Bitcoins

Whats stopping people from making more bitcoins then 21 million?
 
But cant a hacker just make more?
 
Arlo1 said:
But cant a hacker just make more?

I will give you a simplified version of why a hacker can't make more.

When you mine, you find the solution to an extremely complex math probem that was on the list of assigned math problems. When your days/weeks of computer calculation time finds a solution, you got a bitcoin. Everyday, through a massive peer-to-peer network share, your progress on finding the solution to that math problem is updated to the world by indicating just a couple simple progress indicator blocks that can be verified that they are indeed part of that math problems solution. This prevents anyone else from being able to take your math problem. It also keeps a running total of the amount of math problem solutions that everyone has out there, and when you go to pay another person with your math problem solutions, it shows them as transferred to that other user you gave them to. This makes it impossible to pay somebody with the same solution twice, unless you could overpower the entire peer-to-peer network (because each day you would have to come up with those correct indicator blocks showing the progress of the entire world of datacenters and graphics cards and millions of users making bitcoins to overpower the string), which no computing resources on earth could do.

So, basically, if somebody can steal your answers to the math problems, then yes, they could spend them, and you would have nothing you could do about it. As far as people being able to create bitcoins from nothing, no, it would not be possible, and to make it possible, you would literally be spending billions of dollars on dedicated bitcoin mining machines, and you still wouldn't be able to overpower the peer-to-peer network in a way that couldn't simply be corrected after it was noticed.

Can they be stolen? Yes, and so can cash/gold/silver etc. Can they be created counterfit? No, much like gold, this is a advantage over cash, which our government prints unbacked currency in massive quantity.

Nothing is perfect, but I think this has some real merit and advantages over US paper money. Getting things to stabilize of course is going to take time and refinement, and most of all, avoiding letting hype drive up the prices artificially. (which the brokers want)
 
So.... Then it is trackable and when the man finds you have x number of bit coins you will pay! I like gold the best because it can be held and only way someone will get it from me is to kill me! Were as some hacker can take all my bit coins.!
 
Arlo1 said:
So.... Then it is trackable and when the man finds you have x number of bit coins you will pay! I like gold the best because it can be held and only way someone will get it from me is to kill me! Were as some hacker can take all my bit coins.!

The flip side of that, is that if someone does want it, they will probably kill you for it. So the likelihood is lower, but the consequences are higher.

It's just like many high security companies are concerned about using biometrics for door access/computer access - because they foresee a future, where someone will not be mugged for their door pass, which can be stolen, but that employees will be kidnapped, and their thumb cut off...
 
Survival of the fittest!
 
Arlo1 said:
So.... Then it is trackable and when the man finds you have x number of bit coins you will pay! I like gold the best because it can be held and only way someone will get it from me is to kill me! Were as some hacker can take all my bit coins.!


Nope, you've got a series of encrypted solutions to a math problem. Nothing to ID what part in the world they came from, nothing to tie you to the ownership other than currently having possession of those solutions, which may have been made from 10's of thousands of folks home computers around the world (not that it would be possible to know where they came from in the first place).

I'm sure it would be possible to have something more anonymous, but I can't think of what it would be.

If you buy gold from somebody, then you have a MUCH bigger and easier to follow trail back to you than if you buy bitcoins.

If you wanted to add an unneeded additional layer of security, buy any android device from another country, never put a simcard in it, use random open wifi points with an IP randomizer program for each connection, load any of the free bitcoin android apps, and only use that device for managing your bitcoin transactions, never using it for anything that could tie to you.

So, arrange to make payments etc with your normal phone/computer etc, but only actually do transactions from your little dedicated burner-phone, and you're about as secure as anything is ever going to get in life.

And the beautiful thing is, you can pay somebody on the other side of the world in 30seconds with bitcoin, and never have any record of that payment tied to you, but have confirmation that the payment did successfully get completed.

If you try mailing some gold to somebody on the other side of the world... I think you would find a less than stellar rate of getting them to say it arrived... and that's after you mailed it and waited days, and then the package you mailed has some ties to you still.
 
liveforphysics said:
Arlo1 said:
So.... Then it is trackable and when the man finds you have x number of bit coins you will pay! I like gold the best because it can be held and only way someone will get it from me is to kill me! Were as some hacker can take all my bit coins.!


