Topic: Bitcoin: The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists - page 4. (Read 3465 times)
July 09, 2020, 03:34:05 AM
I never thought that the creation of Bitcoin is a story as complex as any convincing spy story during the Cold war era. In my opinion, governments will continue to impose some semblance of control over its citizens and that this control will be used depending on the goals of those in power. There is a difference in making law abiding citizens and making those who wants to oppose the government because of their perceived oppression. Sometimes, in certain parts of the world, the ones who wants to fight for freedom are the ones supporting the government and in some areas, the big businesses are also the ones supporting the angry opponents of government. Very complex world we are living in.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
July 09, 2020, 02:47:52 AM
There could be a better thread for my question, yet I would like to raise a question that came into my head while I was reading OP, which I understood attempted to suggest both an ideological underpinning to bitcoin that was achieved through technological progressions and/or improvements to what ended up being bitcoin.
So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented. Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?
A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? [...]
So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented. Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?
A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? [...]
I am coming back on this question, and this time I'm going to explain it also using Satoshi's own words, as maybe my own explanation was not clear enough.
In an email from November 3rd, 2008, he explains the flaws of HashCash:
Quote
As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers.
But they don't. Bad guys routinely control zombie farms of 100,000 machines or more. People I know who run a blacklist of spam sending zombies tell me they often see a million new zombies a day.
This is the same reason that hashcash can't work on today's Internet -- the good guys have vastly less computational firepower than the bad guys.
But they don't. Bad guys routinely control zombie farms of 100,000 machines or more. People I know who run a blacklist of spam sending zombies tell me they often see a million new zombies a day.
This is the same reason that hashcash can't work on today's Internet -- the good guys have vastly less computational firepower than the bad guys.
The following is a list of his statements for solving the double spending problem.
For example, in a post on P2P Foundation website, he wrote the following:
Quote
Any owner could try to re-spend an already spent coin by signing it again to another owner. The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.
Bitcoin's solution is to use a peer-to-peer network to check for double-spending. In a nutshell, the network works like a distributed timestamp server, stamping the first transaction to spend a coin. It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. For details on how it works, see the design paper at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
The result is a distributed system with no single point of failure. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.
Bitcoin's solution is to use a peer-to-peer network to check for double-spending. In a nutshell, the network works like a distributed timestamp server, stamping the first transaction to spend a coin. It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. For details on how it works, see the design paper at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
The result is a distributed system with no single point of failure. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.
More details about the solution for the double spending can be found in the white paper and in the emails he sent on the cryptography mailing list. As an issue of note, it is very interesting that he referred to the author (himself) using the term "we", which suggest either that he used the royal plural or that he referred to a team working on Bitcoin. I didn't notice that before. I knew that it is debated if Satoshi was a person or a group of people, but seeing how he used the term "we" in the white paper suggests there was more than one person.
White paper quote:
Quote
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU proof-of-worker. As long as a majority of CPU proof-of-worker is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. [...]
In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions. The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU proof-of-worker than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. [...]
The problem of course is the payee can't verify that one of the owners did not double-spend the coin. A common solution is to introduce a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double spending. After each transaction, the coin must be returned to the mint to issue a new coin, and only coins issued directly from the mint are trusted not to be double-spent. The problem with this solution is that the fate of the entire money system depends on the company running the mint, with every transaction having to go through them, just like a bank. [...]
We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending. To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power. The network is robust in its unstructured simplicity. Nodes work all at once with little coordination. They do not need to be identified, since messages are not routed to any particular place and only need to be delivered on a best effort basis. Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.
In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions. The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU proof-of-worker than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. [...]
The problem of course is the payee can't verify that one of the owners did not double-spend the coin. A common solution is to introduce a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double spending. After each transaction, the coin must be returned to the mint to issue a new coin, and only coins issued directly from the mint are trusted not to be double-spent. The problem with this solution is that the fate of the entire money system depends on the company running the mint, with every transaction having to go through them, just like a bank. [...]
We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending. To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power. The network is robust in its unstructured simplicity. Nodes work all at once with little coordination. They do not need to be identified, since messages are not routed to any particular place and only need to be delivered on a best effort basis. Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.
Email from November 2nd, 2008:
Quote
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section 8 ) to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day.
