Topic: Hacking, the FBI and SolidCoin (Read 942 times)

It's a centralized project which can be shut down any moment one individual chooses to do so.
I don't see how it can be considered a viable crypto currency, do you?

once bitcoin really goes mainstream money will flow into all the other crypto currencies. if solid coin was liquid would you still think it is a scam?

Short answer... yes.

Not exactly an in depth answer, but it's late, and I'm tired

Remember that SolidCoin is trying to compete.
Since SolidCoin has evolved slower than Bitcoin due to a much smaller developer base, what other weapons remain to them?
They have very little traction, an occasional low blow is nothing to marvel at. A bit of FUD should hardly come as a surprise.

Colluding with the feds is one way of looking at the CIA talk.
Another one could be CIA "paying spooks" with bitcoin.
Is there anything wrong in lecturing "the spooks" about Bitcoin?
CIA is very much interested in bleeding edge tech. Do you think RealSolid would have done a better job explaining Bitcoin to them?  

Let's take a glance at other "objective" information RealSolid provides:
 (1)  Bitomat failure: it was a Polish bitcoin exchange having spectacularly capsized. How do an exchange's issues pertain to Bitcoin?
 (2)  MtGox being hacked: ditto. Do you suppose that a SolidCoin exchange can't possibly be attacked due to some "adversary repelling aura" built into the protocol?
 (3)  MyBitcoin hurt. It hurt a lot. Bitcoin (and all other cryptocurrencies) were young back then and the problem of entrusting private keys to a third party hadn't been so obvious.
       Since the MyBitcoin fiasco, not a single service was built using this flawed approach. Don't release control over your private keys == problem solved.
As it turns out, there's nothing Bitcoin-specific on protocol level. These are all third-party issues ANY cryptocurrency has to deal with.

"SolidCoin: Ready for Bitcoin collapse"
waiting for that pesky Bitcoin to just explode out of the blue... waiting... waiting some more... still waiting, forlorn and forgotten...

Well, it seems the opinion so far is "SCAM" in regards to SolidCoin. That was my first instinct, so it looks like I was on the money there.

What about the FBI/CIA claims? Is that just FUD? Here's a link to an article http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=gavin%20andreson&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoinbits.com%2Fgavin-andreson-tech-lead-for-bitcoin-will-meet-the-cia-1107%2F&ei=YS4rT_W1EoLlrAf735HNDA&usg=AFQjCNFKWYED-7yslxOF94G0SXOHf5f8Vg&sig2=gsOxPErhfeEE4J_VqujJMg&cad=rja

And the Bank of America stuff? Solidcoin link to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ljx4bbJrYE and then quote Andreson here: http://solidcoin.info/solidcoin-ready-for-bitcoin-collapse.php. I have been trying to watch it this morning but I'm on the road and my internet access is slowwwwwwww.

I can see that it could be FUD. SolidCoin could be quoting out of context; in fact that seems like the most likely option. But there is a kernel of truth: governments and traditional members of the financial establishment will be (or already are) threatened by BitCoin, either because they see it as a treat to their business model, power, or just out of fear of the new. Some members of the establishment, like the FBI, are already taking an active role in interfearing with the development of new currencies: http://www.libertariannews.org/2011/08/30/bitcoin-fbi-admits-to-engaging-in-infiltration-disruption-and-dismantling-of-competing-currencies/; so how could they be negotiating with Andreson in good faith?

I would hate to see BitCoin rot from the inside out.

Yep, I agree with what you say. I'm merely quoting Litecoin's views (see the quotation marks  ). Hence, I only have one currency apart from fiat on hand.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin's silver.  If you think about the fundamental reasons why gold, silver, copper coins co-existed you will realize there is no merit for Litecoin & Bitcoin co-existence.

Bitcoin may be replaced but it will be REPLACED it won't co-exist with other variants in any significant fashion.

It's inconsequential that Litecoin is CPU rather than GPU mined. It serves the same function as Bitcoin hence is in direct competition.
Sadly, Litecoin has no ace up the sleeve, not one single feature implemented which Bitcoin would lack.
From a merchant's perspective, there is no advantage in going with Litecoin.

I'm wearing a tin-foil hat, and I approve this message.

But really, SolidCoin is just flinging FUD all over whoever he can.  The king of SolidCoin effectively owns and controls the value of the entire SolidCoin economy, so he has a large incentive to try to pull as many crypto-curious types over to his little sphere as possible.  I will be surprised if his project lasts to the end of 2011.

I've no comment for the other parts, but I just want to point out that Bitcoin security is still miles ahead of current security protocols. Gavin and the team have constantly included updates to the network, like with the recent planning of BIP 16/22. The only weak link in Bitcoin is the human factor. If you leave your wallet unprotected, that's your fault if your coins went missing. Kind of fair I think as in meatspace you get that if you leave your wallet in the public

For the solidcoin part, it is basically a ripoff (with coinhunter even going as far as to remove the MIT license Bitcoin included) of Bitcoin from what I've seen, with 13 M of premined coins, and a closed system. That is, if CoinHunter decides to screw the network, he could as he holds the dev private keys. It's like placing all of our trust in him if we decide so. Hence, I for one think solidcoins is only one of those scammycoins derivative, albeit a more developed one. Go read those threads in the alt coins section and decide for yourself.

Litecoin on the other hand emphasizes on the use of CPU mining by the implementation of Scrypt. Scrypt uses the low latency cache memory of CPU's to provide greater hashing speeds on CPUs in comparison to GPUs (which we use for Bitcoin mining). The developers meant Litecoin to supplement Bitcoins as 'silver mis meant to supplement gold'. Read :https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47417.0

You are aware that SolidCoin is not decentralized currency, right?
Not only is RealSolid able to shut the network completely down at his slightest whim, he has done it before (SolidCoin 1.0).
Would you actually pump money into a project which one person has total control over? What if RealSolid's system is compromised and an adversary gains control over the chain?

I won't even go into other numerous technicalities (police nodes, mandatory tax) or the fact that SolidCoin is allegedly violating Oracle's software licence.
Hard as it might be to believe, SolidCoin has even managed to violate Bitcoin's licence which merely required attribution... that's the reason of the last DMCA takedown.

It's a no-contest actually.


Litecoin? Yet another alternative cryptocurrency created by grabbing the source code and changing the project name. DOA with exchange rate of some 2000 LTC for 1 BTC.
I wouldn't bother.

I like the idea of BitCoin. I've liked it since the day I first started researching it, though I started off with the mind set that it was likely a scam, but it became rapidly obvious that it was an actual attempt to make a useful, open source, decentralised online currency. One I immediately recocnised as geo-politically independent and a real solution to some of today's most gruesome ills. So I put on my miner's hat and got to work.

I have been watching the rise of Litecoin and Solidcoin with some trepidation: so many good projects have been destroyed by forking source code and a divided community. At the same time, Solidcoin make some VERY strong suggestions and accusations about recent changes in the BitCoin team, even to the point of accusing Gavin Andreson of supporting efforts for the Banks to take over the operation of BitCoin and of colluding with the FBI and CIA to undermine the privacy of the system. They also accuse the development team in general of allowing the code to stagnate, something I have to agree with as it seems the protocol isn't been evolved to keep up with the needs of the network (the focus seems to be on developing the API for e-commerce), especially in regards to security, though I am no code monkey so I could be wrong.

So, my question is this: what does everyone think? Are SolidCoin just a bunch of dirty splitters or are their concerns legitimate? Is solidCoin the scam I though BitCoin was? And WTF is LiteCoin and why do we need it when the main currency has mBTC and uBTC?

Thoughts?

outsidefactor