Nope, you've got a series of encrypted solutions to a math problem. Nothing to ID what part in the world they came from, nothing to tie you to the ownership other than currently having possession of those solutions, which may have been made from 10's of thousands of folks home computers around the world (not that it would be possible to know where they came from in the first place).

I'm sure it would be possible to have something more anonymous, but I can't think of what it would be.

If you buy gold from somebody, then you have a MUCH bigger and easier to follow trail back to you than if you buy bitcoins.

If you wanted to add an unneeded additional layer of security, buy any android device from another country, never put a simcard in it, use random open wifi points with an IP randomizer program for each connection, load any of the free bitcoin android apps, and only use that device for managing your bitcoin transactions, never using it for anything that could tie to you.

So, arrange to make payments etc with your normal phone/computer etc, but only actually do transactions from your little dedicated burner-phone, and you're about as secure as anything is ever going to get in life.

And the beautiful thing is, you can pay somebody on the other side of the world in 30seconds with bitcoin, and never have any record of that payment tied to you, but have confirmation that the payment did successfully get completed.

If you try mailing some gold to somebody on the other side of the world... I think you would find a less than stellar rate of getting them to say it arrived... and that's after you mailed it and waited days, and then the package you mailed has some ties to you still.

That's news to the creator of Bitcoin. You have to publish all of the transactions.

Even the identities of the thieves who stole money can be traced by UCD researchers in Ireland looking into the anonymity of the currency. There are fewer and fewer places to hide. In theory it is anonymous in practice though it is more difficult.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-inherently-anon.html
 
Looks like they didn't catch anyone still though... Just saw a trend.

Can you think of a more anonymous way to transfer funds?
 
liveforphysics said:
Looks like they didn't catch anyone still though... Just saw a trend.

Can you think of a more anonymous way to transfer funds?

Nothing that doesn't involve the plot from an Ian Flemming novel, no. :mrgreen:

But I think it is getting harder and harder to be anonymous no matter how clever someone is.

Put it this way, it wouldn't be something that is guaranteed. You have to create a trail in order to make a transaction. Trails can be followed no matter how obscured they are.
 
As for the theft lets put it this way whats more riskey from a theifs stand point? If a theif can sit on the computer and push a few key strokes he is not worried about the guy on the other end of the world trying to find him. And whats the chance you will spend all the money to travel to go find the starbucks he was using a internet conection from to steal from you. But if you come into my house or shop or where ever and try to take my money out of my hands you better be preparied to DIE!
 
Arlo1 said:
As for the theft lets put it this way whats more riskey from a theifs stand point? If a theif can sit on the computer and push a few key strokes he is not worried about the guy on the other end of the world trying to find him. And whats the chance you will spend all the money to travel to go find the starbucks he was using a internet conection from to steal from you. But if you come into my house or shop or where ever and try to take my money out of my hands you better be preparied to DIE!


If you're not a fool, boasting about your massive bitcoin stash, or running various malware programs that might sniff for packets that look like bitcoin data (which may or may not be possible to detect encrypted), no hacker would even know what computer to try hacking.

Likewise, bro, anyone can wait outside your house for you to leave, or if they were super vicious (and stupid), there is not a thing you can do about it if somebody wants to camp out with a hunting rifle outside your house. Enter it with a powerful metal detector setup for gold/silver, and find whatever you've got. The trick is not in having a 0.50" bore gun, the trick is in not having anyone know you have anything worth taking that you're stashing in your home. Bitcoins are about as descrete and effortless to thoroughly hide and not need to guard or protect as anything I can imagine using to hold value.
 
liveforphysics said:
Arlo1 said:
As for the theft lets put it this way whats more riskey from a theifs stand point? If a theif can sit on the computer and push a few key strokes he is not worried about the guy on the other end of the world trying to find him. And whats the chance you will spend all the money to travel to go find the starbucks he was using a internet conection from to steal from you. But if you come into my house or shop or where ever and try to take my money out of my hands you better be preparied to DIE!


