Topic: Report on the Bitcoin Foundation's Trip to Washington D.C. (Read 13034 times)

The conversation would likely have been different were it recorded.  Folks have egos to protect.
The govt folks would not have wanted to appear as ignorant as they are, and TBF may have not been able to be as candid as they were in explaining the benefits to government for not regulating (some here do not want to offer any information to them even in self defense).
It is what it is.  If it were otherwise, it could have been better or it could have been worse.
Hopefully there will be a future meet that does invite C-SPAN.  The discussion has room for that as well, and C-SPAN will get lots of views on it.

I don't think anyone is seriously afraid of clandestine code in an open source project, or at least I'm not.  What I'm talking about are forks; FOSS is forked all the time for a variety of reasons, and community <> developer disconnects or big business getting too involved (controlling) are a big motivator.  What I'm saying is if the majority or all of the code commits to master are influenced by a foundation without adequate community input or transparent operations, the decreased trust is more likely to cause a situation where we could see two versions of the blockchain with a hard fork between BF supporters and non-BF supporters, in this example.  The code can be immaculate, pristine, and still see a fork caused by politics, bickering, or fighting amongst user groups.  Any sufficiently large group that feels under-represented by what could be seen as controlling interests can lead to this behavior.

The 80%/20% wealth distribution is another example; if you have a continued accumulation and concentration of wealth, and use that wealth to unduly influence the markets, code, whatever - if the richest quintile loses a majority of the lower 4 quintiles to a chain fork, the same problem occurs, fragmenting something you probably don't want to fragment if you are in that upper quintile.  All I'm saying is that billing an Industry or trade organization as the 'main body' could be problematic for a variety of reasons that should be considered.  I'm also not saying the the foundation has to become a industry lobby group, just that it seems the most likely course given their actions to date.

"Poking at the beast" may not really be an apt analogy as far as big beats small, because MythBusters showed that elephants give a wide berth to mice if they see them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXiMs65ZAeU

Would be interesting to figure out what analogy IS apt, though.

On open source code security...


Back door in open source SSL?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/02/1241246/nsa-backdoors-in-open-source-and-open-standards-what-are-the-odds

Back door in openBSD?
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=129236621626462&w=2

Back door in open source messaging?
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/malicious-backdoor-in-open-source-messaging-apps-not-spotted-for-4-months/

Yet another Open source planted backdoor
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/open-source-proftpd-hacked-backdoor-planted-in-source-code/7787

Even a contest for who can do it best:
https://backdoorhiding.appspot.com/

I'd agree that it is not likely.  It could happen though, so stay vigilant.

Did the Foundation convey to the agencies of Bitcoin's existential threat to fiat currencies?
Do they understand what the implications to governments would be if a significant portion of all commerce was done using bitcoins as opposed to the USD?

The lack of transparency is pretty embarrassing.  Every single individual in that room probably contained the means to record the entire thing in his/her pocket.  
I would have stood up and held up my phone and asked the regulators "what do you guys prefer?  That this be recorded and published on the internet or that we keep it casual?"  

And when they chose casual, I would have said "Why?  We aren't going to be breaking any laws here.  But I think i know why.  You just don't want to be seen by the world asking stupid questions.  And you don't want to seem for or against this technology before making an informed determination."

And then I would say, "That's called reasonable privacy and THAT's why we use bitcoin."

I don't think anyone is seriously afraid of clandestine code in an open source project, or at least I'm not.  What I'm talking about are forks; FOSS is forked all the time for a variety of reasons, and community <> developer disconnects or big business getting too involved (controlling) are a big motivator.  What I'm saying is if the majority or all of the code commits to master are influenced by a foundation without adequate community input or transparent operations, the decreased trust is more likely to cause a situation where we could see two versions of the blockchain with a hard fork between BF supporters and non-BF supporters, in this example.  The code can be immaculate, pristine, and still see a fork caused by politics, bickering, or fighting amongst user groups.  Any sufficiently large group that feels under-represented by what could be seen as controlling interests can lead to this behavior.

The 80%/20% wealth distribution is another example; if you have a continued accumulation and concentration of wealth, and use that wealth to unduly influence the markets, code, whatever - if the richest quintile loses a majority of the lower 4 quintiles to a chain fork, the same problem occurs, fragmenting something you probably don't want to fragment if you are in that upper quintile.  All I'm saying is that billing an Industry or trade organization as the 'main body' could be problematic for a variety of reasons that should be considered.  I'm also not saying the the foundation has to become a industry lobby group, just that it seems the most likely course given their actions to date.

