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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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@Philip. I think you misunderstood what I meant. I am aware that *currently* any currency-printing gov is of course not going to accept payment in anything but the coin that they control..
I was more contemplating under what circumstances that might change *in the future*. Currencies have been replaced and superceded several times in history, although I am having some strange difficulty in finding much in the history documents I have looked at so far regarding the process by which such has taken place.
I was wondering if a government would ever admit that there are other systems in use other than its own and gracefully accept the existence of competitive alternatives, or whether their percived "*we* are the one true authority and there can be no other" attitude would cause them to go down with a sinking ship before admitting that there might be a better system than theirs..
@sean: Very few currencies exist in "isolation", unless a nation is fully self sufficient with no imports or exports. With Bitcoins, I see one possible outcome of a "nation" being comprised of people with a certain skillset that has nothing to do with geographical borders whose preferred medium of exchange differs from that of the mainstream.. or as an author once put it.. "The guy with the most cigarettes" (is the "richest" in some circumstances where conventional money isnt relevant)
Bitcoin is not reliant on "exchange services" as much as you might think.. there are already websites that allow you to enter your postcode and it will tell you who in the area wants to do cash trades for BTC. Of course that makes it sound/feel decidedly dodgy, and isolates the conventional traders who want to shift their fiat $ in and out of the system at the push of a button, but it *can* exist that way. Some of the more paranoid proponents have even estiamted how well the network could survive based purely on sneakernet tech assuming some authorities did decide to close down the whole internet in an attempt to stop it.
Im not actually sure how "Tax Evaders" could use Bitcoin in any majorly beneficial fashion at the moment.
Yes, it is possible for Alice to "Pay" Bob in BTC and Bob to then Pay Charles without any "real" cash changing hands, but so what ? I just transferred a bunch of digital information to you (and others) by typing this message.. , but did not incur any financial profit by doing so, If I had instead given you a hot stock market tip that enabled you to make millions, have I engaged in a financial transaction ? I doubt it.
The fact that some digital bit patterns are worth more than others only becomes of relevance when someone decides to swap those bit patterns for fiat-$, which is why Tax on commodity stocks and so on only becomes due when you "cash-out" back into fiat-$, and that seems to be the status of bitcoins at the moment. It would be the same if we were trading footy cards, or stamps or gemstones. Once they are turned back into $-cash, *then* the ATO gets its cut.
You know, regardless of whethr BTC becomes the digital currency of the future or not (and I think its looking pretty good at the moment), I am grateful to it for finally causing me to take more notice of just what "money" actually is, and learn some of its (ugly) history. Trust me, if you spend some time studying its past, you would likely be pleased to see *any* possible better alternative making an attempt to change things for the better too.
Money (as presently implemented) is the subtlest way of robbing people of the value of their work, bit by bit over time, and without them realising just how badly they're being shafted that I have ever seen. Read up on its history and value deterioration over time and I think you will quite likely agree with me.
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Tue Mar 05, 2013 11:34 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Mildly entertaining, and an indication of the fact that most of the speculators in the currency know next to nothing about how it works..
The blockchain is the shared, P2P, publicly viewable transaction record that makes fraudlent transactions damn near impossible. (as close as anything *can* be of course).
The fact that this register is publicly viewable and that the developers had to publicly *ask* the majority of miners to agree to switch to an earlier version of the block chain to correct the error (ie, that nobody had the power to make a decision to just go ahead an do it) should *increase* anyone who understands what this means confidence in the network. Without mass agreement of a majority of everybody running the bitcoin protocol, no changes to the ledger are possible.
But, the transparency and openness of open-source software show their benefits again. Can you imagine Paypal or Visa admitting anything like this without running it through teams of spin merchants and PR flacks ?
Its a good question why they didnt catch it, since (like most open source software) there is a "test" bitcoin network where devs can trial new things without messing up the "live" blockchain. but nothing is ever bug-free I suppose.
Interesting that nobody thought the bug that knocked the entire NAB network completely offline for >24 hours a week or so ago was worth worrying about too much, but I suppose bitcoin is still in its infancy. it will take quite a few more years yet before confidence in it reaches a high enough level for glitches to not scare the ignorant.
Showing $45 on my monitor here.  Didnt scare them for long. Odds on $50 within a week I reckon.
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:25 pm |
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seanet1310
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 1265
Location: Adelaide
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quote:
Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
@sean: Very few currencies exist in "isolation",
True, as a market whole it does not. But for the foreseeable future bitcoins can not work for the individual in isolation. I can be paid in Australian dollars, pay my rent, pay utilities, go buy food and drink, get petrol, book a flight to Queensland and do anything else I need to live happily with as far as I need an isolated currency.
quote:
Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
Bitcoin is not reliant on "exchange services" as much as you might think.
