NASA Alert: America Blackout & Grid Shutdown 2013

[EE_]

How would bitcoins do in this event?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wVLIJDXNXoo

[Hitch]

How would bitcoins do in this event?

Bitcoins would become instantly worthless, like the digits in our bank accounts.

This video is some real doom. A nationwide EMP/solar flare event is basically God pushing the delete key on all of us. Bzzt, all gone. Game over, no more soup for you.

What I find amazing, is how fragile everything is. With all our advances, we can't make anything last. Think of all the things mankind has built throughout the ages that have lasted thousands of years, yet I drop my smart phone and it's instantly destroyed.

[Silver Rocket Bitches!]

One Second After is a decent book that fictionalizes such an event and gets you thinking about what segments of society will collapse first after an EMP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After

[Son-of-Liberty]

How would bitcoins do in this event?


Bitcoin would survive unless the internet was taken down world wide. There are thousands of computers world wide running the network. If you store your BTC offline and there was a terror attack you would be able to access your coins when the internet was brought back up.

Depending on the severity of an EMP you could potentially lose your BTC even if they were stored offline on a memory stick. There is a way you can print out your wallet on paper though and if you did that you could recover your coins when the internet came back up.

Bitcoin is more resistant to cyber attacks and EMP then conventional banks because there is no central database to be hacked.

[Ares]

Bitcoins would do fine as long as people backed up their wallets. You guys keep forgetting that bitcoins are GLOBAL. The blockchain (ledger) has no boarder, and no state can claim it. So what if the American grid goes down, bitcoin will still be right there. Now will you be able to access them? Most likely not. Same thing would happen to cash. I guess you guys don't know that 97% of cash is now digital. You going to go to the bank, or ATM and withdraw any cash when the electric goes out? I don't think so.

[Shami-Amourae]

How would bitcoins do in this event?

They would be fine. The cloud that they exist in works with computers all around the world. A solar flare would only harm whatever side if facing the sun when it's strikes, so the computers/net on the other side would still preserve the Bitcoins and the network. If it struck the US people would has as much chance as using the dollar as they would Bitcoin. The dollar is a virtual currency. Only a tiny percentage of the dollars in existence are physical. You can't run our shipping/trucking infrastructure on that system. You couldn't run the economy on what's left.

People don't know WTF gold/silver is. Those aren't viable options, I'm sorry. You're better off stocking up bullets for a physical currency.

[Libertytree]

Me thinks Bitcoins would be the least of anyones worries.

[Son-of-Liberty]

Me thinks Bitcoins would be the least of anyones worries.

Agreed.

All the just in time, food and fuel would be unavailable as well as power.

Total mayhem.

[chad]

fucking bitcoins. beyond a retarded idea.

[General of Darkness]

Another interesting video worth watching.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVN1a6X9ys0

[Ares]

fucking bitcoins. beyond a retarded idea.

Fucking central bank, beyond a retarded idea


There fixed it for you. There is nothing wrong with a decentralized currency. The only idiocy is those who don't embrace the idea. I could give a shit less if bitcoins succeed or fail. It's the idea that I support.

[Horn]

Bitcoins die before their expiration date in 2140 is my prediction.

By die I mean returning to their intrinsic dust to dust value.

You are able to at least wipe your ass with a dollar bill...or a couple of them.

[Son-of-Liberty]

Almost all the points made by detractors about bitcoin can be made about fractional reserve debt based money. It's intrinsic value is also nothing.

The difference between Bitcoin and FRN's is that no government is forcing anyone to use Bitcoin. If you don't like them then don't use them.

But they are a nice alternative. Completely free market.

[Horn]

SOL you're SOL

look at all the things I can create.

http://images1.vat19.com/money-origami-set/money-origami-projects.jpg

http://www.vat19.com/dvds/money-origami-set-book-dvd.cfm

[Ares]

Bitcoins die before their expiration date in 2140 is my prediction.

By die I mean returning to their intrinsic dust to dust value.

You are able to at least wipe your ass with a dollar bill...or a couple of them.


What expiration date? I don't remember seeing a Bitcoin expiration date. Or do you mean the date when no more bitcoins will ever be mined setting a ceiling on their quantity as to not have another system of printing at will like we do now?

They could die tomorrow for all I care, but the idea is what matters. The idea of a decentralized currency has been unleashed upon the world and that is something that won't die and has intrinsic value.

So if you're not going to get on board the idea, then stay on the side lines and STFU. Because quite honestly I'm getting really tired of pointing out your self induced ignorance and idiocy.

[Sparky]

Fucking central bank, beyond a retarded idea


There fixed it for you. There is nothing wrong with a decentralized currency. The only idiocy is those who don't embrace the idea. I could give a shit less if bitcoins succeed or fail. It's the idea that I support.

Gold and silver are a decentralized currency. Any support for an alternative decentralized currency is threatening. So, of course it will meet with some resistance here.