Email from November 8th, 2008:
Quote
The attacker isn't adding blocks to the end. He has to go back and redo the block his transaction is in and all the blocks after it, as well as any new blocks the network keeps adding to the end while he's doing that. He's rewriting history. Once his branch is longer, it becomes the new valid one.
Email from November 10th, 2008:
Quote
When there are multiple double-spent versions of the same transaction, one and only one will become valid.
Email from November 10th, 2008:
Quote
The guy who received the double-spend that became invalid never thought he had it in the first place. His software would have shown the transaction go from "unconfirmed" to "invalid". If necessary, the UI can be made to hide transactions until they're sufficiently deep in the block chain.
Email from November 11th, 2008:
Quote
The receiver of a payment must wait an hour or so before believing that it's valid. The network will resolve any possible double-spend races by then.
Email from November 14th, 2008:
Quote
There's no need for reporting of "proof of double spending" like that. If the same chain contains both spends, then the block is invalid and rejected. Same if a block didn't have enough proof-of-work. That block is invalid and rejected. There's no need to circulate a report about it. Every node could see that and reject it before relaying it.
Email from November 14th, 2008:
Quote
We're not "on the lookout" for double spends to sound the alarm and catch the cheater. We merely adjudicate which one of the spends is valid. Receivers of transactions must wait a few blocks to make sure that resolution has had time to complete. Would be cheaters can try and simultaneously double-spend all they want, and all they accomplish is that within a few blocks, one of the spends becomes valid and the others become invalid. Any later double-spends are immediately rejected once there's already a spend in the main chain.
Email from November 15th, 2008:
Quote
The race is to spread your transaction on the network first. Think 6 degrees of freedom -- it spreads exponentially. It would only take something like 2 minutes for a transaction to spread widely enough that a competitor starting late would have little chance of grabbing very many nodes before the first one is overtaking the whole network. During those 2 minutes, the merchant's nodes can be watching for a double-spent transaction. The double-spender would not be able to blast his alternate transaction out to the world without the merchant getting it, so he has to wait before starting. If the real transaction reaches 90% and the double-spent tx reaches 10%, the double-spender only gets a 10% chance of not paying, and 90% chance his money gets spent. For almost any type of goods, that's not going to be worth it for the scammer.
Please let me know if my previous explanation plus these quotes explained properly the question.
July 01, 2020, 12:35:23 PM
unpopular opinion alert*
Unfortunate Bitcoin does more to reveal info about your past transactions by default; requiring you to opt in for any privacy... fantastic store of value for all cryptos, but I would argue this isn’t what Satoshi had in mind.
Unfortunate Bitcoin does more to reveal info about your past transactions by default; requiring you to opt in for any privacy... fantastic store of value for all cryptos, but I would argue this isn’t what Satoshi had in mind.
What does it reveal if you do not re-use Bitcoin addresses or when you use Mixer services? Satoshi never said... "I will make Bitcoin 100% anonymous" ....he knew it will never be accepted by governments if it was. That would defeat the whole goal, if governments banned it, because criminals would have had a field day with it.
Bitcoin can only be disruptive, if it can replace the oppressive financial system that was built on government manipulation. The whole point of Bitcoin is to replace a currency that are printed like toilet paper to pay for bailouts and corrupt government actions.
Satoshi envisioned a *digital cash*. Cash transactions between two individuals aren’t broadcasted on any ledger where other people and government can keep tabs on it. Plus in the white paper it specifically states that he wanted to circumvent any government or third party to be a part of censoring transactions, I don’t think Satoshi was that concerned about it being “accepted” or not.
Sure you can reuse addresses, but that doesn’t fix what’s wrong. Tracing every transaction makes Bitcoin unfungible, period.
Even Satoshi proposed the idea of ring signatures a long time ago because of this realization before he disappeared.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
July 01, 2020, 09:55:13 AM
There could be a better thread for my question, yet I would like to raise a question that came into my head while I was reading OP, which I understood attempted to suggest both an ideological underpinning to bitcoin that was achieved through technological progressions and/or improvements to what ended up being bitcoin.
So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented. Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?
A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? [...]
So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented. Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?
A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? [...]
Sorry for the delay in answering this... The answer to this question is not an easy one and I had to think a lot on how to put things in a proper manner here, in order to be easily understood by any reader.