All your examples are exchange services. just not all online. The system relies on exchange to an extent far exceeding typical fiat currency. It is very similar to shares, you can (well more could, I believe regulations are more annoying these days) be paid in shares, can trade them for goods and services but that does not make them currency, in the end they require an exchange market just like bitcoins.
quote:
Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
Im not actually sure how "Tax Evaders" could use Bitcoin in any majorly beneficial fashion at the moment.
Most are probably accidental tax evaders too stupid to realise what they are doing.
As far as I see it, bitcoins are non cash assets like shares. This brings in certain tax legislation.
The ATO gets their noise in trading of shares, they should also get it from trading of bitcoins. I can not give you my share portfolio without tax being involved.
quote:
Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
Interesting that nobody thought the bug that knocked the entire NAB network completely offline for >24 hours a week or so ago was worth worrying about too much, but I suppose bitcoin is still in its infancy. .
Because NAB is backed by a legal structure so no matter what happens to their network your money is safe. It is highly likely that the federal government would step in if NAB suddenly completely collapsed. No such backing on this system.
This worked now, I worry if such an issue happened and Bitcoins are as large as you want Brett how it would go. It required cooperation and as open source has shown in the past, at times people fight and split. It would also require convincing a lot more places to roll back.
Anyway, I fear we will not get anywhere with this Brett,
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Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs
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Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:26 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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OK, well if you dont want me to respond, I wont, but if you wish to hold a rational polite disagreement, Im happy to do that too..
I understand your point of view. A lot of people seem to be well worried by the idea of any form of non-government controlled trading system.. They want the reassurance of a "big authority" protecting their transactions..
Fine, but remember a famous quote from either one of the Rothschilds or JP Morgan (I forget).. "Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws.".. If you think Gov will protect you just because it owns the printing presses, you are kidding yourself.
I spent a *lot* of time perusing various forums and researching the history of many differenct currencies from Zimbabwean Billion Dollar notes (thanks to HyperInflation), German Marks being burnt for firewood, Austrian vs Keynsian Economists going at it hammer and tongs over their pet economic theories.
Pro and Con government people claiming they *need* "MacroEconomic Tools" to be able to manipulate the M1,M2 and M3 money supply to "protect the economy".. (in which case, why do they do such a bloody awful job of it if they have that ability ?, Why all the recessions and depressions ?) Lasse Faire Free Market Capitalists, Return to the Gold-Standard-ists, Statists, "Smash the State!"-ists, Gold Bugs, and every type of wacko you can think of in between.
After pondering a lot of wildly opposed viewpoints, I concluded that *nobody* really seemed to know what they were talking about, nearly every theory had its vocal authoritive sounding opponents, most had been discredited in one way or another at some time.
I also noted, that practically *no* currency had ever survived more than a few generations, the smart/rich people that survived across generations pick them up and abandon them at the drop of a hat and have their assets stored in much more solid form (gold, real estate, whatever).
So, While Im certainly no qualified economist (and who can claim to be when none of them seem to be able to keep a functioning economy going for long), I can claim I have spent about 500x as much time studying how money works than 99% of people in the world. And, with those observations, I decided that Bitcoin, whether provesbly *theoretically* good or not, is something *new* and at least if it doesnt work, they will be *new* mistakes...
It uses the shared authority of open source, the instant communications of the internet, the anti-forging protection of state of the art open cryptology, the guarantee of an unbreakable predictable algorithmic based supply of money (enforced rarity), decentralised communications, no single point of attack, shared trust principles, infinite divisibiity, fungibility, extreme portability, and heap of other desireable attributes that no type of money has ever combined before in the history of the world.
Based on the track record of *all* other forms of fiat money in the past, I think *anything* that is new in so many ways is worth a try.
Just like my opinions on open source government, It can hardly do worse than what we have tried so far. Why keep repeating the same old proven failed methods over and over again ?
I wont keep trying to convince you of its merits, Im just of the opinion that the flaws of the present systems are well proven and trying something different that a *lot* of people who have also spent a lot of time thinking about it consider to be good, is worth a go.
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:35 pm |
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seanet1310
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 1265
Location: Adelaide
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quote:
Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
OK, well if you dont want me to respond, I wont, but if you wish to hold a rational polite disagreement, Im happy to do that too..
.
It is not that I don't want you to reply, it is similar to what you said on the Open source thread. If you have something to add please let me know.
I think we have covered the bitcoins vrs fiat in manipulation. is/is it not effectively shares etc.
No, I do not think the government will protect me just because it owns the printing presses (our notes are printed by a whole owned subsidiary of the RBA, it also prints notes for many countries)
Sure, try different systems. Just as long as people are realistic about what they truly are.