The other theme in this forum is simplification. Bitcoins (and all the other similar computer-mining derived counterparts) represent a complication of decentralized currency. It's the wrong direction from where most people here want to go.

[Horn]

What expiration date? I don't remember seeing a Bitcoin expiration date. Or do you mean the date when no more bitcoins will ever be mined setting a ceiling on their quantity as to not have another system of printing at will like we do now?

Inflate or die.

Your ignorance of that monetary necessity is frightening.

If it were your choice we'd all be exchanging Rembrandt works of art.

[Ares]

Gold and silver are a decentralized currency. Any support for an alternative decentralized currency is threatening. So, of course it will meet with some resistance here.

The other theme in this forum is simplification. Bitcoins (and all the other similar computer-mining derived counterparts) represent a complication of decentralized currency. It's the wrong direction from where most people here want to go.

I like gold and silver as much as anyone here. If I had more FRN's I'd accumulate more. However gold and silver are difficult to transport, and the populace see's them as outdated modes medium of exchange. In a digital world that is correct. Try leaving the country with more than 10,000 FRN's worth of gold or silver on you. Not going to happen due to capitol controls. They may be decentralized form of currency, but they are regulated, and controlled to the point of being completely useless to use in every day life. It's a store of value, and what I consider my true retirement holdings. Now I can be on a plane, or travel across a boarder with more than 1,000,000 dollars worth of Bitcoins and no one would know. If I was really paranoid wouldn't even download the wallet to a USB drive. Print out the paper wallet (also called cold storage) and destroy the digital wallet and recreate it with the digital key I printed at another location across the boarder. Try doing that with gold, silver, or even cash. Not happening.

[Ares]

Inflate or die.

Your ignorance of that monetary necessity is frightening.

As is yours, what? Are you a statist fool who believes we need inflation?

Inflation only serves one master, your ignorance of that is truly frightening. Those who get the new money first benefit the most. All others just lost purchasing power.


If it were your choice we'd all be exchanging Rembrandt works of art.

And where did I say that? Stop putting words in my mouth, or is this how you try to win an argument by creating the talking points?

[Horn]

Inflation is a necessity in any monetary system.

Without it, it simply isn't money, its intrinsic value barter.

Again the only way to "save" a dollar is saving it against another dollar.

[Ares]

Inflation is a necessity in any monetary system.

Without it, it simply isn't money, its intrinsic value barter.

John Keynes is that you??? j/k

I can see the logic behind that statement. But with humans they cannot be trusted to release the "right amount of inflation" for the system without abusing it or being corrupted by it. History is littered with inflationary abuse. So I would prefer the naturally deflationary route for monetary value to occur. The United States had that for a while with the gold standard and prices were relatively stable for a period of time without any inflationary disruptions. I also think that velocity and new gold mines found out west helped with that as well.

Can agree to disagree, but I cannot put my trust in a bank, or system of banks to inflate the correct amount that the system needs without abusing it and enslaving the people with it.

I also had a thought how can you (or anyone for that matter) decide the correct amount of inflation in a free market?

[Horn]

I also had a thought how can you (or anyone for that matter) decide the correct amount of inflation in a free market?

I applied this question to a great computer once and the answer was 4.2% :)

It should be completely flexible based on needs. If your dough doesn't buy anything or is worthless than you stop creating it all together. If its too powerful and stagnates the market you create more.

[Horn]

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, would you mind explaining to the forum your divide and conquer tactics, Ares?

5306

Aren't I a stinker. :)

[EE_]

Bitcoin offers privacy—as long as you don't cash out or spend it
Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
Aug 28, 2013 7:37 AM
print Jeremy Kirk, IDG News ServiceAustralia correspondent, IDG News Service

On the surface, Bitcoin seems to be a great way to hide cash. Actually, it’s a terrible way to launder money.

That’s the conclusion of a new academic study that analyzed Bitcoin’s blockchain, or the public ledger that records bitcoin transactions. The ledger shows how bitcoins move from one person to another, represented by 34-character alphanumeric addresses.

It’s a sea of numbers without names. But researchers from the University of California at San Diego and George Mason University found it is a lot harder to convert bitcoins to cash—or spend the bitcoins with a service—and stay anonymous due to the ledger.

Most bitcoin users interact with a service to buy or sell the virtual currency. These days, most of those services want to know exactly who they’re dealing with, especially as regulators around the world take an increasing interest in bitcoin.


It is possible to somewhat deanonymize bitcoin users, opening up avenues through which investigators could reveal the people behind them.


Using special algorithms, the researchers were able to associate large numbers of seemingly anonymous bitcoins addresses with certain major services such as exchanges and payment processors, said Sarah Meiklejohn, a doctoral candidate in computer science at UC San Diego, who assisted in the research.