In order to understand how Bitcoin overcame the problems presented by Bit Gold and b-money, let's first analyze these problems.
Regarding Bit Gold, let's use as reference its white paper and Nick Szabo's blog entry related to his invention. Some of the problems are emphasized by the author. I highlighted below just two of his observations.
Quote
(3) Representations of ownership of these solution bits are stored in a public manner, e.g. in a distributed property title registry I also originally suggested (both off the list and in an impractical but privacy-protecting form I described on the list) that publically known levels of wealth can be represented by a system of publicly shared books. However, I think using this approach and discarding the solution bits raises several unnecessary problems. [...]
A potential big problem remains: the possibility of a trade secret algorithmic or hardware breakthrough. The world lacks a cryptanalytically stable problem. Almost every year there are cryptanalytic breakthroughs speeding up cryptanalysis of particular block ciphers or hash functions by \( 2^{10} \) or more, and there are no proven lower bounds precluding such a breakthrough for any cryptographic algorithm.
A potential big problem remains: the possibility of a trade secret algorithmic or hardware breakthrough. The world lacks a cryptanalytically stable problem. Almost every year there are cryptanalytic breakthroughs speeding up cryptanalysis of particular block ciphers or hash functions by \( 2^{10} \) or more, and there are no proven lower bounds precluding such a breakthrough for any cryptographic algorithm.
However, Bit Gold's biggest issue is best explained on Bitcoin Wiki:
Quote
Transfer with prevention of double-spending, via a Byzantine-resilient peer-to-peer method, is described in another linked article which calls the method secure property titles and proposes also applying it to other kinds of digital property, such as domain names. However, this Byzantine method relies on a quorum of network addresses rather than a quorum of (hash) computing power, so unlike bitcoin it is vulnerable to Sybil attacks.
On the other hand, b-money had its own flaws, part of them being also admitted by Wei Dai. Let's use the description from weidai.com. You can see there that Wei Dai actually made two proposals (both related to b-money), not just one.
Quote
I will actually describe two protocols. The first one is impractical, because it makes heavy use of a synchronous and unjammable anonymous broadcast channel. However it will motivate the second, more practical protocol.
The first solution was based on the possibility that all the network participants held a copy of a same ledger, similar to Bitcoin protocol. Also similar to Bitcoin, there was no central authority needed for b-money, the protocol was decentralized and the network users would update their own version of the ledger after each transaction. But this first proposal of b-money did not solve the double-spending problem, as the transactions could not be broadcasted through the entire network.
The second solution for b-money was a client-server approach, where the servers would be the ones holding the ledger. The servers were entitled to publish the transactions while the clients were responsible for verifying the correctness of the information provided by the server.
Bitcoin took the best from all the previous proposals. With other words, we can say that Satoshi learned from the mistakes made by his predecessors and made sure that he won't repeat them. He used HashCash, proof-of-work, 0 central authority, public/private keys and a distributed ledger - which came to be known as the Blockchain (although this term was never used in the Bitcoin white paper). But his innovation was that he used the chain of signatures which link with hash functions every coin (transaction) to its previous owner (author) in an unbroken chain which ends at the generation of the respective coin. Practically, nobody can falsely allege that he owns a coin, as the real owner can sign a message from the transaction which attributed the coin to him, proving that the other one is an imposter. And the importance of this invention can be seen now, many years after Bitcoin was launched, as you know: CSW is trying in vain to steal Satoshi's identity and also to convince people that he owns several of Bitcoin's first addresses -- addresses which are supposed to belong to Satoshi; actually no matter to whom they belong, it is certain they don't belong to CSW as he is unable to sign a message from them. Furthermore, he was ridiculed by the real owner of such address, which signed a message from his address, saying "Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a fraud. He doesn't have the keys used to sign this message.". Furthermore, the recently moved 50 BTC from the address created in 2009 (movement observed also by many forum users) were contained in an address previously mentioned by CSW as belonging to him. The movement of these coins by their real owner proved that he didn't control that address.
This concept, which proves 100% the real owner of a coin, was not present in the previous electronic money proposals.
