Bitcoin: Of Freemasons, Free Markets and Bill Cosby Related Investment Schemes

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Bitcoin: Of Freemasons, Free Markets and Bill Cosby Related Investment Schemes

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homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Xandu posted:

How anonymous are all of these online bitcoin exchanges?

Every transaction is stored permanently in the network, so if someone figures out your wallet address, not at all. When the bitcoin drug dealers, whorehouses, and hitmen get busted, a lot of obese libertarians are going to be hosed.

# ¿ May 24, 2011 02:23

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:01

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

trashcanman posted:

Wait so what happens to your bitcoin if you lose it? If there can only be so many, did you just like permanently reduce the total supply by deleting that file? Or can someone else get it?

And you mean just one file in the whole world knows you've got a bit coin? You can't copy it? If someone else steals the file do they own your bitcoin? What if they just have a copy?

This poo poo so confusing.

When you make a new wallet, you're generating a public/private key pair. Deposits to your wallet are addressed to the public key, which is logged and stored by the entire bitcoin network. Everyone knows exactly how many bitcoins are in what wallets at all times. But to actually generate a transaction from a wallet, you have to sign it with the private key.

Anyone who has the private key to a wallet can do whatever the gently caress with the coins inside, and yeah if you lose the private key you've permanently destroyed currency. These are probably considered features.

# ¿ May 24, 2011 03:35

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

trashcanman posted:

So if all the world used only bitcoins, I could type in "homeless snail" and it would tell me if I have more money, and am therefore better than you?

Or is it like, the "system" knows, but I can't just see how rich everyone else is?

You can make as many wallets as you want, and they're just a bunch of numbers anyway. If I gave you my address though you could probably cyberstalk my transactions and figure out my net bitcoin worth (its zero).

# ¿ May 24, 2011 03:46

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Agnostic watermelon posted:

If you're going to make a cool new future currency, you can't come up with a better name than "bitcoins"?

Hi, do you accept Futuristic Augmented Reality Tender?

# ¿ May 24, 2011 04:12

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

trashcanman posted:

poo poo yeah I do now! That sounds far too awesome to be worthless.

Give me a minute, I think I'm about to mine up a really big one.

# ¿ May 24, 2011 04:18

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

trucutru posted:

It's worth mentioning that the bitcoin p2p network could easily be made to do some meaningful work (folding@home or somesuch). Then they could argue they are being paid for contributing to society. Instead, they use all that computing power to find cute and completely useless hashes.

The important thing about a proof of work system like bitcoin is that verifying the answer is majorly easier than generating it in the first place. Finding a nonce that will generate a hash with a weird pattern requires lots of trial and error, but once that nonce has been found, other nodes on the bitcoin network can verify the result in microseconds. Very few practical problems follow this pattern, which makes them useless for a proof of work system. Most distributed computing projects validate results by sending the same work unit to multiple users, using consensus to filter out cheaters and errors. Folding@home doesn't, but its security seems to be based on a combination of a clever state machine, obscurity, and a heaping dose of the honor system.

So no, nothing even tangentially related to bitcoins will ever be worthwhile.

# ¿ May 24, 2011 18:47

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

All you guys saying an all digital currency is a joke? Well check this out motherfuckers:

All you have to do is transfer your bitcoins (plus 30% markup, plus shipping and handling), wait 1 to 2 weeks for your bitbills to arrive and use them to pay all your debts with exciting technotarian cryptocurrency. Then your recipient just has to rip open the security holograms, permanently destroying the card, take a picture of the QR code inside with their Android phone, and transfer the private key to their modified bitbill-compatible bitcoin client.

Easy!

# ¿ May 25, 2011 01:56

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

You can spend fractional bitcoins up to like 8 decimal places, so people will start digging deep into decimals as deflation increases. But the answer to your question is: they don't. No one is going to give a poo poo about bitcoins in 2040 when all 21 million are exhausted, certainly not Satoshi who will have long since cashed out by then.