By analyzing those transactions, they found it is possible to somewhat deanonymize bitcoin users, opening up avenues through which investigators could reveal the people behind them.

For example, they linked more than 500,000 Bitcoin addresses with Mt. Gox, a popular exchange in Japan where users buy and sell bitcoins. Mt. Gox requires identification from its users, often including a scan of their passport. It wouldn’t make sense for a hacker to cash out a large number of bitcoins there.

To catch a bitcoin thief
“We haven’t uncovered the identity of the thief, but we’ve paved the way for law enforcement or an agency with subpoena power to do exactly that,” Meiklejohn said.

The researchers analyzed details from bitcoin thefts. While there are sophisticated methods that can be used to cloud whether a bitcoin is indeed still held by a thief, many thieves became lazy after initially moving stolen funds around, Meiklejohn said.

“Maybe thieves and other criminals in the future are going to become a lot more sophisticated, but I think so far, people have not been particularly careful,” she said.



Many bitcoin thefts have remained frozen: The victim saw what address their funds went to, but the funds have never moved, perhaps because the hacker is still mulling how to convert the virtual currency to cash or goods without being noticed.


Average bitcoin users appear to be unaware at how quickly their bitcoin spending could be linked back to them. The Silk Road, an online marketplace of mostly illicit goods, only accepts bitcoin.

“We saw a lot of people deposit into Silk Road directly from their Mt. Gox address,” Meiklejohn said. In those cases, law enforcement would have minimal work to obtain the name of a user if they presented a legal order to Mt. Gox.

Money laundering is not impossible, but it is not particularly attractive with bitcoin. “It seems like an offshore account at this point would be a lot easier,” she said.

Still, as long as bitcoin users are willing to take certain cumbersome steps, such as generating new bitcoin addresses for every transaction, staying off the exchanges and using other evasion techniques such as repeatedly forwarding funds, Bitcoin retains its privacy strengths.

“I do think inherently Bitcoin can provide you with a huge amount of anonymity, but the argument here is you have to work for it,” Meiklejohn said. But most patterns of bitcoin use “indicate most users are falling short.”

Meiklejohn co-authored the paper with Marjori Pomarole, Grant Jordan, Kirill Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker and Stefan Savage.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047608/bitcoin-offers-privacy-as-long-as-you-dont-cash-out-or-spend-it.html

Bitcoin Foundation Meets With U.S. Regulators, Law Enforcement
By Jesse Hamilton & Olga Kharif - Aug 27, 2013 12:00 AM GMT-0400

A Bitcoin trade group met with members of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, regulators and law-enforcement officials to discuss the digital currency.

Members of the Bitcoin Foundation yesterday briefed representatives of agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Secret Service on the nature of the virtual currency, created four years ago.

“It’s a kickoff of engagement,” said Peter Vessenes, chairman of the foundation’s board, who said before the meeting that it would be “standing-room only,” because of interest among government officials. “Right now, law enforcement would read a salacious story, and not know what’s going on. We can help them understand what’s going on.”

FinCEN released guidance in March saying digital-currency administrators and exchangers are considered money-services business subject to regulations and anti-money-laundering controls. Stephen Hudak, a FinCEN spokesman, called this a “routine” meeting.

Bitcoin Foundation, a Seattle-based group that promotes the currency, seeks to improve standardization and security for the “non-political online money,” according to its website. Vessenes described the meeting as an “educational meet-and-greet.”

‘Ongoing Dialogue’
Marco Santori, chairman of the foundation’s regulatory affairs committee, said the government officials asked “a lot of questions” and that he hopes to work with their agencies and others in the future. “It’s only the beginning of the conversation,” he said.

The discussion is “part of our ongoing dialogue with virtual currency providers,” John Sullivan, a Treasury Department spokesman, said in a telephone interview.

The OCC sent three staff members to the “informational presentation,” said Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the agency, which regulates national banks.

Bitcoin was designed by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, and the actual currency is created through a system called mining, in which connected computers process Bitcoin transactions and earn their owners Bitcoins as a reward. According to Blockchain.info, there are more than 11.5 million Bitcoins in circulation.

They can be used to buy and sell items ranging from cupcakes to illegal narcotics, and the surge in their value has created millionaires out of early collectors. The potential difficulty in tracking illegal transactions has drawn the attention of regulators.

State Subpoenas
New York’s top banking overseer, Benjamin Lawsky, sent subpoenas to 22 digital-currency companies, including BitInstant LLC and Dwolla Corp., to determine whether new regulations should be adopted to govern the emerging industry, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Senate’s Homeland Security Committee is also examining possible risks of the virtual currency, it told regulators in a letter earlier this month that sought information on their oversight.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who gained fame after the brothers’ legal clash with Facebook Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg over the origin of its social network, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to create the Winkelvoss Bitcoin Trust -- a variation of an exchange-traded fund that would hold Bitcoins.