Excepting all these, Bitcoin also managed to avoid the 51% attacks. As Satoshi had forseen the need for proving the ownership (described above) and many other technological (but also political and ideological issues) which could appear after offering his brilliant invention to the world. He also anticipated that Bitcoin could become the subject of various types of attacks, one of them being the so-called 51% attack.
For those which don't know, a 51% attack represents an attack to the network, the attack being performed by a miner (or a group) having more than 50% of the total hash power of the entire network. In such cases (which in Bitcoin network's case the chances are astronomically low of occurring), the respective miner would have absolute power over the protocol, including but not limited to: stopping other miners from finding new blocks, find all the blocks by himself and obtain all the mining rewards, rewriting the blockchain history, double-spending etc. (more details can be found on Bitcoin Wiki).
Satoshi knew that such attack could occur and implemented two methods for mitigating the risk, as it follows:
1 He detailed an incentive in the white paper meant to keep honesty among the network participants: "The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth.".
Besides, regarding double spending and attacks, the white paper also details the following: "We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU proof-of-worker. As long as a majority of CPU proof-of-worker is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure."
2. The second measure was not based anymore on users' honesty, but rather on code: Bitcoin is programmed to make it more difficult the process of finding new blocks as more hash power is brought inside the network. Practically, the more the nodes are, the more difficult the mining process gets. And, as a consequence, as the network expands more and more, it would be way more difficult for an attacker to control more than 50% of the network's hash power*.
Regarding this second solution, laszlo (the pizza guy) alleged in recent CoinTelegraph article that Satoshi told him at some point that he has coded a mining software for GPUs and he was prepared to switch the actual (at that moment, of course) CPU miner to the GPU software, if he really had to defend the network. Of course, the defense would mean to raise exponentially the difficulty, as the GPUs have much more computing power than the CPUs. Laszlo, which according to his topic from May 2010 might have been the first developer (excepting Satoshi) of such mining software for GPUs, could have said the truth or could have lied in the interview. But what's certain is that Satoshi had two ways for avoiding these attacks in Bitcoin network, this being an aspect where Bit Gold and b-money were vulnerable.
I hope the above mentioned explanation answers your question.
* It happened in Bitcoin history for an entity to have more than 50% of the total hash power, but fortunately no attack occurred. In 2014, Ghash.io had 55% of Bitcoin's hash power, for almost 24 hours. Fortunately, Ghash.io agreed to reduce its hash power in order to ensure the community that it has no intention of a 51% attack.
Excepting Ghash, I also remember that at one time an individual miner had on his own more than 50% of Bitcoin's hash rate. If I remember well, it was the GPU mining era. But I really can't remember his name, in order to mention it here. If any other forum member remembers this incident, please share this miner's name and I'll update my post. However, I am certain that I read that a while ago, but no matter how hard I search now on Google, I don't find anything anymore. I also remember that in the respective article which I read years ago, the miner was mentioned by his nickname, if that helps.
Conclusion
A 51% attack could have been performed in the past at least one time (two times, I my memory is correct), but fortunately it didn't happen. Ghash and that individual miner were not interested in such attacks. But at that time the network was way smaller than it is now. In the present is almost impossible to assist at such attack on Bitcoin.
June 28, 2020, 05:47:08 PM
Wow man. That was a hell heaven of information [...] Thanks for sharing such a great article and I am sure it will help a lot of people like myself and give them more knowledge about the earlier digital financial system.
GazetaBitcoin, The reminder about what is really important is refreshing, thank you!
Thank as well for spending the time and reading this topic. I am so happy to see so many people here interested in history, libertarianism, anarchism and crypto-anarchy! I also recommend you to follow all the hyperlinks inserted thorough the text, as you'll find there even more valuable information.
This essay was very important for me, being my 1000th post and I put a lot of efforts in writing it, making the proper research, finding the quotes together with their sources, proof-reading and so on. However, the result makes me so happy: seeing it raised so much interest!
There could be a better thread for my question, yet I would like to raise a question that came into my head while I was reading OP, which I understood attempted to suggest both an ideological underpinning to bitcoin that was achieved through technological progressions and/or improvements to what ended up being bitcoin.
So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented. Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?
A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? Surely, bmoney was not coded, so the lack of coding or implementation causes a considerable amount of disadvantage to figuring out how it may have possibly played out or even further developed based on having code that would have to run if it were attempted to be coded and thereafter run - even with the computing power and network (internet) limitations of the late 90s and early 2000s.
