embed (into bitcoin protocol?) signed broadcast notifications?

[bitcoinex]

I propose to embed (into bitcoin protocol?) signed broadcast notifications. Able to use it only those whose public is built into the client, ie, the developers. They are have users trust.

So it will be possible in an emergency to ask users to update the client or ask shut down it and check official site for instructions.

(Someone has already offered this?)

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[martin]

If you had such a signed broadcast system, you could even distribute updates via it, and possibly get clients to auto update. Which would be cool. Supporting multiple platforms may be difficult though...

[bitcoinex]

If you had such a signed broadcast system, you could even distribute updates via it, and possibly get clients to auto update. Which would be cool. Supporting multiple platforms may be difficult though...

would be cool for windows users only  

software should not update itself. at least, it is not enough access rights to its binary files

[lfm]

If you had such a signed broadcast system, you could even distribute updates via it, and possibly get clients to auto update. Which would be cool. Supporting multiple platforms may be difficult though...

would be cool for windows users only  

software should not update itself. at least, it is not enough access rights to its binary files

Well, the windows users would likely be the first ones to receive trojan updates by this pipeline directly into their machine. Linux and OSX users wouldn't be far behind if they accepted this protocol change.

The "broadcast messages" alone would be enuf problam, how soon before you get spam?

[bitcoinex]

If you had such a signed broadcast system, you could even distribute updates via it, and possibly get clients to auto update. Which would be cool. Supporting multiple platforms may be difficult though...

would be cool for windows users only  

software should not update itself. at least, it is not enough access rights to its binary files

Well, the windows users would likely be the first ones to receive trojan updates by this pipeline directly into their machine. Linux and OSX users wouldn't be far behind if they accepted this protocol change.

The "broadcast messages" alone would be enuf problam, how soon before you get spam?

Client may transmit and display these messages only if they have a valid signature

[FreeMoney]

There really is love in this world for centralized points of failure and control. You want Satoshi to have special powers? That just raises his value as a target of force, blackmail, corruption, etc.

If you want to trust people, by all means do it. But I'm looking for an alternative to centralization, that's why I'm here and running nodes. I won't run a node if I know it treats any other nodes as special.

[martin]

I would think the way to do it would be for you to accept certificates off people, and then only accept messages from people whose certificates you have - classic web of trust. Satoshi gets no special powers that way.

I wonder if you could replace certificates with bitcoin addresses, and make them serve a dual purpose?

[bitcoinex]

There really is love in this world for centralized points of failure and control. You want Satoshi to have special powers? That just raises his value as a target of force, blackmail, corruption, etc.

If you want to trust people, by all means do it. But I'm looking for an alternative to centralization, that's why I'm here and running nodes. I won't run a node if I know it treats any other nodes as special.

If you use a programs that manages your money, you will automatically trust to the authors of theese program. There is no centralization - an alternative client will be written by another author, and contain other signatures

[Cdecker]

The ability to auto update the client would be nice for Windows users, as for us Linux users it's already a default that we have auto updates through our repositories (I for one push a new version of the Subversion code into the openSuse Build Service once a day, so people using my repositories always have the newest clients) 

[FreeMoney]

There really is love in this world for centralized points of failure and control. You want Satoshi to have special powers? That just raises his value as a target of force, blackmail, corruption, etc.

If you want to trust people, by all means do it. But I'm looking for an alternative to centralization, that's why I'm here and running nodes. I won't run a node if I know it treats any other nodes as special.

If you use a programs that manages your money, you will automatically trust to the authors of theese program. There is no centralization - an alternative client will be written by another author, and contain other signatures

I'm sorry if I was unclear. I don't mean that you don't have to trust someone to build your client (unless you can do it yourself I guess). I'm talking about the protocol which is all peer based giving someone special power to send instructions. I realize it isn't something to worry about because it isn't going to happen, it would be a totally different project.

Now if someone wants to build a client that checks for updates by pinging some central server, whatever, I might even use it. But it's important that anyone be on the same footing regarding building clients, no one gets to use to chain to send messages.

[Insti]

Now if someone wants to build a client that checks for updates by pinging some central server, whatever, I might even use it. But it's important that anyone be on the same footing regarding building clients, no one gets to use to chain to send messages.

You could use the chain to send messages by constructing transactions that sent money to yourself that others could watch for.

The client developer owns address XYZ (hardcoded)

The client knows any transaction from address XYZ will be informational.
The developer sends a transaction from XYZ to any other address that he owns.
The amount encodes a certain amount of state - so a 1 BTC transaction might be 'there is a new version'

The developer can then send the money back to the XYZ account to resend the next message with.

[lfm]

If you use a programs that manages your money, you will automatically trust to the authors of theese program.

So long as it is open source you don't have to trust it. You can see what it is doing, If you don't like it you can change it. If you can't program, you can learn. If you don't want to learn, you can hire someone you do trust to make the effort for you. You have options.