[Ares]

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, would you mind explaining to the forum your divide and conquer tactics, Ares?

5306

Aren't I a stinker. :)

Pfft I'll never tell you my plans. LOL

[Spectrism]

This week I am going to take the plunge... in a moderate way. I will order approx $10,000 worth of solar equipment that I will install myself. It will be off-grid, but able to tie in. and expandable.

My intent with this system that, on a good day would produce 2kW, is to charge batteries and keep household basics running..... refrigerators, freezers, some lights, water & furnace. It is a large "peace of mind" for me considering long term problems. I still need to figure out how to protect it from EMP. In the months ahead, I will add to it. I will increase batteries and panels.... and then double up on electronics.

[Ares]

Bitcoin offers privacy—as long as you don't cash out or spend it
Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
Aug 28, 2013 7:37 AM
print Jeremy Kirk, IDG News ServiceAustralia correspondent, IDG News Service

On the surface, Bitcoin seems to be a great way to hide cash. Actually, it’s a terrible way to launder money.

That’s the conclusion of a new academic study that analyzed Bitcoin’s blockchain, or the public ledger that records bitcoin transactions. The ledger shows how bitcoins move from one person to another, represented by 34-character alphanumeric addresses.

It’s a sea of numbers without names. But researchers from the University of California at San Diego and George Mason University found it is a lot harder to convert bitcoins to cash—or spend the bitcoins with a service—and stay anonymous due to the ledger.

Most bitcoin users interact with a service to buy or sell the virtual currency. These days, most of those services want to know exactly who they’re dealing with, especially as regulators around the world take an increasing interest in bitcoin.


It is possible to somewhat deanonymize bitcoin users, opening up avenues through which investigators could reveal the people behind them.


Using special algorithms, the researchers were able to associate large numbers of seemingly anonymous bitcoins addresses with certain major services such as exchanges and payment processors, said Sarah Meiklejohn, a doctoral candidate in computer science at UC San Diego, who assisted in the research.

By analyzing those transactions, they found it is possible to somewhat deanonymize bitcoin users, opening up avenues through which investigators could reveal the people behind them.

For example, they linked more than 500,000 Bitcoin addresses with Mt. Gox, a popular exchange in Japan where users buy and sell bitcoins. Mt. Gox requires identification from its users, often including a scan of their passport. It wouldn’t make sense for a hacker to cash out a large number of bitcoins there.

To catch a bitcoin thief
“We haven’t uncovered the identity of the thief, but we’ve paved the way for law enforcement or an agency with subpoena power to do exactly that,” Meiklejohn said.

The researchers analyzed details from bitcoin thefts. While there are sophisticated methods that can be used to cloud whether a bitcoin is indeed still held by a thief, many thieves became lazy after initially moving stolen funds around, Meiklejohn said.

“Maybe thieves and other criminals in the future are going to become a lot more sophisticated, but I think so far, people have not been particularly careful,” she said.



Many bitcoin thefts have remained frozen: The victim saw what address their funds went to, but the funds have never moved, perhaps because the hacker is still mulling how to convert the virtual currency to cash or goods without being noticed.


Average bitcoin users appear to be unaware at how quickly their bitcoin spending could be linked back to them. The Silk Road, an online marketplace of mostly illicit goods, only accepts bitcoin.

“We saw a lot of people deposit into Silk Road directly from their Mt. Gox address,” Meiklejohn said. In those cases, law enforcement would have minimal work to obtain the name of a user if they presented a legal order to Mt. Gox.

Money laundering is not impossible, but it is not particularly attractive with bitcoin. “It seems like an offshore account at this point would be a lot easier,” she said.

Still, as long as bitcoin users are willing to take certain cumbersome steps, such as generating new bitcoin addresses for every transaction, staying off the exchanges and using other evasion techniques such as repeatedly forwarding funds, Bitcoin retains its privacy strengths.

“I do think inherently Bitcoin can provide you with a huge amount of anonymity, but the argument here is you have to work for it,” Meiklejohn said. But most patterns of bitcoin use “indicate most users are falling short.”

Meiklejohn co-authored the paper with Marjori Pomarole, Grant Jordan, Kirill Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker and Stefan Savage.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047608/bitcoin-offers-privacy-as-long-as-you-dont-cash-out-or-spend-it.html

The author makes a good point and he / she is absolutely correct. The blockchain works both ways. It guarantees that the bitcoin used is authentic as it can track it through the ledger. But how can you be anonymous while using Bitcoins? Someone has answered that question as well. :)

The main solution to the problem so far has been mixing services, such as the one at blockchain.info and the one integrated into Silk Road. A mixing service works as follows. A user provides the mixing service with a destination address, and is given an input address to send their bitcoins to. Thousands of users from around the world send their bitcoins into their mixer, the mixer internally shuffles them, and then sends to each user’s destination address the same quantity of bitcoins (but not the same bitcoins) that they sent in, minus a small fee. The link between the input address and the destination exists nowhere in the blockchain, and in theory the mixing service itself destroys this information as soon as mixing is complete. However, the anonymization comes at the cost of trust. Users need to trust the mixer not to reveal the link between the input and destination, and they also need to trust the mixer not to steal the bitcoins outright. Even worse, if the mixer did steal some bitcoins, there would be no way to prove that it did.