Did bitcoin overcome the sybil attack angle (even if not really completely eliminated) by making it costly to attempt to sybil attack because of proof of work and the time chain of subsequent blocks that would cause going back each block more and more expensive to attempt to undo the earlier established blocks.. so in that regard, if you have miners who are already attempting to put resources into solving the next block through their hashpower, any sybil attacker not only would have to attempt to maintain hashpower to solve the next block, but would have to continue to maintain hashpower at a kind of 51% level to be able to go back in time for each subsequent block that is mined while competing with all the other hash power?
So, I am not sure if that resolved some of the issues of the earlier proposals? Of course, wei dai had said that he was not exactly excited about the strict supply of bitcoin, and surely some kind of prolonged tail emissions would cause different issues in terms of coding. Implementing the code does likely cause a lot of the theoretical questions to have a much more likelihood of better understanding how they might play out in a variety of scenarios.
I am not sure if what I am attempting to describe is making much sense, and maybe there is a thread, an article or series of posts out there that actually address my curiosity about bitcoin's development that causes it to build upon other ideas but to be able to become much more likely to be successful as compared to its predecessors that most closely resemble it?
This post in a bitcoin prehistory thread (that I browsed through) gives a seemingly good overview description, too.
Here's one article that I found on the topic, but I am really thinking that there must be much better articles and discussion out there.
June 22, 2020, 06:24:11 AM
Something about "... living under facism masquerading as social democracy. (see page 1 posts) ...
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54642739
"Rules of Fight Club
1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB."
... and perhaps something about censorship is bad because ... #### ## ### ### ##### ## ## ########## ########.
...
This one is a great read ...
Read the First Chapter of the KLF’s Bonkers New Book, 2023: A Trilogy
- https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/read-the-first-chapter-of-the-klfs-bonkers-new-book-2023-a-trilogy/
Nope not off-topic - excerpt(s);
"... Before the 2013 crash, AmaZaba were already considering a move into using Bitcoins as their main trading currency. The Bitcoin movement is very much adopted by the young and alternative. So it is no surprise the Occupy Movement adopts the Bitcoin wholesale as a way of trading internationally among themselves. The fact that Bitcoins are an international currency that has nothing to do with the financial markets or any "big bad" nation states is perfect for both Occupy and a global online retailer like AmaZaba. Occupy and AmaZaba are to be a perfect marriage and the dowry is paid in Bitcoins..."
"... Who is running the Occupy Movement is a bit less clear: some say it is just some teenagers drinking cider in a tent; others say it is someone in Helsinki called Hannu Puttonen..."
...
Free the Network: Hackers Take Back the Web
- https://youtu.be/Fx93WJPCCGs
...
HAR 2009: Why Tor is slow 3/6
- https://youtu.be/WJD1hDKDqlo?t=297
Tor - Incentive Mechanisms !?! HAR 2009
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1981287
...
Topic: Whois Satoshi? Known Satoshi IP addresses? ...
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/whois-satoshi-known-satoshi-ip-addresses-5155191
...
-punks!
NOFX - Dinosaurs Will Die *NSFW* *Explicit Lyrics*
- https://youtu.be/TPKQSQSVVos
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54642739
"Rules of Fight Club
1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB."
... and perhaps something about censorship is bad because ... #### ## ### ### ##### ## ## ########## ########.
...
This one is a great read ...
Read the First Chapter of the KLF’s Bonkers New Book, 2023: A Trilogy
- https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/read-the-first-chapter-of-the-klfs-bonkers-new-book-2023-a-trilogy/
Nope not off-topic - excerpt(s);
"... Before the 2013 crash, AmaZaba were already considering a move into using Bitcoins as their main trading currency. The Bitcoin movement is very much adopted by the young and alternative. So it is no surprise the Occupy Movement adopts the Bitcoin wholesale as a way of trading internationally among themselves. The fact that Bitcoins are an international currency that has nothing to do with the financial markets or any "big bad" nation states is perfect for both Occupy and a global online retailer like AmaZaba. Occupy and AmaZaba are to be a perfect marriage and the dowry is paid in Bitcoins..."