# ¿ May 25, 2011 04:28

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

The fact is, the majority of coins mined in 2009/10 have never left their generating address. The founders control a ridiculous amount of the assets, which have appreciated in value by several orders of magnitude on the back of those pushing the bubble upwards. What is the purpose of their massive horde? Is Satoshi going to start a Bitcoin Reserve to regulate the coming bitconomy? Or is it a several million dollar nest egg for him to buy weed and hot internet poon before ultimately cashing out and crashing the economy?

Given the crazy libertarian ideals of the people who promote bitcoin, which do you think is more likely?

# ¿ May 25, 2011 21:43

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Drone_Fragger posted:

edit: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fee heres the proof of that.

Holy poo poo, there's a free market on transaction fees. You can pay as much or as little as you want, and its up to the generating node to accept your bid. And fees automatically scale up based on network congestion.

# ¿ May 25, 2011 22:28

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Yodzilla posted:

tipping a stripper with bitcoins

# ¿ May 28, 2011 06:29

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

fishmech posted:

There are no bitcoin apps for Android or iOS let alone other smartphones and of course none if you don't have a smartphone.

https://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet&feature=search_result

If you mean miners, sure, but who would be retarded enough to want to mine bitcoins on their phone (don't answer that)

Also:

quote:

It is currently limited to testnet (meaning those Bitcoins have no real value)

# ¿ May 29, 2011 04:41

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

That is realistically the only way bitcoins will ever work in real life though, people pointing their phones at each other to scan QR codes. Which is completely retarded for a variety of reasons.

Sorta like how vcards or whatever the gently caress will probably never supplant physical business cards.

# ¿ May 29, 2011 04:50

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

A Rabid Llama posted:

So they're using a massively parallel computing network to brute-force some hashes? What are these hashes for? I feel like this whole bitcoin thing is just a smokescreen to get the populace to build a giant supercomputing cloud to do all the hard work of cracking nuclear security codes or something.

They're hashing a log of recent transactions, when they're hashed and added to the chain the transactions are considered officially confirmed. So the mining process is actually vital to the security of the network. Considering the input data and the kind of constraints the hashes have to meet, they're worthless for anything but bitcoins.

There are already distributed computing projects to calculate rainbow tables for hash functions, which is probably a way better use of your CPU time.

# ¿ May 31, 2011 02:32

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

So where's the over/under on when Satoshi cashes out?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 14:22

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Also, all the 2009 generating addresses are still virgin
eg http://blockexplorer.com/address/12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX

http://blockexplorer.com/b/1 through thirty thousand something. That's 1.5 million buttes right there.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 15:32

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Hungry Gerbil posted:

I dunno. It surely shouldn't fluctuate wildly and nobody should own like half of the total amount of money.

I think a viable cryptocurrency will probably be coupled to the dollar or the euro. Or maybe gold.

The problem is, the mining function is what makes Bitcoins a self-mediating system. The fact that every coin is produced predictably by the system, and every transaction logged, gives the economy a certain amount of legitimacy without a central body governing it. I can't think of any way to ensure that if you're just converting your money into digital dollars or whatever, but then again I don't spend much time thinking about bitcoins.

What you probably want is some kind of underground web-of-trust cryptobanking system. Like Tor for money, without any of this e-currency bullshit.

edit: this apparently already exists http://ripple-project.org/

# ¿ Jun 4, 2011 10:33

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

ymgve posted:

The first time someone found a bug and generated billions of coins it was because of an arithmetic bug. Since the code that handles transactions is fairly complex, I bet there are at least a few more bugs lying around.

Cryptography alone doesn't guarantee security.

There's also a fairly complex scripting engine as part of the transaction handling code, if I were looking for a vulnerability that's probably where I'd start. Someone already tried to have the network DoS itself via repeated hashing.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2011 12:45

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

UZR IS BULLSHIT posted:

Hahaha why do they all have their Bit-bank numbers in their signatures asking for tips?

Guys my USBank account number is 43087, any tips are appreciated!!!