Now, Bitcoin developers Amir Taaki and Pablo Martin developed with a new solution to Bitcoin anonymity: a semi-decentralized, trust-free mixing system. The underlying idea of a decentralized mixer is not new, and all schemes proposed so far, including this one, work similarly. Some number of people, all wanting to mix some specific quantity of bitcoins (say 0.01 BTC), come together over some communications channel and construct a single transaction, with each person contributing 0.01 BTC as an input and receiving 0.01 BTC as an output. The order of the inputs and outputs is shuffled, so there is no information about which input corresponds to each output in the blockchain. The challenge is, however, making sure that the link between each participant’s input and output is not known to the other participants in the mix as well. One solution was presented by Oliver Coutu at the Bitcoin conference in May 2013, using secure multiparty computation to construct the transaction without anyone being able to see exactly which input or output any other person contributed. However, the underlying mathematics is complex (although not nearly so complex as Zerocoin), and so far no easily usable implementation has been created.

The solution that Taaki and Martin implemented is much simpler. The protocol is fully described on the project’s web page, and roughly works as follows:

N people get together and agree to mix X bitcoins, and one of them sends the values N and X and a “room ID” to a central facilitator.
Everyone sends a message containing the room ID and their destination address to the facilitator, using an anonymizing network like Tor to make the communication.
The facilitator sends everyone an acknowledgement once all N people sent in their destination addresses.
Everyone anonymously sends a message containing the room ID and their input address to the facilitator.
The facilitator waits for everyone to send X BTC to their input address, and then constructs a transaction using these inputs and sending X BTC to each of the destination addresses. The facilitator then sends the transaction for everyone to sign.
Everyone checks that the transaction sends the right amount of bitcoins to their destination address and, if the transaction checks out, anonymously sends their signature to the facilitator.
The facilitator broadcasts the signed transaction.

As mentioned above, there is nothing particularly original about the protocol; in fact, Pablo and Martin first discovered the idea from a forum thread created by Bitcoin developer Gregory Maxwell describing the concept under the name of “CoinJoin”. Rather, the magic lies in the implementation. The pair were able to use the Bitcoin toolkit SX, developed by Taaki himself, to quickly implement the transaction handling side of the application within hours – a process which would have taken many times longer had they tried to write their own code or reuse code from a Bitcoin client like Armory or Electrum.

Where the implementation outshines previous attempts at accomplishing the same thing is ease of use. Taaki and Martin specifically created a simple graphical user interface; a user need only enter their input address, facilitator URL and output address, and the system handles everything automatically. “We’ve delivered usable software, simple for grandma (money goes in, money goes out), requires no blockchain or bitcoind, easy to install and trustless,” Taaki writes. For those interested, he has also produced a video depicting the entire process from start to finish; it only takes one minute to go through all the steps. “It’s experimental software,” Taaki says, “but it’s usable right now.” Anyone interested in running the mixer can simply download the source code and read the instructions here. Semi-decentralized, trustless Bitcoin anonymity has just been democratized.

Taaki and Martin’s implementation of CoinJoin has been criticized for being “centralized”, but in fact the level of centralization is trivial. The central party does not learn which input corresponds to which output (as people send their messages at different times during different phases), and does not have the opportunity to steal the bitcoins. If it tried replacing one of the destination addresses with its own, whoever got left out would notice and refuse to sign the transaction, causing the protocol to fail. The only possible failure mode simply results in the transaction not taking place. Furthermore, anyone can become a facilitator at essentially no startup cost; in fact, a completely decentralized setup might have one of the N people becoming the facilitator on the fly.

The mechanism also, perhaps unintentionally, accomplishes another objective: if widely used, it potentially defeats the utility of the “closure” concept. Closures rely on the idea that all inputs to a transaction are signed by the same person; here, the separate inputs to the mixing transaction are signed by complete strangers. Of course, the protocol as currently implemented can easily be accounted for – closure algorithms can deliberately avoid transactions with inputs of the same size. However, anonymizers themselves can fight back. Theoretically, one person can participate in the same mix multiple times, sending and receiving the bitcoins in different denominations (eg. sending in a single input of 0.03 BTC and getting three outputs of 0.01 BTC). From the other side, ordinary wallets can try to deliberately make their transactions look like anonymizing transactions; for example, a wallet provider might make their wallet always provide change in 0.01 BTC chunks, so every transaction will naturally appear to be a mix. There will be ways of detecting many of these things, but even still the closure’s status will drop from being a surefire way of discovering someone’s secret Bitcoin stash to just another heuristic tool.