"... Who is running the Occupy Movement is a bit less clear: some say it is just some teenagers drinking cider in a tent; others say it is someone in Helsinki called Hannu Puttonen..."
...
Free the Network: Hackers Take Back the Web
- https://youtu.be/Fx93WJPCCGs
...
HAR 2009: Why Tor is slow 3/6
- https://youtu.be/WJD1hDKDqlo?t=297
Tor - Incentive Mechanisms !?! HAR 2009
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1981287
...
Topic: Whois Satoshi? Known Satoshi IP addresses? ...
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/whois-satoshi-known-satoshi-ip-addresses-5155191
...
-punks!
NOFX - Dinosaurs Will Die *NSFW* *Explicit Lyrics*
- https://youtu.be/TPKQSQSVVos
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
June 22, 2020, 01:40:04 AM
The ultimate dream of cyberpunks,libertarians and anarchists is to throw away governments and any form of power and oppression.Bitcoin is just a currency and I can't see how this currency will help for dethroning the governments and the rich elites.
First of all, please stop offending the Cypherpunks! Their were called Cypherpunks, not Cyberpunks! You should know that...because it is a part of the history and, as a crypto enthusiast which I believe you consider yourself, you should know their name. And the name is also stated and explained in the OP:
Soon, another enthusiat joins them: the hacker Jude Milhon, also known as St. Jude. He finds also a name for the group: by combining the words "cipher" (related to cryptography) and "cyberpunk" (which is a part of the science fiction genre based on dystopian reality and anarchy) he invented the name "Cypherpunks".
Second of all: Bitcoin is not just a currency. "I can't see how this currency will help for dethroning the governments and the rich elites." One step at a time.
[...] Governs are oppressing people for centuries. The methods are various, including direct taxes, indirect taxes, inflation, censoring access to information, indictments, prohibition, slavery, unfair trials, collecting personal information and using it against honest people.
One way of governs' oppression is through fiat money - those money which can be traced, for which you pay taxes. People's honest work is subject of taxation by the govern. For your honest work you must pay to the govern. Why? Because these money keep the govern alive. Your money! This is one of its control methods. Disable it and the govern will have less power. Of course, it still has other control methods, but this is one of them which, if dismantled, will make it less powerful.
The US government can almost completely destroy Bitcoin by banning crypto mining and trading.
Lol that's impossible. If it would ban mining and trading then the govern will do a great prejudice to itself: because it would force the users to use Bitcoin the way it was meant: anonymously. The govern doesn't want to ban it because it hopes to (1) centralize it (and, as a consequence, control it) and (2) earn some money from the users. So: even if the govern would want to ban Bitcoin, it would be unable to do so; if somehow it would, then this move would be for the benefit of Bitcoin.
99% of the crypto users are all about making money.They don't care that much about ideologies and political statements.
The whole cryptocurrency community is moving towards more government regulations,so I cannot say that the big majority of Bitcoin and altcoin users are anti-government anarchists.
The whole cryptocurrency community is moving towards more government regulations,so I cannot say that the big majority of Bitcoin and altcoin users are anti-government anarchists.
That's because everywhere in the world the 1% makes the difference. Everything big started will small steps at a time.
The real conflict is between the naive idealism of a small minority of cyberpunks vs. the reality.
And that small minority made a revolution! When more people will be aware of Bitcoin's power, they would realize they can be free with its help. Re-read this:
"Cypherpunks write code", emphasized Eric Hughes [...] And through code, they wanted to offer people privacy. They wanted the public to have free access to cryptography. Other points of interests were online anonimity, game theory, secure file sharing, reputation systems, free market and civil disobedience. [...] Another big desire of the Cypherpunks was to create electronic cash. A form of untraceable money which could stop the govern's surveillance over the financial life of the individuals.
June 21, 2020, 11:37:32 AM
.he knew it will never be accepted by governments if it was.
Link please.
June 21, 2020, 10:46:33 AM
unpopular opinion alert*
Unfortunate Bitcoin does more to reveal info about your past transactions by default; requiring you to opt in for any privacy... fantastic store of value for all cryptos, but I would argue this isn’t what Satoshi had in mind.
Unfortunate Bitcoin does more to reveal info about your past transactions by default; requiring you to opt in for any privacy... fantastic store of value for all cryptos, but I would argue this isn’t what Satoshi had in mind.
