Topic: Should casual users avoid the Satoshi client? (Read 3251 times)

Thanks for the pointer Mike.  I'd not really payed much attention to blockchain.info's wallet.  Seems pretty good.  I like instawallet slightly better for certain things due to password convenience, but everything has it's strengths and weaknesses, and blockchain.info is certainly much more feature rich.

The ability to import wallets is nice, but it's to bad that drag-n-drop is the only method supported.  I'd have to dick around with my preferred windows manager on my primary workstation to support it.  Most drag-n-drop UI's also have a select file option, but not blockchain.info that I can see.  Funny because I would have anticipated a general correlation between those with interest in Bitcoin and those running fringe (and often more secure) operating systems.

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In other news, firing up my ancient client worked OK for receiving some BTC from my instawallet, but did not seem to send very appropriately (judging from blockexplorer.)  Probably associated with transaction fee settings, or who knows.  I'll wait a few days to see if the missing value materializes.

Edit: Update:  I was reading blockexplorer wrong and my send transaction off of the old client did work as expected.

If you want to drive a car you at least need to pass a driving test. You need to understand the dangers.

My parents don't understand that when they accidentally minimize a window that it's not really 'vanished' - it's still there minimized at the bottom of the screen - but they phone me and I have to use logmein just to maximize the window again. Should they start using bitcoins? Are they qualified?
People do need to be qualified to use bitcoin - becasue if they aren't they will quickly discover that they have lost everything.
It's not rocket science, but it isn't trivial either.
They need to understand that the security of their bitcoins is 100% their responsibility.
Do you really believe that someone who cannot use the basic functionality of the Satoshi client should be holding bitcoins?
People who use the Satoshi client will be forced to ask all the right questions ("Do I need to make a wallet backup after every transaction?", "Why aren't the bitcoins I bought showing up in my wallet?" etc etc).
If you can't answer (or find an answer to) these basic questions you really shouldn't be using bitcoin. You don't need to be able to examine and understand the source code or understand cryptography, but you do need to understand the basic principles of how it works.

Sitting there waiting a week for the blockchain to download somehow qualifies you to use Bitcoins?  How ridiculous.

Maybe they should add a sound recorder to the Satoshi client so that you have to play a special tune on a hand whittled flute before it will let you use bitcoin, and could even utilize people's webcams to ensure they are wearing Vulcan fake ears while doing it.

Redeeming a private key is the same as redeeming a Casascius Coin.

Simple method:
1. Create a throwaway wallet at Blockchain.info
2. Import private key(s)
3. Send your funds

Takes less than 5 minutes in most cases.

Blockchain.info wallet is an, arguably, exemplary example of a good, low-learning curve way to interface with Bitcoin.


Yes, such central web sites have their risks.  I'm well aware.  I've been a victim, in the Bitcoin space, on web sites where the common exploits were used for theft.


This is why I hold so much hope for HW key privacy devices like Trezor.


Trezor + Blind, ie client encryption, web wallet service = golden.  If Trezor gets to a point where it can be used for generic message signing then a BIG FU to 2FA and all the other security systems with their horrible Web client-side and MITM exploits.


Bitcoin - trust no one.  Not a web site.  Not your computer (online).

Is sheer number of individuals "adopting" the big main essential metric?

What about sheer number of dollars adopting it, or sheer acres of prime real-estate adopting it, or some "value" type metric?

It is said that receiving a dollar each from a thousand people is better than receiving a thousand dollars from one person.

But is a dollar each from a thousand people better than two thousand dollars from one person? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?

Are the 1% utterly valueless without the 99%? Are the 99% actually really the real value, so the 1% are maybe even just leeches preying upon them so that the whole system would be better off with just the 99%, none of the 1%-ers?

Isn't the exchange rate driven more by how much value is transacted than how many peasants hold a token penny from a faucet?

-MarkM-

I think we'll have to agree to disagree.  The entire fee based banking model is dependent upon the assumption that most people don't know how banks work. 

I disagree most people know how a bank works especially in today's day of age. I think when your dealing with money people want to know how it works, when it is an email they don't care.

99.9 percent of the people out there are not going to want to, or care to know how bitcoin works.  Whether you think that is smart or not doesn't change that fact. If you want bitcoin to be adopted on a large scale, it is the average everyday person that we need to convince in adopting it.  That will not happen if you expect them to understand the minute details of cryptography and peer to peer networks.  The average person doesn't care.  They just want it to work.  The average person has no idea how banking works and they don't care.  The average person won't know how bitcoin works and they won't care.

People like you why Murica's gov shits all over its people.  "How can I be expected to understand the basics of what I'm doing?  That's too much thinking!  Leave that to someone else to figure out!  How dare you expect ME to THINK for MYSELF!  Idiot."

