All hail the great gavin and satoshi..... All hail the great gavin and satoshi....
I joke but in all seriousness thanks to every one who has, is and will continue to contribute to the bitcoin project wheather its the bitcoin client code its self or some kind of help service or goods you provide or even those bring up the topic of a digital currency with their friends or college class mates -- thanks err'body
Topic: Wallet encryption bug found (IMPORTANT!) (Read 30594 times)
Has this bug been fixed in 0.5.1 which I downloaded today after 6 months not using bitcoin and which I used today for encrypting my old wallet (5 minutes *before* I read about this bug)?
I think so, but until someone can confirm for certain, you're safe so long as you protect your wallet.dat - ie, don't upload it to the public.
Has this bug been fixed in 0.5.1 which I downloaded today after 6 months not using bitcoin and which I used today for encrypting my old wallet (5 minutes *before* I read about this bug)?
Gavin, thanks for all your hard work. I am sure you know this, but there are many people, hidden away in the background, that are impressed with your efforts. You have a sound strategic vision and have done important work in this crucial early stage. As an experienced professional, you already know that these bugs do happen in complex software. For us less-experienced people, please keep letting us know how to test the code or otherwise contribute.
Thanks again.
YES!. Thanks Gavin! Thanks again.
Test please: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.4.1/test/
Obviously, be sure you have a wallet backup or two.
Obviously, be sure you have a wallet backup or two.
Gavin, thanks for all your hard work. I am sure you know this, but there are many people, hidden away in the background, that are impressed with your efforts. You have a sound strategic vision and have done important work in this crucial early stage. As an experienced professional, you already know that these bugs do happen in complex software. For us less-experienced people, please keep letting us know how to test the code or otherwise contribute.
Thanks again.
Thanks again.
+1 Many thanks to Gavin and all the other devs that contribute
For references, this issue has been assigned CVE-2011-4447
How about a more generalized donation percentage kind of thing? Give people a choice of a few bundled donation targets and prompt them to choose on the first run. Also extensible so it's possible to click a link on a website and have a new one added to the list.
Gavin, thanks for all your hard work. I am sure you know this, but there are many people, hidden away in the background, that are impressed with your efforts. You have a sound strategic vision and have done important work in this crucial early stage. As an experienced professional, you already know that these bugs do happen in complex software. For us less-experienced people, please keep letting us know how to test the code or otherwise contribute.
Thanks again.
Thanks again.
Its just the name you object to I think. There already is such a "tax"in the form of transaction fees. Now they benefit miners, I dont see why we could not redirect part of it to a bitcoin foundation.
The difference between "bitcoin foundation" and "miners" is (lack of) decentralization, one of bitcoins main selling points.
Its just the name you object to I think. There already is such a "tax"in the form of transaction fees. Now they benefit miners, I dont see why we could not redirect part of it to a bitcoin foundation.
The difference between "bitcoin foundation" and "miners" is (lack of) decentralization, one of bitcoins main selling points.
I'm not against "bitcoin foundation" at all. But they shouldn't get to put "developer fee" code into the client (to avoid the evil "tax" word here). I probably wouldn't mind myself, but explain that to someone you just explained the coolness of decentralization and "basically free" transactions. It's hard enough to explain the tx fees, but it usually works out with a nice AHA-effect in the end when you explain mining incentive after block reward drops to close to nothing.
Its just the name you object to I think. There already is such a "tax"in the form of transaction fees. Now they benefit miners, I dont see why we could not redirect part of it to a bitcoin foundation.
Don't know who would come up with the money for it,
We all should. Why not include a donation option in the client? Make it optional, but set it by default so that 0.01% or whatever of each transaction is donated to a fund used to pay Gavin, other developpers and for bug bounties. There was talk of a bitcoin foundation a while ago, not sure how thats going, but they could manage those funds.
I agree.
In fact, even making such a donation mandatory wouldnt be such a bad thing, like a tobin tax, or like the transaction fees we already pay to miners. Although of course some people will just fork and use a client without the "tobin tax", if you set a hardcoded lower limit low enough, most people wouldnt mind I think.