How will regulators feel about this? If this mixer reaches a high level of popularity – for example, by being integrated into existing Bitcoin wallets, it will certainly make the effort to make Bitcoin traceable by regulating the exchanges more difficult. However, for those concerned about large corporations, dictatorships and multibillion dollar drug cartels, there is one saving grace: the more money you want to mix, the harder it will be. “While [a thief] might attempt to use a mix service to hide the source of the money,” the George Mason paper reads, “we again argue that these services do not currently have the volume to launder thousands of bitcoins.” If a billionaire tried to mix their funds with blockchain.info, the mix would become 99% them – making the mixer essentially useless for the billionaire. Furthermore, at sufficiently high volumes, transaction flows become much more distinguishable all on their own; there may be millions of people moving around 0.01 BTC, but there are only a few people with over 100,000 BTC, and the Bitcoin de-anonymization papers seen thus far have already had considerable success uncovering their stashes of bitcoins on the blockchain. In every case, the story is similar: more money, less privacy. Mixing $50 to hide your medical purchases from Target or your marijuana habit from the government, fine. $1.3 billion suddenly disappearing off the face of the earth? Bitcoin may well actually make that harder.
By Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin is a computer science student at the University of Waterloo who is currently taking some time off to pursue Bitcoin interests full-time in Europe. He first joined the Bitcoin community in March 2011, and has been actively involved in Bitcoin-related projects ever since. Other interests include math, computer science, online education, economics and linguistics. For personal page, see http://vbuterin.com, for code see http://github.com/vbuterin. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me at vitalik@bitcoinmagazine.com.
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I strongly suggest reading the whole article, but this is just a snippet.

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/6630/trustless-bitcoin-anonymity-here-at-last/

[Ares]

This week I am going to take the plunge... in a moderate way. I will order approx $10,000 worth of solar equipment that I will install myself. It will be off-grid, but able to tie in. and expandable.

My intent with this system that, on a good day would produce 2kW, is to charge batteries and keep household basics running..... refrigerators, freezers, some lights, water & furnace. It is a large "peace of mind" for me considering long term problems. I still need to figure out how to protect it from EMP. In the months ahead, I will add to it. I will increase batteries and panels.... and then double up on electronics.






Unless you house it in a Faraday cage (which is limited protection against certain frequencies of EMP) you won't be able to do much unfortunately. The best case scenario would be to disconnect EVERYTHING if you're aware of an incoming EMP type event. But I doubt anyone who would use that type of technology will announce it especially if their intent is to cripple a technological society.

Where did you get your batteries? I've also been looking at doing solar but the cost of the panels, batteries and inverters have kept me from taking the plunge.

[Hitch]

Unless you house it in a Faraday cage (which is limited protection against certain frequencies of EMP) you won't be able to do much unfortunately. The best case scenario would be to disconnect EVERYTHING if you're aware of an incoming EMP type event. .

I could be wrong, but I don't think an EMP would damage the actual solar panels or batteries, but it would for sure fry the charge controller. I have thought about this as well. One idea would be to have a spare controller stored away in a faraday cage. It's good to have spares anyway.

[EE_]

Big Government is Moving to Crush Bitcoin
Mike Mulraneyin
Politics3 weeks ago


Big Government is Moving to Crush Bitcoin

It appears big government has once again sought out a corner of the economy it has yet to regulate into submission. This time in the regulators' cross hairs is the cryptocurrency bitcoin, which operates without a central authority or intermediary financial institution and conducts all transactions electronically. Formerly thought of as a sideshow attraction like Flooz that would be doomed to the same fate, bitcoin is gathering steam and now is accepted at several locations and websites.

Sensing an opportunity to install regulations on the currency before it becomes to ingrained in society, the New York State Department of Financial Services has issued 22 subpoenas for digital-currency companies and investors. These subpoenas have defeated the overall purpose of Bitcoin being an independent currency alternative, and these subpoenas will have an overall negative effect on the future of Bitcoin and the future of cryptocurrency.

Bitcoins are experiencing international growth and the value of this international digital currency is set entirely by market forces as the currency operates without a central bank. The bitcoin system is designed to halve the number of Bitcoins released every four years, reaching a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins in 2140. The system operates without the interference of human beings on any level. The invisible hand of the market controls almost everything in the system.

Well, as of now, anyway. With the state of New York and the United States government gathering a lay of the land for expected regulations, it's very likely these subpoenas will affect the way Bitcoin does business. Government continues to be intolerant of any matter that it has no control over. Why should the government get a say in how a competing currency conducts business? If an individual accepts using bitcoins as currency they accept the risk of that currency inflating, deflating, or having no value the same as any other currency. Government interference with bitcoin completely defeats the purpose of the alternative independent currency.