The stupidest thing is, if you check out their addresses on blockexplorer, some of them actually do get tips. Getting paid for posting on the internet with libertarian cybermoney, gently caress this planet.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2011 21:20

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Drone_Fragger posted:

Okay, Who actually did this because: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=14554.0,

Followed shortly by:

So um yeah, oops, looks like bitcoins are going to die now, "what a shame".

edit: damnit I was gonna rile up more panic sellers but the bitcoin site is crashing under the load of people panicing. gently caress.

I will give whoever did this 0.05 bitcoins, if you cash in now that ought to be enough to buy yourself a new avatar.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2011 21:25

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Cursed Lumberjack posted:

Anti-Cancer Bux

Its a great idea that's been suggested several times in this thread, but it doesn't really fulfill the goals of Bitcoin. @home project work units are generally not very easily verifiable like hashes are, so you would need a central authority to keep track of everything. I would also be concerned of the impact it would have on the project, since as it stands they are not very cheat resistant. Right now there's no reason to cheat on folding@home except to be a huge dick, but if you introduced money into the equation they would instantly be broken, making the results of the project completely worthless.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 17:53

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Xandu posted:

They probably want to wait for bitcoins to become worthless first, but it's inevitable.

Presenting Bytecoins! Sure Bitcoins sucked, but now we've fixed all your problems with it. Byte yours today!

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 19:50

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Patashu posted:

There's a huge transaction with 340 different wallets giving a single one 50 bitcoins for a total of 17000 moved. Not sure of the significance though.

They're all generating addresses, presumably cashing out. What I don't understand is the one address that appears 20 or so times in the transaction, moving exactly 45.33995901 butts each time. :iiam:

# ¿ Jun 12, 2011 01:03

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

davebo posted:

One bitcoin is equivalent to one Shivan Dragon. Wait... now it's equal to 3 Swamp cards.

: Add 1 Bitcoin to your wallet pool

"One bone broken for every ATI 5800 snapped underfoot"

# ¿ Jun 13, 2011 00:46

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Angela Christine posted:

People love centralized markets.

Every MMO ends up with people gathering in one city to the exclusion of all others, see Freeport in early Everquest, and Orgrimmar in WoW. The difference between MMOs and Bitcoins though, is that those areas are as much social hubs as they are economic ones. Considering how many people play MMOs to socialize, it makes sense to gather in one centralized location. Technotarians supporting a Bitcoin exchange monopoly are just retarded.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2011 03:16

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

SwampDonkey posted:

New virus just for you!

Infostealer.Coinbit

http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2011-061615-3651-99&tabid=2

This is retarded, why are they using email and FTP which could be traced back to them when bitcoin gives them all they need to steal it anonymously?

# ¿ Jun 16, 2011 22:51

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

trucutru posted:

I don't know, they seem to be awfully nice hackers who even comment their code.

char* appdata = getenv("APPDATA"); // Gets %AppData%

# ¿ Jun 16, 2011 22:57

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

ChubbyEmoBabe posted:

int seedone=rand(); //seed one

Was my favorite.

Who comments like that? I consider it a pain and only comment blocks.

int seedone=rand(); //Declares "seedone" as an integer then calls the function "rand()" and returns a pseudo-random integral number in the range 0 to RAND_MAX.

Bad programmers comment like that. They know they're supposed to make comments, but they don't know which lines need them or what they should be saying.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2011 23:12

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Thanks WalletInspector.info!

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 01:20

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Lutha Mahtin posted:

I think the blockchain only needs to be verified by 50% plus one of users on the Bitcoin network. That is, each user's vote for the authoritative blockchain is equal, unlike mining, where compute power gives some users advantages over others. Obviously such a scheme could never go wrong

Someone correct me if this is wrong.

More specifically, mining nodes build their blocks on other blocks that they consider valid. If a dishonest miner controls the majority of the power on the network, its probable that they can post invalid blocks and chain them together. To protect against an attack like that, the client doesn't confirm transactions until they're 6 blocks deep in the chain, so your network needs to mine 6 consecutive blocks to corrupt it.