I don't agree. It'd be very bad from a marketing point of view to make such a mandatory "tax". I'm experiencing a lot of troubles marketing bitcoin to friends (key import/export is a big one, by the way, because I use casascius coins to get people started, they inevitably want to see proof that it's working (and it's a big "AHA", when it finally does). Fiddling with pywallet ("what? that's not even in ubuntu repository") and having the client "stuck on blockchain rescan" with no gui showing for minutes ("that pywallet screwed up bitcoin, now it doesn't start any more, glad I have a backup") doesn't help the cause. But that's a different matter).
Having a tobin tax would only add to the troubles I'm having "selling" bitcoin to people.
Sure, from random posts on this forum I infer that there is something called testnet, but I have no idea if and how I could help running a client on it.
You forgot to check the Wiki.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet
That indeed explains what testnet is. That's not the only thing that was asked for, I think.
I think niko was looking for a place where "normal users" would be able to obtain information on how they could help with testing. Such a place would include
- explanation about what "testnet" is
- information about the planned release milestones and testing timelines
- downloads of test releases
- information on how to submit bug reports and other test results.
- info about how to test
- info about what needs testing and maybe current status
I'm sure the information is out there, it's just not easy to get to it if you're not quite heavily involved on developer mailing-lists, github, #bitcoin-dev, etc...
In other words: the bitcoin developer circle is quite a hard place to get into for joe schmoe, am I right? So maybe it would be cool to somehow make it easier for the "normal user" to help.
Don't know who would come up with the money for it,
We all should. Why not include a donation option in the client? Make it optional, but set it by default so that 0.01% or whatever of each transaction is donated to a fund used to pay Gavin, other developpers and for bug bounties. There was talk of a bitcoin foundation a while ago, not sure how thats going, but they could manage those funds.
In fact, even making such a donation mandatory wouldnt be such a bad thing, like a tobin tax, or like the transaction fees we already pay to miners. Although of course some people will just fork and use a client without the "tobin tax", if you set a hardcoded lower limit low enough, most people wouldnt mind I think.
So, if i understand it correctly:
1: the fix is still being worked upon ?
2: Gavin has troubles with funding the work on the client ?
Greetz.
1: the fix is still being worked upon ?
2: Gavin has troubles with funding the work on the client ?
Greetz.
Sure, from random posts on this forum I infer that there is something called testnet, but I have no idea if and how I could help running a client on it.
You forgot to check the Wiki.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet
I sure did forget, thanks!
Sure, from random posts on this forum I infer that there is something called testnet, but I have no idea if and how I could help running a client on it.
You forgot to check the Wiki.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet
Is there anything an average Windows user without much programming experience could do to help with testing? Do all you experts and "experts" realize how obscure things are? I looked at the development subforum, hoping to see a stickie. Nothing. I looked at bitcoin.org. Nothing. I looked at sourceforge. No leads. Sure, from random posts on this forum I infer that there is something called testnet, but I have no idea if and how I could help running a client on it.
How can I help at this stage of bitcoin development?
How can I help at this stage of bitcoin development?
It is embarrassing and astonishing that this critical a bug was not caught before the 0.4 release; constructive suggestions on how to improve the testing and release processes that do not assume access to hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds to hire security consultants or QA teams are welcome. Getting sufficient testing of code BEFORE it is released has been a chronic problem for this project.
Don't know who would come up with the money for it, but it wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of dollars: Maybe offer BTC-bounties for bugs found in "official test releases". They probably wouldn't have to be high to motivate people in the bitcoin community to do better testing than is done now.
About coming up with the money: I've had quite some success (although not yet what I hoped for) with collecting donations for a common cause (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/100-maxkeiserbitcoinfilm-dividends-where-payed-issue-worthless-51133). Maybe enough people would be willing to donate to "bitcoin testing", especially after things like the encryption bug or maybe even more serious stuff happen.
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