What is different from understanding how banks work? You don't walk into a bank and just leave your money with them, you learn about the interest, about different accounts, Bitcoins should be no different. Bitcoin client should be at least tried by the new users, it is a full node, so it helps the community and teaches them a lot about how bitcoin works. I think sir you have no clue what your talking about.

Dancupid,
That's rediculous.  You sound like a former computer geek who would argue that if someone didn't understand DOS there is no reason anyone should be using a computer.  The goal is to get everyone to embrace bitcoin.  If you expect everyone to spend a couple days to understand the block chain and how bitcoin works you're an idiot.  You don't need to understand the physics of an internal combustion engine to drive a car, nor should you have to.  The same is true of bitcoin.  That is unless you want bitcoin to remain a fringe economy so that you can sit in your lonely corner telling everyone how superior it is if they would only spend a week to learn why.  Idiot. 

Anyone who isn't willing to to spend a couple of days trying to work out what the hell this bitcoin thing is and wonder why it's taking so long to download the blockchain, really shouldn't touch bitcoin with a barge pole.
The great advantage of the Satoshi client is that it forces the user to think (about their money).
The Satoshi client is the rite of passage - after that you know you are in control (however, ultimately, you choose to use bitcoin)

The only casual users of Bitcoin are people using SR, who have no interest in bitcoin and just want their stash.

Thanks for the note.  I actually had not thought much about it, but it makes pretty good sense that things could potentially work this way.   Without knowing the code well, it seems conceivable that the client would have trouble performing some operations unless it felt it was up-to-date enough (blockchain-wise) to validate one thing or another or optimize aggregation or whatever.  All of my hands-on work to date has been under an up-to-date bitcoind.



I've never used the native wallet encryption of Bitcoin, but of course I use my own.  My encrypted wallets are in the public domain, but the passphrases to them are in one of my safe deposit boxes.  That aside...

I presume that by 'coins' you mean the secret key can be extracted.  I don't doubt it, and I expect that it would be reasonably easy (though perhaps tedious) to figure out which key in the wallet had value associated.

What I've not run across are surgery techniques required to make use of the secret key in order to re-claim value in a safe manner.  That is, how practical would it be to graft the key into the wallet files (or whatever) of various alternate clients and so on.  Perhaps they tend to have some sort of 'import' feature these days?  Last time I actually worked with Bitcoin it was unpleasant enough to manipulate wallet files that I never bothered to make use of vanity addresses.

Actually, what would be really cool would be if one of the on-line wallets had a key import feature.  Especially Instawallet which I prefer due to it's privacy and pedigree.  I would trust an on-line wallet with significant value because it would be transient.  And it would be quite useful to not need to install any software on my computer (or the computer I happened to be using) at all.

With an unencrypted wallet, your coins can be extracted with a hex editor.  It is super easy, and no big deal if bitcoind can't read it.

If you encrypt the wallet, then it becomes a bit harder, but not by much (assuming you know the paraphrase)

If your wallet hasn't changed since you saved it, you don't need to wait for the block chain to sync. You can just spend the coins immediately. So your scenario isn't really an issue.

I used to run bitcoind  on my Soekris based router under FreeBSD which simplified packet filtering and such.  For doing cold storage work I used my workstation (also FreeBSD.)  I stopped running both regularly in late 2011 when I stopped doing transactions and just use some coins I put in Instawallet since then.  But I've only found occasion to do half a dozen transactions or so.

Just recently I wanted to pull and test one of my deep storage wallets so I fired up the old build on my workstation and let it sync up (for the better part of a week.)

If I run bitcoind permanently going forward I'll probably use a semi-dedicated headless machine which uses as little power as I can get away with...trying to project as best I can into the near future for sizing purposes.  Else I'll bring up an instance in one of the clouds for that duty, but I'll not put any significant value in a client running in a cloud.

Once I confirm that I can re-claim my deep storage, I'll probably archive my binaries and data, then try to build a newer version of bitcoind which will hopefully perform a little more efficiently.  Then ensure that my old wallets work with it.

Personally I went through all the clients (Bitcoin-qt, Armory, Multibits, etc..) and ended up with Electrum...let someone else worry about the 6GB+ blockchain.

In the Free Bitcoin Guide I recommend Blockchain.info for casual use and for offline I show people step-by-steo how to download the source for bitaddress.org and brainwallet.org. Then they can create paper wallets and transactions completely offline.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to improve those suggestions for the new users? I want to increase the conversion rate of people interested in bitcoin to those who actually buy some bitcoins and then use them for an actual trade transaction.