sound simplistic but i think vanitygen is way too sexy of an add on to ignore.  just look at the size of samr's thread.  people like having an identity and when its tied into something as cool and mathematical like a Bitcoin address, that is seductive.  you've added just about every other tool in Armory so why not this?

coding morons like me can't be bothered with command lines and downloading obscure binaries from unknown websites.  

implementing vanitygen into Armory as a point and click would be simply awesome!

edit:  just imagine; 1GoldmanSachs923kmdi39lJtIOL976fRFVHdliwl08d

[cypherdoc]

i went over the seminar a 2nd time, this time in OpenOffice with the Slideshow turned on.

i didn't realize you had transitions built into each slide and it made a huge difference in illustrating what is going on.  this was extremely helpful information and ties the history of cryptography, RSA, symmetric vs asymmetric algorithms, quantum computing, ECDSA, and hashing all together in one place.

when i read Wikipedia on these subjects i continually get lost moving from one page to another thru all the hyperlinks.

1 BTC to the person who can make me a satisfactory and realistic moving gif file of that P, Q line and resulting R value for my avatar using this pic:

[etotheipi]

Thanks again, Cypherdoc.  Both for the donation and the kind words.  It's great to know that my work can be so inspirational to others!

eto please provide the actual probability of inserting malware into the usb key!

I wish I knew the answer to this question.  However, I have been thinking about how one could avoid USB keys altogether, as they seem to be the weakest link in this process.  Since there is no executable that needs to be run to use offline wallets, any method of transferring ASCII from one computer to another is sufficient (QR codes + Webcams, IR tx/rx streams, etc).  The narrower the channel, the better, it's just that USB keys are very convenient.  

The offline wallets would be 100.00% perfect security (besides physical security) if I just find another device that can help me move 1-3 kB of text back and forth without the autorun risk.  The problem is, something like printing/scanning QR codes could be more trouble than it's worth.  But if you have ludicrous amounts of BTC, it could be worth anything!  (I think the best solution right now for the super-ultra-paranoid is to just setup a webcam on both systems, and I can add functionality to have all the data displayed/read as QR codes)

let me make one recommendation that might help in marketing Armory.   add vanitygen.

You are now the 183rd person to suggest this.  So maybe I will do it.  I was resisting because I didn't want to have to try to support someone else's program on the wide variety of platforms out there.  At the very least, I can add it only for Windows and Ubuntu, which should be fairly uniform.  Alternatively, I might just make a PyQt wrapper for it, now that I'm fairly experienced with PyQt...

just imagine; 1GoldmanSachs923kmdi39lJtIOL976fRFVHdliwl08d

I don't know if you tried the calculation... but getting 12 specific letters after the '1' is pretty difficult.  In fact if you were searching for '1GoldmanSachs...', it would take you an average of 1,850,000 years with oclvanitygen on one 5870.  No big deal, I have 3 of them!

i went over the seminar a 2nd time, this time in OpenOffice with the Slideshow turned on.  
i didn't realize you had transitions built into each slide and it made a huge difference in illustrating what is going on.

I guess you missed slide 4 which says "Press F5 Now!"     As you can tell, I put a lot of time into the slide transitions, and creating a "visual language" for the encryption concepts.  You should be able to examine every small detail of each of those complicated slides, and everything matches up.  In fact, let me know if it doesn't!  I'll either fix it, or explain why it actually does

[Rassah]

Watching, and will probably buy the presentation for, $10 you said?, tomorrow.

[etotheipi]

Watching, and will probably buy the presentation for, $10 you said?, tomorrow.

Yup 2.1 BTC to the BTC address or $10 through RocketHub for the encryption seminar.  Maybe if I can generate enough interest, I could finish my crowdfunding on that alone  (only need about 900 people to buy in!)

[Rassah]

Watching, and will probably buy the presentation for, $10 you said?, tomorrow.

Yup 2.1 BTC to the BTC address or $10 through RocketHub for the encryption seminar.  Maybe if I can generate enough interest, I could finish my crowdfunding on that alone  (only need about 900 people to buy in!)

Do you prefer BTC or RocketHub?

[etotheipi]

Watching, and will probably buy the presentation for, $10 you said?, tomorrow.

Yup 2.1 BTC to the BTC address or $10 through RocketHub for the encryption seminar.  Maybe if I can generate enough interest, I could finish my crowdfunding on that alone  (only need about 900 people to buy in!)

Do you prefer BTC or RocketHub?

I have a very slight preference for RocketHub, but it only matters if you are completely indifferent to sending BTC vs entering CC information.  There's nothing wrong with BTC donations! (in other words, pick whatever you want, and only pick RH if you don't care one way or another)

[Red Emerald]

Finally donated.  It accepted my card this time!

[proudhon]

A name change might be prudent.

[etotheipi]

A name change might be prudent.

F*#(@*&##^!!&#@*

Even if I had trademarked the name in relation to Bitcoin, I don't it would've mattered.  They're walking all over the criminal law, they sure as hell aren't going to care about IP/trademark law.  I'm going to have to think about what to do to distinguish my program from that.

[etotheipi]

A name change might be prudent.

F*#(@*&##^!!&#@*

Even if I had trademarked the name in relation to Bitcoin, I don't it would've mattered.  They're walking all over the criminal law, they sure as hell aren't going to care about IP/trademark law.  I'm going to have to think about what to do to distinguish my program from that.

I don't think it's a big deal. Your name is fine, so is theirs. It makes sense in both situations for different reasons.

Except for that part about US FBI/DEA/ATF agents who want to learn more about "The Armory" and keep ending up at my site, wondering if there's a connection.   It shouldn't matter, but I suspect it's not trivial.

[John Kirk]

A name change might be prudent.

F*#(@*&##^!!&#@*

Even if I had trademarked the name in relation to Bitcoin, I don't it would've mattered.  They're walking all over the criminal law, they sure as hell aren't going to care about IP/trademark law.  I'm going to have to think about what to do to distinguish my program from that.

That really sucks.

As a suggestion, based on your logo, perhaps the new name should be "Euler". That might be a tad esoteric for the masses, though.

Maybe "Citadel" or "Aegis" would work better.  At least those match the "Armory" theme relatively well.

[etotheipi]

A name change might be prudent.

F*#(@*&##^!!&#@*

Even if I had trademarked the name in relation to Bitcoin, I don't it would've mattered.  They're walking all over the criminal law, they sure as hell aren't going to care about IP/trademark law.  I'm going to have to think about what to do to distinguish my program from that.

I don't think it's a big deal. Your name is fine, so is theirs. It makes sense in both situations for different reasons.

Except for that part about US FBI/DEA/ATF agents who want to learn more about "The Armory" and keep ending up at my site, wondering if there's a connection.   It shouldn't matter, but I suspect it's not trivial.

If those guys are that inept, let them raid you and then sue for damages after they realize the glaring mistake they made.

I like stability and consistency in my life.  It's not always about just being right.  Dealing with that would be quite a disruption to my development plans.  Unless I can get them to "settle" by donating $10,000 to my crowdfunding campaign

[cypherdoc]

its trivial.  don't worry about it.