What about someone hosting a super compressed copy of the chain that gets updated every couple days or something. Would at least take less time to download, I'd think.
See post #12; still 600mb with the highest compression available. Cryptographic hashes are random and not very compressible. 
Topic: I have dial up. (Read 1833 times)
What about someone hosting a super compressed copy of the chain that gets updated every couple days or something. Would at least take less time to download, I'd think.
I'd like to see more blockchain thirdparty hosting
Just curious, would it be possible to keep the blockchain on a server while keeping your wallet on your computer?
nice story.
Agreed. Wait until the new lite overlay network and lite clients are developed. Dialup should not be a big problem at that point. 
+1 for mailing the blockchain.
I can provide this from a UK address if anyone needs this.
How can we provide an md5sum from a third party if the size is constantly changing?
The other option is pay for a VPS; it can be very cheap.
I'd like to see more blockchain thirdparty hosting
I can provide this from a UK address if anyone needs this.
How can we provide an md5sum from a third party if the size is constantly changing?
The other option is pay for a VPS; it can be very cheap.
I'd like to see more blockchain thirdparty hosting
You don't need to md5sum it. The client will verify it, and if new blocks come in as usual, it was good.
I'd be willing to mail a DVD of the current chain from the USA for actual postage cost. Add like $3 if you want it on M*Disc.
+1 for mailing the blockchain.
I can provide this from a UK address if anyone needs this.
How can we provide an md5sum from a third party if the size is constantly changing?
The other option is pay for a VPS; it can be very cheap.
I'd like to see more blockchain thirdparty hosting
I can provide this from a UK address if anyone needs this.
How can we provide an md5sum from a third party if the size is constantly changing?
The other option is pay for a VPS; it can be very cheap.
I'd like to see more blockchain thirdparty hosting
It's a tragic legend unfortunately true.
I live far away from fellow Linux hackers and the concrete jungles that sport 100 Mbps downlinks. To get to here you must to venture into the mountains and rally down dirt road to where the wireless signals come and go. If you ever feel curious enough to come out this far, don't be alarmed by the smell when you stop. It's just the fresh cow dung smoking off your exhaust.
I've attempted to get started with Bitcoin before. Bit Faucet had graciously donated 0.05 BTC to me many months ago that I've been eagerly waiting for to appear in my client. And no, I haven't been downloading it all this time. In my fleeting interest I rightfully lost determination in downloading the entire block chain over my slow connection.
Now the block chain is an order of magnitude larger.
So determined again I've began redownloading the block chain. It's received roughly 200 MB so far (if you have a 10 Mbps connection, that's like waiting for 35 GB). In a few weeks it should be fully downloaded. Anyway, this is long enough. I just wanted to dispel the legend that dial-up is dead as disco. Or am I the only one that sees horses and code as part of a normal day?
P.S. An idea for you entrepreneurs: a service that mails the block chain on DVDs to would-be users with impatience or slow internet connections. And I do mean mail and not IP over Avian Carriers. It's -20 C right now.
P.P.S. As I finished writing this the transaction has showed up in my client with 400 confirmations. Perfect timing!
I live far away from fellow Linux hackers and the concrete jungles that sport 100 Mbps downlinks. To get to here you must to venture into the mountains and rally down dirt road to where the wireless signals come and go. If you ever feel curious enough to come out this far, don't be alarmed by the smell when you stop. It's just the fresh cow dung smoking off your exhaust.
I've attempted to get started with Bitcoin before. Bit Faucet had graciously donated 0.05 BTC to me many months ago that I've been eagerly waiting for to appear in my client. And no, I haven't been downloading it all this time. In my fleeting interest I rightfully lost determination in downloading the entire block chain over my slow connection.
Now the block chain is an order of magnitude larger.
So determined again I've began redownloading the block chain. It's received roughly 200 MB so far (if you have a 10 Mbps connection, that's like waiting for 35 GB). In a few weeks it should be fully downloaded. Anyway, this is long enough. I just wanted to dispel the legend that dial-up is dead as disco. Or am I the only one that sees horses and code as part of a normal day?
P.S. An idea for you entrepreneurs: a service that mails the block chain on DVDs to would-be users with impatience or slow internet connections. And I do mean mail and not IP over Avian Carriers. It's -20 C right now.
P.P.S. As I finished writing this the transaction has showed up in my client with 400 confirmations. Perfect timing!
There should be a paying service that mails you the blockchain. For example you would pay $10 and you get the entire blockchain on a DVD delivered at home. Even if you have a decent connection, downloading the entire blockchain will get more and more tiresome as the network grows.
nice story.
Thin clients, and the algorithm also allows entries involving addresses which have an available balance of zero to be "pruned" out of the block chain. Assuming the statistics I saw last year on how many empty addresses there are still hold true, finishing implementing that would quarter the size of the current chain.
Pruning is only done on end client's side!
If you downloaded a pruned chain, that would amount to trusting other nodes that the pruned-out transactions were all legit.
There is no place for this kind of trust on the protocol level.
You still download the whole block chain, verify each and every block, and then - trusting only yourself - prune out some of the transactions.