Then came the community disruption of the announcement of a new Bitcoin Foundation. Needless to say the apparent move toward centralization of power in a community believing supremely in decentralization caused a huge uproar. I was among those strongly raising objections with concerns over unchecked power. This issue challenged the entire project with talk of hard forks and more.

It was during this period that it dawned on me alt-coins could serve a real purpose and have a value Bitcoin never could: by providing alternative. If there was only to be Bitcoin forever, then any single group with growing influence and power could steer it for better or worse for all involved. I saw alt-coins as solving that problem. As a natural part of the free market Bitcoin relied on they could regulate unwanted behavior as free markets do, by providing options and competition. I outlined all this in a post here:

Solution to The Bitcoin Foundation (the announcement)

I don't think anyone is seriously afraid of clandestine code in an open source project, or at least I'm not.  What I'm talking about are forks; FOSS is forked all the time for a variety of reasons, and community <> developer disconnects or big business getting too involved (controlling) are a big motivator.  What I'm saying is if the majority or all of the code commits to master are influenced by a foundation without adequate community input or transparent operations, the decreased trust is more likely to cause a situation where we could see two versions of the blockchain with a hard fork between BF supporters and non-BF supporters, in this example.  The code can be immaculate, pristine, and still see a fork caused by politics, bickering, or fighting amongst user groups.  Any sufficiently large group that feels under-represented by what could be seen as controlling interests can lead to this behavior.

The 80%/20% wealth distribution is another example; if you have a continued accumulation and concentration of wealth, and use that wealth to unduly influence the markets, code, whatever - if the richest quintile loses a majority of the lower 4 quintiles to a chain fork, the same problem occurs, fragmenting something you probably don't want to fragment if you are in that upper quintile.  All I'm saying is that billing an Industry or trade organization as the 'main body' could be problematic for a variety of reasons that should be considered.  I'm also not saying the the foundation has to become a industry lobby group, just that it seems the most likely course given their actions to date.

If a great coder sees a flaw in this argument please fill me in. I would love to know if anyone believes clandestine code could be implemented successfully.

We figured out the benefits of taking minutes (and using Robert's Rules of Order) for meetings in grade school for club meetings, but that's not really the biggest issue, depending on how they move forward.

The foundation needs to decide if they want to be an Industry advocacy group for the rich kids, or a community based group and/or developer network.  Putting development in the hands of big Industry puts both Bitcoin and the foundation at risk in my opinion.  Bitcoin would be at risk by alienating the interests and trust of the broader user base, and also by putting important code commits at the mercy of a single organization under the influence of a single nation.  My opinion is the current structure and membership of the foundation is perfect as a Industry advocacy group, and as such minimal transparency is really necessary - but they need to reject any influence they might have over the code or the appearance of such.  Riding the fence does not seem to be a wise move here, and puts them at risk, and puts the base code at risk if they hold significant influence over it.

Developers informing Industry about implementation etc., is a good thing, and likewise Industry informing developers about their concerns is also a good thing.  Industry wielding direct influence over code changes puts the entire ecosystem at great risk of Industry insider corruption and government interference.  If the code used by the majority of full nodes is under the direct influence of what amounts to just an Industry insider group, bad things^tm can happen.  If they can't let go of code influence, and want to run it as an exclusive industry group with secret meetings and such, it could get ugly.

This is a BIG problem, something I've been watching for awhile now to see which way the foundation turns.  So far, it looks like an industry insider group intent on preserving their own interests, while work with the larger community has been limited.  If their meetings and actions are kept under a veil of secrecy, I would expect we'll be trading one corrupt banking system for another.  This should inform any community member decisions to back the BF, or not.  The U.S. government already has a monumental trust issue; I don't see any compelling reason that cancer should spread to the foundation as well.  Very troubling, these past few days of relative silence have been...

what model of gun?

They should just trade bitcoin directly for a pistol then! After all, that would stimulate the Bitcoin economy!

I'll help! https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guns-for-your-butterfly-labs-asic-or-for-bitcoin-283473

What are they doing with that fake pistol?

"Poking at the beast" may not really be an apt analogy as far as big beats small, because MythBusters showed that elephants give a wide berth to mice if they see them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXiMs65ZAeU

Would be interesting to figure out what analogy IS apt, though.