I don't think you're going to get enough CPU time from SA alone, I'd suggest building your lying client in a nice, easy to use package like LOIC, and seeding it on 4chan or whatever like how they do their DDoSes. I don't really give a poo poo about a goon pool, but I would donate some cycles to corrupting the blockchain.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 06:45

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

TouretteDog posted:

Having 51% of the pool power means that you're far more likely to be able to validate arbitrary transaction blocks first. You still need the private key for a given wallet to initiate a transaction, so you can't spend someone else's bitcoins.

You can, however:
1) decide not to let any transactions from a given wallet ever clear
2) send the same bitcoin to several different people in a manner that apparently clears and then effectively reverse the transactions (as long as you do it quickly)
3) reverse any arbitrary (but very recent) transaction
and probably several other things I haven't thought of yet.

You can seriously gently caress with the bitcoin "economy", but you can't steal other people's "money" or anything like that.

I think the best idea would probably be to just jack up the minimum transaction fee to some ridiculous amount, holding the network hostage and taking coins from anyone who's desperate enough to pay. Having a fraction of the total processing power could slow down transactions appreciably, but the more bad blocks you can generate the more you can gently caress things over. Even better, as unconfirmed transactions back up on the network, normal clients will automatically demand increasingly higher transaction fees.

Double spending is too much effort if you don't give a poo poo about bitcoins in the first place.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 18:03

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Chaos Motor posted:

I don't see how a voluntary mutual exchange is a scam but be jealous all you like.

Ahahaha, you think people are jealous about your bitcoins

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 18:49

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

ChubbyEmoBabe posted:

I'm reminded of winners and losers every time I walk out my door and see an ocean of foreclosures and REO properties.

I like to walk around all because those 9 year old haters going to live with their grandparents are sooo jealous of me and my nice big house.

Those mortgages were voluntary exchanges, you're just jealous of the banks.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 19:14

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Three Olives posted:

Is there any mechanism for a devaluing or expressing the currency to make it manageable without screwing consumers?

Microbitcoins. Because the only thing that could make bitcoins friendlier to the average person is the metric system.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2011 03:49

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

It means 1/3rd of the total bitcoins in existence changed hands in an approximately 10 minute period.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2011 01:25

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

theflyingorc posted:

Am I right in guessing that there is absolutely no protection from MTGOX just taking everyone's bitcoins and putting them into their own wallet?

That's exactly what happens when you fund your mtgox account.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2011 21:07

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

zalmoxes posted:

Atlas (guest): I currently have ~250k bitcoins in my wallet, and I'm going to dump them unless the regulation ends. This is not what bitcoins were developed to do.

Oh no not Atlas, how is he going to fund his private army now?!

# ¿ Jun 20, 2011 22:24

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

Looks like you can't log in via chatroll anymore? Oh well that was fun while it lasted

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 02:04

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

gnarlyhotep posted:

We called Bruce's phone and made it vibrate off the arm of the chair.

This was the greatest thing to come out of Bitcoins so far. Watching that phone slowly vibrate to the edge of the armrest and then into the seat was some loving compelling television.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 04:43

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:01

homeless snail: Mar 14, 2007

That, and rounding errors compound on each other over time. No one should be storing anything serious or financial in a floating point type.

Orange Sunshine posted:

Can someone explain how an extra terahash could have been brought onto the network suddenly?

As I understand it, a high end graphics card produces something like 600 or 700 megahash. So a terahash is the equivalent of 1600 high end graphics cards. There's no way anyone could have actually bought and set up a bank of computers that large, I wouldn't think.

Could someone have added a large botnet to the bitcoin network? If the botnet was set to use whatever graphics cards its computers had and not just their CPU power, I could see them getting up to a terahash.

Either someone brought a hugeass botnet online or someone is mass producing bitcoin mining FPGAs or ASICs. Either way the average bitcoin miner is hosed :mmmhmm:

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 07:31

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Bitcoin: Of Freemasons, Free Markets and Bill Cosby Related Investment Schemes

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