The subpoenas issued by New York State Department of Financial Services will have an overall negative effect on Bitcoin and the future of the cryptocurrency market. If you seek to establish an independent currency, free of manipulation from men like "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke, you will be unable to do so. If you are able to break through and create an accepted currency, which is no easy task, you will be forced to answer questions about it to a body with a long-standing monopoly on currency. Would it come as a surprise to any if future regulations imposed on bitcoin drastically alter the way bitcoin does business and makes the currency go the way of the dodo? Regulations have the same destructive powers as taxes, and breaking Bitcoin's current model is undoubtedly what will stem from the introduction of regulation.

Bitcoin is about to experience the nine scariest words in the English language: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

http://www.policymic.com/articles/59567/big-government-is-moving-to-crush-bitcoin

[chad]

i don't always prep for shtf and teotwawki, but when i do, i make sure my decentralized currency relies on electricity.

[Ares]

i don't always prep for shtf and teotwawki, but when i do, i make sure my decentralized currency relies on electricity.

Better do the same for your centralized currency as well. Whatever flaws you can think of with crypto-currencies they also apply to central fiat currencies as well. Due to them being 97% digital.

So guess it's time to re-evaluate your preps and mindset.

[Horn]

I think it would be in bitcoin's best interest to define itself as a collectible oddity or artwork and not currency to all regulators and the market. That way it could also operate under the radar and without taxation when exchanged for something else.

If bitcoin users even cared, they should like to see it valued some other way than in dollars also. Maybe associate it to oz.s of silver instead.

What's the first thing they do to sell though?


Statistics

The Bitcoin network has been running continuously for more than 48 months, yielded impressive security features and grown significantly in the past year. As of April 2013:


Long block chain with more than 232,000 blocks.
One of the largest distributed computing network in the world with more than 65 terahashes/s.
Millions of US$ in daily trade volume distributed across 50,000 transactions.
Total value of all bitcoins in circulation is over US$1.3 billion.
Only one major security incident (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents#Value_overflow) in the protocol which was fixed in August 2010.



I will tell you Ares, visions get plucked from eye, like an eagle's claw. :)

[Ares]

I think it would be in bitcoin's best interest to define itself as a collectible oddity or artwork and not currency to all regulators and the market. That way it could also operate under the radar and without taxation when exchanged for something else.

If bitcoin users even cared, they should like to see it valued some other way than in dollars also. Maybe associate it to oz.s of silver instead.

What's the first thing they do to sell though?



I will tell you Ares, visions get plucked from eye, like an eagle's claw. :)

Bitcoin is valued against a lot of other currencies. Go to https://www.mtgox.com/ and in the upper right hand side where it says USD click on it and check it against about 20 different currencies that exchange deals with.

Due to Bretton Woods agreement, everything by default is valued against dollars. But that is fading and don't see it lasting another decade. There is also a site that will convert your bitcoins and even litecoins now directly to gold and or silver.

[Horn]

Bitcoin is valued against a lot of other currencies. Go to https://www.mtgox.com/ and in the upper right hand side where it says USD click on it and check it against about 20 different currencies that exchange deals with.

That's exactly my point, they're shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

Although it is sooooo hard for those same "human hairless monkey deciders" not to do so.

They like the quick inflationary boost that associating with all the different currencies gives to them.

They are inflationary keynsian pigs only of a different color, if you will.

[Ares]

That's exactly my point, they're shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

Although it is sooooo hard for those same "human hairless monkey deciders" not to do so.

They like the quick inflationary boost that associating with all the different currencies gives to them.

They are inflationary keynsian pigs only of a different color, if you will.

Same could be said about those who buy and sell (speculate) with gold and silver in relation to the valuations against the dollar.

[Spectrism]

I could be wrong, but I don't think an EMP would damage the actual solar panels or batteries, but it would for sure fry the charge controller. I have thought about this as well. One idea would be to have a spare controller stored away in a faraday cage. It's good to have spares anyway.

A close EMP strike would probably wipe out any electrical components. I was taught in the military to disconnect antennaes, cables, power- from any electronics and hope for the best. If you are not at ground zero, the power of the EMP fades quickly. I am geographically far from any strategic targets. Also, I can have a fair amount of items stored below ground level that would prevent some line of sight surges. I think the EMP is more like AM radio, however, and will bend around corners and penetrate many walls.

My concern is more for grid surges and solar flares. Flares will give a short warning. I watch solar reports daily and have gotten very sensitive to this threat.



Unless you house it in a Faraday cage (which is limited protection against certain frequencies of EMP) you won't be able to do much unfortunately. The best case scenario would be to disconnect EVERYTHING if you're aware of an incoming EMP type event. But I doubt anyone who would use that type of technology will announce it especially if their intent is to cripple a technological society.