What does it reveal if you do not re-use Bitcoin addresses or when you use Mixer services? Satoshi never said... "I will make Bitcoin 100% anonymous" ....he knew it will never be accepted by governments if it was. That would defeat the whole goal, if governments banned it, because criminals would have had a field day with it.
Bitcoin can only be disruptive, if it can replace the oppressive financial system that was built on government manipulation. The whole point of Bitcoin is to replace a currency that are printed like toilet paper to pay for bailouts and corrupt government actions.
June 21, 2020, 10:31:24 AM
The real conflict is between the naive idealism of a small minority of cyberpunks vs. the reality.
Oh really?
If this were true then bitcoin would not exist at all so Welcome to the NEW reality.
June 21, 2020, 07:00:28 AM
The ultimate dream of cyberpunks,libertarians and anarchists is to throw away governments and any form of power and oppression.Bitcoin is just a currency and I can't see how this currency will help for dethroning the governments and the rich elites.The US government can almost completely destroy Bitcoin by banning crypto mining and trading.
99% of the crypto users are all about making money.They don't care that much about ideologies and political statements.
The whole cryptocurrency community is moving towards more government regulations,so I cannot say that the big majority of Bitcoin and altcoin users are anti-government anarchists.
The real conflict is between the naive idealism of a small minority of cyberpunks vs. the reality.
99% of the crypto users are all about making money.They don't care that much about ideologies and political statements.
The whole cryptocurrency community is moving towards more government regulations,so I cannot say that the big majority of Bitcoin and altcoin users are anti-government anarchists.
The real conflict is between the naive idealism of a small minority of cyberpunks vs. the reality.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
June 20, 2020, 10:24:22 AM
Actually, this is the real magic of Bitcoin. Satoshi slapped the govern in the face by creating Bitcoin in this manner. It's a feature, not a bug. It's a brilliant design, not a vulnerability.
Why is that so? Because the govern needs to know all the financial transactions. It needs to know how much money are in every pocket. Satoshi gave the govern what it wanted and still kept the privacy. You want to see how much money (BTC) are transacted? Take a look, the blockchain is public. You want to know the wealth stored in every pocket (wallet)? Feel free to find out using the blockchain.
But the users are secure, as the govern can't know their true names. Of course, while using Bitcoin as it was designed. By not revealing their identities to various third parties, such as centralized exchanges. If people don't care about their privacy and offer their personal information to third parties, then it's their problem, not Bitcoin's nor Satoshi's fault.
Why is that so? Because the govern needs to know all the financial transactions. It needs to know how much money are in every pocket. Satoshi gave the govern what it wanted and still kept the privacy. You want to see how much money (BTC) are transacted? Take a look, the blockchain is public. You want to know the wealth stored in every pocket (wallet)? Feel free to find out using the blockchain.
But the users are secure, as the govern can't know their true names. Of course, while using Bitcoin as it was designed. By not revealing their identities to various third parties, such as centralized exchanges. If people don't care about their privacy and offer their personal information to third parties, then it's their problem, not Bitcoin's nor Satoshi's fault.
June 19, 2020, 10:16:18 AM
unpopular opinion alert*
Unfortunate Bitcoin does more to reveal info about your past transactions by default; requiring you to opt in for any privacy... fantastic store of value for all cryptos, but I would argue this isn’t what Satoshi had in mind.
Unfortunate Bitcoin does more to reveal info about your past transactions by default; requiring you to opt in for any privacy... fantastic store of value for all cryptos, but I would argue this isn’t what Satoshi had in mind.
June 18, 2020, 12:48:14 PM
This could use a bump.
June 17, 2020, 05:32:15 PM
...snip...
My only quibble with that quotation is the no one should want to live under either. Fascism, socialism, communism, "social democracy", authoritarianism, collectivism etc are all very similar, just substituting who is doing the controlling. A limited, constitutional republic (with enumerated powers, like in theory the US is supposed to have) protects people's freedoms and rights from tyranny of the majority.
My only quibble with that quotation is the no one should want to live under either. Fascism, socialism, communism, "social democracy", authoritarianism, collectivism etc are all very similar, just substituting who is doing the controlling. A limited, constitutional republic (with enumerated powers, like in theory the US is supposed to have) protects people's freedoms and rights from tyranny of the majority.