Thin clients, and the algorithm also allows entries involving addresses which have an available balance of zero to be "pruned" out of the block chain. Assuming the statistics I saw last year on how many empty addresses there are still hold true, finishing implementing that would quarter the size of the current chain.
A sobering reminder of the need for thin clients. I hope we will never move away from the standard client containing the entire blockchain... but we do need thin clients for some things.
Hi,
I think the best way of solving this is to rent a VPS (can be quite cheap), SSH to it which uses almost no bandwidth and then remotely run your wallet on that.
Good luck with your 56k BitCoin adventure!
I think the best way of solving this is to rent a VPS (can be quite cheap), SSH to it which uses almost no bandwidth and then remotely run your wallet on that.
Good luck with your 56k BitCoin adventure!
You can only pass off an evil chain as the real thing if you also isolate them from the network. If they connect to a valid node, they will use the longest chain available, which is always the valid chain.
Ok - that makes sense thanks.
edit: not that I understand why some clock adjustment on the evil chain miner machines couldn't make the low-difficulty evil-tail chain longer
A blockchain with 1 block at 1 million difficulty is worth much much more than one with 100 blocks at difficulty 100. The client will recognise the first one as the valid one and ignore the second one.
You can only pass off an evil chain as the real thing if you also isolate them from the network. If they connect to a valid node, they will use the longest chain available, which is always the valid chain.
Ok - that makes sense thanks.
edit: not that I understand why some clock adjustment on the evil chain miner machines couldn't make the low-difficulty evil-tail chain longer
It's not that easy; it is more like "the most difficult chain" that is used. The hashes in the blocks also have a difficulty; Bitcoin can see the blocks were easy even if you time warp while you are generating them.
56k dialup gets about 12MB an hour in downloading compressed files. I have split a downloadable blockchain into 100MB parts with very high compression; that would still take 8 hours of continuous downloading per file x 6 parts.
You can only pass off an evil chain as the real thing if you also isolate them from the network. If they connect to a valid node, they will use the longest chain available, which is always the valid chain.
Ok - that makes sense thanks.
edit: not that I understand why some clock adjustment on the evil chain miner machines couldn't make the low-difficulty evil-tail chain longer
I've heard that - but would love to see the definitive argument for why someone couldn't supply a fake blockchain with a relatively low difficulty and lead your client to think their easily mined blocks are the real thing.
I know there are 'checkpoints' so presumably a nefarious miner would need quite a bit of hash power to reduce the difficulty in his evil-tailed chain in any reasonable length of time.
I don't yet see why this evil chain wouldn't verify just fine with the client.
I guess this is a question for the bitcoin stackexchange.
You can only pass off an evil chain as the real thing if you also isolate them from the network. If they connect to a valid node, they will use the longest chain available, which is always the valid chain.
P.S. An idea for you entrepreneurs: a service that mails the block chain on DVDs to would-be users with impatience or slow internet connections. And I do mean mail and not IP over Avian Carriers. It's -20 C right now.
If you trust some entrepreneur to mail you the block chain - why not just trust some wallet system which uses a remote blockchain?
The electrum client sounds like it should be just the thing for you.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/electrum-unofficial-windows-builds-now-with-windows-xp-version-53858
The client can verify the block chain.
I've heard that - but would love to see the definitive argument for why someone couldn't supply a fake blockchain with a relatively low difficulty and lead your client to think their easily mined blocks are the real thing.
I know there are 'checkpoints' so presumably a nefarious miner would need quite a bit of hash power to reduce the difficulty in his evil-tailed chain in any reasonable length of time.
I don't yet see why this evil chain wouldn't verify just fine with the client.
I guess this is a question for the bitcoin stackexchange.
edit: perhaps the thing is that this evil chain could still never be longer than the real one(?) - so the client would notice that
Sorry for sidetracking!
P.S. An idea for you entrepreneurs: a service that mails the block chain on DVDs to would-be users with impatience or slow internet connections. And I do mean mail and not IP over Avian Carriers. It's -20 C right now.
If you trust some entrepreneur to mail you the block chain - why not just trust some wallet system which uses a remote blockchain?
The electrum client sounds like it should be just the thing for you.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/electrum-unofficial-windows-builds-now-with-windows-xp-version-53858
The client can verify the block chain.
Electrum is not a bad idea though.
Thanks for clarifying that rjk. I admit I was being too vague.
There still are implications though... you're giving up some of the control to a third party.
Never-ever trust a client admitting to storing private keys server-side, not after the MyBitcoin fiasco!
For anyone interested in the matter, here is the RFC document establishing a standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html
The following extension is even better introducing QOS! http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html
There still are implications though... you're giving up some of the control to a third party.
Never-ever trust a client admitting to storing private keys server-side, not after the MyBitcoin fiasco!
For anyone interested in the matter, here is the RFC document establishing a standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html
The following extension is even better introducing QOS! http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html
P.S. An idea for you entrepreneurs: a service that mails the block chain on DVDs to would-be users with impatience or slow internet connections. And I do mean mail and not IP over Avian Carriers. It's -20 C right now.
If you trust some entrepreneur to mail you the block chain - why not just trust some wallet system which uses a remote blockchain?
The electrum client sounds like it should be just the thing for you.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/electrum-unofficial-windows-builds-now-with-windows-xp-version-53858
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