Where did you get your batteries? I've also been looking at doing solar but the cost of the panels, batteries and inverters have kept me from taking the plunge.

The best company I have found is this one-
http://www.sunelec.com/

There is some good info on the website, but it is a bit dated. Talk with an engineer there for a custom config. A system that I would really like is $30k+. I will start modestly and add to it.

If a military strike of EMP is enough to wipe out my electronics, it likely will blow the roof off my house too. I am not a significant target. If I lived near a military base or an ammo manufacturer, then I would move asap. If you are near a city, it is better to plan a BO location for these things. I considered having everything fitted for install, drilled and threaded... but securely packed away in metal shielded boxes. If things start to appear flakey, I might do that.

[Horn]

Same could be said about those who buy and sell (speculate) with gold and silver in relation to the valuations against the dollar.

Only once they've given up trying to inflate themselves due to the many manipulated fluctuations, and diversified into some trendy crypto to inflate into finite infinity.

http://www.hark.com/clips/nkrynfqvwn-aint-i-a-stinker

[Horn]

If there's one message that I would like to get across.

Its that silver should be regarded as a sacred religion, and not open to diversity. :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoh7Mb9v04

[madfranks]

Gold and silver are materially embedded and digitally independent. Bitcoins and litecoins are digitally embedded and material independent. There are reasons why a prudent prepper would want both.

[Horn]

Gold and silver are materially embedded and digitally independent. Bitcoins and litecoins are digitally embedded and material independent. There are reasons why a prudent prepper would want both.

You forgot Worldcoin, and Shami-Horncoin

Just get real and call them sheep preppers, as you are artificially inflating your own scrupulous selections.

ps. You've been divided and conquered.

[Sparky]

...
However gold and silver are difficult to transport, and the populace see's them as outdated modes medium of exchange.
...

I'll agree with the first part of this. In the scenario you described, I could see how it would be of value to temporarily convert some of your assets to bitcoins in order to take flight, as a tactical maneuver. But I wouldn't want to hold it there for long; certainly not the bulk of my assets.

The second, I don't really agree. We have probably just passed a relative low with regard to precious metals being viewed as a medium of exchange, but I think it will slowly turn higher. And amongst the general population, I don't see how one could argue that bitcoins are generally "more accepted" as a currency.

[Horn]

Pfft I'll never tell you my plans. LOL

Now quit mincing about your bad vats and jeroboams,

before I'm forced to relegate you to the land of muffin men.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3svQwQIUc

[chad]

i am also bulking up on chuckie cheese tokens, those are the cat's meow.

[Ares]

I'll agree with the first part of this. In the scenario you described, I could see how it would be of value to temporarily convert some of your assets to bitcoins in order to take flight, as a tactical maneuver. But I wouldn't want to hold it there for long; certainly not the bulk of my assets.

The second, I don't really agree. We have probably just passed a relative low with regard to precious metals being viewed as a medium of exchange, but I think it will slowly turn higher. And amongst the general population, I don't see how one could argue that bitcoins are generally "more accepted" as a currency.

I agree in part. When I was asked by my new boss about getting a 401K, I declined. He goes you don't want a retirement account? I said no, as I would much rather take that money and put it into physical precious metals. All I got was a blank stare, a confused look and a "ok........" Precious metals still aren't in the public lexicon of being money. However I agree the tide is slowly turning in that direction as the money manipulators keep shoveling money into a black hole trying to get out from under the mess they are in. People will run to safety, which gold and silver have a 5,000+ year history of doing. Providing asset protection.

Crypto-currencies are FAR too new to the scene to even be considered for that, too unstable in price valuations. But that doesn't mean that they can't in time be regarded as safe and stable. I see the potential and the idea, which is what I support. I could give a damn whether bitcoin falls, what really has my attention, and support is the idea behind a decentralized easy to transmit medium of exchange without controls. Totally free market.

[Hitch]

i am also bulking up on chuckie cheese tokens, those are the cat's meow.

You are ahead of your time, chad. Cheesecoins will be worth a fortune. We need a subforum for this topic.

[madfranks]

You forgot Worldcoin, and Shami-Horncoin

Just get real and call them sheep preppers, as you are artificially inflating your own scrupulous selections.

ps. You've been divided and conquered.

First mover advantage. Look it up.

[Horn]

First mover advantage. Look it up.

Now that you're speaking my language, business, I'll only need to re-inform you that your supply is limited and due to be quartered than diced in the coming decades.

Your finiteness will be that of actual Rembrandt's upon his death bed, Luckily you'll have a host of new VanGogh's with his remaining ear, and funky Picasso's to choose from. In your radiant muffin business.

Who wouldn't take up the call and produce another crypto billion or one painting program over night?

Wal-Mart will be next, than you could start fantasizing about world domination through Waffen-SS & blitzkrieg tactics.

Ps. don't invade Russia.