Theoretical question. If someone released a malware that manages to infect a lot of the words computers minging bitcoins(yes, a lot of the people using bitcoins are probably runing Linux or similar, if there is enough money. Lets not assume it is 100% safe forever from attack as you know, everything will have vulnerabilities and fixes only occur often after they are pointed out). Could they not in one fowl swoop kick their system into gear take control over miners, release a fake blockchain and get their controlled computers to accept the block chain?
If there is enough money in it, I could see someone doing this.
Is there a built in system to protect against this in the bitcoin protocol? If not, is there a way to recover before the botnet or similar is taken down if they did gain a majority of computers?
_________________
Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs
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Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:15 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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quote:
Originally posted by seanet1310:
It is not that I don't want you to reply, it is similar to what you said on the Open source thread. If you have something to add please let me know.
Sure, OK point taken, no reason to keep battling over already disagreed upon issues
quote:
No, I do not think the government will protect me just because it owns the printing presses (our notes are printed by a whole owned subsidiary of the RBA, it also prints notes for many countries)
I know, sort of irrelevant, but when I worked for Honeywell, one of the client sites I looked after was Note Printing Australia in Craigieburn.. Ive actually been in the vaults where they keep the newspaper-sized sheets of polymer printed currency and literally stood on a pallet of about 20 million cash $ (tightly shrink wrapped  ) to reach and service the ultrasound motion detectors.. I am aware that we print plastic for other countries, because our polymer notes are extra difficult to forge and long wearing comapred to paper notes.
But that has little to do with the value of the notes, other than making them hard to burn when they are taken out of circulation (they have special shredding machines and incinerators there to destroy old notes)
quote:
Sure, try different systems. Just as long as people are realistic about what they truly are.
Just out of interest, what would you say they "truly are" ?
quote:
Theoretical question. If someone released a malware that manages to infect a lot of the words computers minging bitcoin. [..] Could they not in one fowl swoop kick their system into gear take control over miners, release a fake blockchain and get their controlled computers to accept the block chain?
Theoretically yes, but its about as likely as getting 50% of the entire world to vote for one politician.
First of all, to *theoretically* release a blockchain with some false details (but limited in what they can do even then) and have it propogate, you need to control at least 51% of the world entire mining power.. In *actuality* you apparently need far more. By my understanding, even 51% is very unlikely to be enough, .. see here
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses
(under "Attacker has a lot of computing power")
and for more information, the page
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths
is worth reading
Secondly, as you point out, most of the serious power miners are running farms of Linux machines and are far more technically savvy than your average Windows user. Im not sure that there has ever been a "linux" botnet, not to mention the wide diversity in different Linux Distributions it would have to succesfully attack.
Also, the mining network is not just PC's. More and more, People are developing custom dedicated "ASIC" miner systems that run custom chips with huge hashing power. Taking over these in addition to the PC's would be next to impossible, since they all run custom OS's and *firmware*, not software.
quote:
Is there a built in system to protect against this in the bitcoin protocol? If not, is there a way to recover before the botnet or similar is taken down if they did gain a majority of computers?
A built in system to protect against it ? Yes, its the majority-vote system.. If it were otherwise, then you would be back in the "small "authoritive" minority can over-rule the majority" situation that most currencies are currently in. Its a strenth of the Bitcoin system as I see it, not a weakness.
to "Recover", the "developers/leaders" can *ask* the community to roll back to an earlier block chain as apparently recently happened.. but they cant enforce it to my knowledge, it can only be done with mass agreement.
quote:
Originally posted by SpockieTech:
Odds on $50 within a week I reckon.
12 March + 7 Days = 19 March = Today, Price this morning = $52..
Ive read some interesting articles decrying this latest price surge as "another speculative bubble" - maybe it is, but Ive also read some people correlating the price rise with the rapidly increasing rise in uses - people getting paid in it, retailers opening up and so on.. and apparently the price curve closely follows the adoption curves for many new-techs like the World Wide Web, Mobile Phones and other world-changing technologies have in the past. Remember, its *not* a company where the share price is dependant on the performance on the humans running the show. Its an open free *technology*, like TCP/IP, *not* a company, like say Cisco.
Also, I hear the rapidly collapsing Argentine Peso and the governments clumsy forcible attempts to stop people from converting out of Peso's (assisted by Paypal, Ebay, Visa etc) has many of their citizens turning to Bitcoins to escape the attempted lock-in by the government who have supposedly been under-reporting the true inflation figure by a factor of 2 or 3x for years, effectively stealing from the people with savings to prop themselves up... and they are also wanting to ammend the consitution to allow themselves to keep being elected for longer than previously allowed, a sure sign of impending doom in my opinion. Its exactly this sort of "Authority" misbehaviour that Bitcoins are designed to prevent
Next Stop, who knows.. I'm guessing $100 by the end of the year with what I hear is in the wind (not just speculation), but I admit thats just whistling in the dark..
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:29 pm |
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