If you're not a fool, boasting about your massive bitcoin stash, or running various malware programs that might sniff for packets that look like bitcoin data (which may or may not be possible to detect encrypted), no hacker would even know what computer to try hacking.

Likewise, bro, anyone can wait outside your house for you to leave, or if they were super vicious (and stupid), there is not a thing you can do about it if somebody wants to camp out with a hunting rifle outside your house. Enter it with a powerful metal detector setup for gold/silver, and find whatever you've got. The trick is not in having a 0.50" bore gun, the trick is in not having anyone know you have anything worth taking that you're stashing in your home. Bitcoins are about as descrete and effortless to thoroughly hide and not need to guard or protect as anything I can imagine using to hold value.
I see Hmmm. Now here is another question. What happens when your computer crashes?
 
You only need the tiny key to access your coins my friend. :) But this is like a key with a quarter of a million little notches in it rather than 6 like a house key. lol

It's a little file only a quarter of a Mb, wallet.dat, you can encrypt it with a password in a zip file and email it yourself if you like, or on USB sticks or your phone or anywhere. Use 256bit encryption, and the file is small enough that it wouldn't matter if anyone found your USB sticks or stole your phone or anything, they wouldn't even be able to know WTF the file was on there.


http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/igt3m/what_happens_to_your_bitcoins_when_your_computer/
 
Interesting article, mentions KnightMB by name and location.

It does not appear to require a subcription to read.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/
 
amberwolf said:
Interesting article, mentions KnightMB by name and location. It does not appear to require a subcription to read.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/
Good article. Thanks for posting the link. :D
 
yes that was a good read. But.... Im still confused. It seems they mention some different online companies storing peoples bit coins. Can you not just store them in your own computer without anyone else being involved? And if people can hide them on their own computer so well or on a flash drive. Then what happens when the person dies or the computer crashes? Seems the coin will be lost for ever. They would not be able to re-mine it if someone was to re-mine a coin then all the sudden the original owner re-apeared and used the original coin it would cause duplicates. On top of that some coins are being lost but you cant re-mine them because well..... :?
 
i think i'm finally getting my head around this... ( yeah.. i'm a little slow sometimes.. )

if i got this whole thing right..

You convert existing currenty into bitcoins via whatever current value is, you can then trade those bitcoins like currenty for items or services with other people using the bitcoin network....

Mining is the " interest " produced by the systems awarded the " 50 bit coins " or their portion of the 50 bit segment so in essence someone could have gained an amount of bitcoins by never even converting currenty into bitcoins in the first place.

so.. you have this big processing capacity gaining bitcoins into your personal wallet, those bitcoins gain share value ( this part is still unclear to me .. ) so to cash out you still need to buy something physical or a servcie from someone who will accept those bitcoins.. no easy task to cash in 10 mil imo... but i dont think to far out of the box sometimes...

anyone ?
 
Thanks for posting that, Amberwolf. Very interesting.

It was just several steps too far too soon. It seems our current monetary system is the best one by default.
 
I don't see where you can re-mine a bitcoin? New bitcoins are only created as a reward for solving a complicated puzzle. There is no duplicate use possible. That is the security feature. If you don't keep a copy and your storage medium fails, you loose the bitcoin.
And mcshit got a commission of $10M.
Ypedal,
You can cash-out a limited amount each day at selected banks. But I will bet the transaction will be recorded in some form.
 
The following chart from this thread http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/3/ at least to me shows the technicals of a "pump and dump" trade action. I think this chart shows the demise of bitcoin.

That said, reading about it's shadowy inception and initial development, leads me to think it was a "seed" to see how such a system would operate and what it's vulnerabilities are. Sort of like a dry run or test run for the real thing later on. Only think instead of anonymity think that the final sponsor will know exactly who is buying and selling...
bitcoin.jpg
 
Hype made for radical over-valuing. No money works for long if over valued.
 
fizzit said:
I wonder if our buddy knightmb still has his holdings in bitcoins...
I hope someone was kind enough to send a note to the IRS? Having to prove you did not sell your 317,000 bitcoins at $29 would be good exercise for mcshite. :lol:
 
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