Utah Data Center
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
Ad libitum ... ?
- https://youtu.be/DoeNbZlxfUM?t=501
...
Herewith, DEF CON 18 - Moxie Marlinspike - Changing Threats To Privacy ...
- https://youtu.be/DoeNbZlxfUM?t=71
Touches on the 'Crypto wars', Cypherpunks and crypto-anarchy.
Onward.
- https://youtu.be/DoeNbZlxfUM?t=71
Touches on the 'Crypto wars', Cypherpunks and crypto-anarchy.
Onward.
June 17, 2020, 05:04:53 PM
...
I would argue that, for the main part, we are actually living under facism masquerading as social democracy.
...
More 'cypherpunks' ...
rop, frank: Ten years after ‚We Lost The War‘
- https://youtu.be/P4k7RKx4OQM
I would argue that, for the main part, we are actually living under facism masquerading as social democracy.
...
More 'cypherpunks' ...
rop, frank: Ten years after ‚We Lost The War‘
- https://youtu.be/P4k7RKx4OQM
My only quibble with that quotation is the no one should want to live under either. Fascism, socialism, communism, "social democracy", authoritarianism, collectivism etc are all very similar, just substituting who is doing the controlling. A limited, constitutional republic (with enumerated powers, like in theory the US is supposed to have) protects people's freedoms and rights from tyranny of the majority.
June 17, 2020, 04:09:50 PM
...snip...
Thank you, BitcoinFX. Based on your replies, I believe you share the crypto-anarchic ideology
Feel free to share more information on the subject, if you have more. Your suggestions are very interesting as well.
Thank you, BitcoinFX. Based on your replies, I believe you share the crypto-anarchic ideology
Feel free to share more information on the subject, if you have more. Your suggestions are very interesting as well.The following thread is probably of interest to this topic, as unbelievably we have not yet fully ascertained the exact origin of the word cryptocurrency ... I seemingly have the first iteration of the word on this forum, although I saw it first used on bitcoin.org (unsurprisingly) ...
Re: Who coined the word "cryptocurrency" ...
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51504401
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.52786029
The links to the other research papers on digital cash should also be of interest.
...
Dan Held's recent twitter storm on Hal Finney was very interesting and insightful indeed ... 1/ to 83/ ...
- https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1244655439024779265
Bitcoin certainly wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't for Hal Finney's work and input.
...
I will dig out some more relevant content when I can find the time.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
June 17, 2020, 11:40:50 AM
Wow man. That was a hell heaven of information [...] Thanks for sharing such a great article and I am sure it will help a lot of people like myself and give them more knowledge about the earlier digital financial system.
GazetaBitcoin, The reminder about what is really important is refreshing, thank you!
Thank as well for spending the time and reading this topic. I am so happy to see so many people here interested in history, libertarianism, anarchism and crypto-anarchy! I also recommend you to follow all the hyperlinks inserted thorough the text, as you'll find there even more valuable information.
This essay was very important for me, being my 1000th post and I put a lot of efforts in writing it, making the proper research, finding the quotes together with their sources, proof-reading and so on. However, the result makes me so happy: seeing it raised so much interest!
June 17, 2020, 11:06:34 AM
GazetaBitcoin, The reminder about what is really important is refreshing, thank you! With all the greed and focus on short-term gains it is nice to see people interested in learning from history.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. --Benjamin Franklin
I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too. --Steve Martin
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. --Benjamin Franklin
I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too. --Steve Martin
June 17, 2020, 09:16:06 AM
Wow man. That was a hell heaven of information. I never really cared to read about the early versions of digital money.
Though I knew about hashcash and digicash, I didn't have any idea about b-money and I was happy to read about it and how Satoshi contacted WeiDai regarding it. Thanks for sharing such a great article and I am sure it will help a lot of people like myself and give them more knowledge about the earlier digital financial system.
Though I knew about hashcash and digicash, I didn't have any idea about b-money and I was happy to read about it and how Satoshi contacted WeiDai regarding it. Thanks for sharing such a great article and I am sure it will help a lot of people like myself and give them more knowledge about the earlier digital financial system.
Jump to: