Seriously, seriously, you don't think the discipline of climate science might, just *might*, take the sun into account?

Re: Warnings from History: Wikileaks... Cyprus....

"The US Government doesnt control all currencies."

Silly rabbit, if the US government stamps it out others may well follow, particularly if the aforementioned US government decides to throw its considerable weight around.

That said, I'd rather bitcoins were allowed to fail on their own merits rather than be stamped out, because the libertarian squeals of big-government persecution will echo round the net for years, annoying the crap (further) out of me.

Re: Nokia

"Of course, I'm sure they'd just say that Nokia would be able to do better. And ignore the fact that no-one else seems to be managing it. After all, HTC seem to have some very nice phones, some look nicer to me than the Samsungs, but it doesn't seem to be doing them any good."

Nokia *would* have been able to do it better. People obviously like android (or don't hate it), and nokia had a european brand presence like nothing else, they had a huge reputation for quality and decent prices. They could have been more than just another Samsung competitor, they could have been where Samsung is, at least in Europe.

Now, you can't blame the fact that they're not entirely on Elop and his platform decisions because they seemed to have had massive, systemic problems before he turned up. He just kinda sealed the deal.

Re: @David Hicks - What IS surprising...

@AC

DO we really want to start this here? The gnome folks did not make it easy for anyone to stay with V2, dropping all support and making it very hard to put both versions in the same box. They also continue to drop features and ignore or be outright rude towards user feedback.

Yes, one wonderful thing about linux is that you have DE choice. Which is why I didn't say linux, I said gnome...

(Yes, I use XFCE...)

Re: Good observation

Anecdata is not evidence....

My non-techy father hates it, possibly more than he hated vista. Of course to him it's the computer that's evil rather than the interface, so the Vista laptop was horrible, the Win 7 all-in one was perfectly pleasant and "this stupid new machine doesn't seem to do anything properly". I must admit it took me ages to do anything on it either, and I had to resort to poking around in the program files directories to try to figure out what was installed on the damn thing. I had a better time with Unity and that's saying something.

I have a techie friend who's been evaluating it under the MSDN license too. His got stuck in an update loop. Update, fail, reboot, revert, update, fail...

So there you go, two or three counterpoints to "it works well for me".

Re: What IS surprising...

@JDX - you have to admit it's a bit of a climbdown.

"Here's our big new thing! It changes everything! It's awesome!"

"We don't want or like these changes..."

"Oh, well... ok"

I suppose it's better than the Gnome story, in which the third line would be "F*** you, ignorant scum"

I'm pretty sure most studies of smart-metre households have discovered that it doesn't work great - everyone takes an interest for a week or two, then gets bored and slips back to doing exactly what they did before.

Great waste of money this whole thing.

Re: SSDs, I believe, have now overtaken memory as the single most cost-effective upgrade

"It depends on how much the OS is using the hard drive."

Don't forget the applications. Firefox (for instance) still seems horribly disk-bound.

Re: Tyranny

Hehe. I wrote to my MP about ID cards, stating very much what you just put there "It's not so much the card I object to, it's the huge database behind the scenes and its massive privacy implications, not to mention all the people you propose giving access to".

Three months later I got a letter back saying "We understand your objections, but this scheme is not just an identity card! There's this huge unified database thingy behind it too! And it'll be accessible to all these public servants!"

All of which made it abundantly clear that no, you did not understand my objections or even read them. Muppets.

"I bet it wasnt as bad as the appalling distro (Linpus) the Acer aspire one ssd version came with.

I recall hitting the `update` button in options and the thing rebooting first to a command prompt, then just hanging on boot, never to work again."

Wowsers. OK maybe not *that* bad but -

Xandros on my eee 901 refused to update itself after the first time due to there being no space, which was because the debs from previous updates were still there and it didn't know how to clear them (epic facepalm). Also there was no easy way to alter the desktop/menu content and by the time the 901 came out they had removed the 'advanced' (kde) desktop mode. It also killed ipods. A friend attached his to charge it, and some or other media player started up, maybe amarok, scanned the device and then overwrote all the indexes in an incompatible format, resulting in an ipod that claimed at the same time that it was full and had nothing on it!

I ditched Xandros ASAP. It was a pretty good hackintosh for a while, then became a really good little debian machine, and it still is vaguely useful though I have now replaced nearly all the parts.

Re: Problem is tho

apt-get install wine

wine steam.exe

Oh wait, they have steam for linux now? Huh...

Re: I'll see your ARM core and raise you a SATA port. ;-)

"Is a HD in a USB caddy that slow?"

If it's USB 2.0, yes it is.USB 3.0 can be a lot better. But yes, even spinning rust on USB 2 is badly limited.

If they had USB 3 then that would be just awesome, you can get some USB 3.0 sticks now that are coming up to 1/2 SSD speed, and that's awesome.

Re: I'll see your ARM core and raise you a SATA port. ;-)

Excellent, that looks like a step in the right direction - IO has been a major bottleneck in these devices for a while, and having SATA available is a huge step forward at that price point. The only small ARM/SATA boards I've seen before came in around the $200 mark. Granted they had quad-core marvell chips in them, but still... looks like a great board.

Re: Worthwhile for Whom?

1. A Bitcoin payment is irreversible after approx. 1 hour, a bank transfer can be reversed several days after the time of payment;

This is a positive for the consumer. If a vendor doesn't fulfill the contract, the money can be recovered. Bitcoin as a payment method is a scammers paradise where unscrupulous vendors can shaft the consumer. We have chargeback and other consumer protections for a reason.

2. A typical wire transfer costs ~£20-£30 to complete, with many current accounts costing £6 a month at the bank. Paypal takes a 10% cut from transactions from merchants, and VISA providers can charge as much as 5%, with a greater charge if the payment is reversed. One can send several thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin around the world for a cost of ten cents.

One would then have to pay a fee to get it back out of the bitcoin system, and be taking a huge gamble as to what it was worth when it got the other side anyway. I pay no account fees here or in Australia and was able to complete transfers of multiple thousands of pounds between Australia and the UK for about 15 quid, at a relatively stable, market exchange rate.

3. Because the payments are irreversible after one hour, certain high-risk businesses, such as delivery of high-cost international products (http://www.howtoacceptbitcoin.com/2013/01/eliminate-fraud-from-internet-payments.html) or otherwise accepting custom from international customers (http://www.howtoacceptbitcoin.com/2012/10/low-risk-international-payments-for.html) can accept Bitcoin to attempt to reduce the risk of chargeback fraud.

Because of the relatively high risk of small vendors ripping you off or disappearing, consumers should stay the hell away from bitcoin vendors, particularly those in a foreign country, because of the high risk of fraud and lack of protection when you get ripped off..

With its current volatility, it is not useful to fix a product to a Bitcoin price. However, as a means of transferring dollars, sterling and other traditional currencies, it provides a robust solution to current problems merchants face.

While completely shafting the consumer. No consumer should ever use BTC as a payment method for the reasons given.

Re: If you don't know who the sucker is...

Deflation in a currency only acts as a disadvantage if it is sudden and unexpected.

No, it's just a terrible idea all around. The Bitcoin wiki glosses over a lot of things and tries to handwave away the problems of a deflationary economy as simply an issue of making sure the currency is divisible. Lack of divisible supply is not the only problem with deflation, there are many, not least of which is that people get richer by sitting on cash rather than investing it, and cash becomes an end in itself rather than a means.

Jesus, talk about blind faith!

"Bitcoin itself has no single central point of failure: the weakness you're describing is in a central point of failure in the layer between Bitcoin and conventional currencies.

As a merchant, I could accept Bitcoin to a Bitcoin wallet without fear that it would be hacked."

So you're quite happy that the bitcoin protocol will never show a weakness in the face of gathering value?

Look at TLS - despite some of the best minds in the business being turned towards it, problems and leaks are still found, year after year. You're willing to bet your prosperity on the idea that the same will never happen on BTC, which has had nothing like the scrutiny?

LOL

Ten-pounds notes can be used to fund terrorism and paedos, so you'd have to ban them as well.

LOL @ expecting consistency in rules from government! Seriously, you think for a second that "buh, buh, buh, cash can do that too!" will mean anything to a fat-headed legislator that gets it in mind to ban subversive crypto-currency?

Re: Anonymity ?

"If you've found a way to consistently "algorithmically" correlate tor identities to real-world identities, there's a Fields medal waiting for you when you get home."

That's not what I claimed and who needs to do that anyway?

You just need to trace the coins (possible with the blockchain) to an exit point (exchange). Identifying when funds have entered the accounts of an exchange may or may not be all that easy, but if/when you manage it you then use legal muscle to demand they tell you what's up. Tor is absolutely irrelevant to this.

This may be a lot more tricky if BTC laundering is involved, sure, but tor isn't going to protect you as soon as you try and get the BTC back out into the real world.

Re: Anonymity ?

5) Have a heart-attack when someone traces the coins algorithmically to an exchange or other exit-point and tracks you down anyway.

The anonymity argument really breaks down when you need to convert them back and forth to 'real' currency.

Re: A finite calculable resource [like] gold/precious metals -- NOT

Sterling inflation is decided by whim of the bank of england. At least bitcoins inflation is known beforehand.

Which means that when the money supply causes problems in the wider economy, there's nothing anyone can do about it. Some of us consider the bank of england to be a feature, not a bug.

The whole purpose of trading in gold was due to its measurable quality...

Yes of course someone could produce a "coinbits" based on the same variable. The greeks could also decided...

You miss the point - the current bitcoin blockchain really is only a brand name, and other, identical blockchains can be and are being started. There is only scarcity of "Bitcoin" branded coins, no real scarcity at all.

The original piece talked about a bubble, bitcoins are not a bubble by a long stretch.

Bitcoins have experienced absolutely classic bubbles twice now, because they are a speculative asset based on confidence and nothing more. 'Fiat' as you like to call it is backed by national economies.

Re: Limited

And those with a couple kBTC put away today will be the new kings, all worth hundreds of billions.

Count me out of an economy that creates a new aristocracy out of hoarders.

Re: Anonymity ?

All bitcoin transactions are a matter of public record. The anonymous aspect is that you can't easily tie a human to a bitcoin address. That said, the exchanges all use all sorts of ID verification so if you suspected someone of using BTC to buy drugs you (the theoretical you that is a law-enforcement wonk trying to track silk road vendors) could probably set up a sting, follow the coins to an exchange and demand to know the name/address of the accountholder.

"If someone breaks SHA-256 they'll have bigger prizes..."

But you don't often have to break the algorithm. Most good security hacks find flaws in the way people are using the algorithm and the data, not the algorithm itself.

Not saying the bitcoin protocol is flawed, I haven't done an analysis and I'm not (yet) qualified to, but just saying 'we use SHA256' or AES, or whatever it might be, turns out not to be very useful by itself.

Re: not really

Bitcoins (at the end of the day) are a finite calculable resource

Bitcoin the current blockchain, sure. But unlike gold and silver, the only real limit and value is purely in terms of brand recognition. Other currencies using the *exact same* algorithms, source-code clients etc. can (and in fact already have) come into existance. There's no reason that an infinite number can't pop up. And each one can be identical to bitcoin. And this is before we even talk about crypto-currencies with different/competing models.

It's not like with gold, someone can't just come along and pull another type of gold out of their arse, but with bitcoin you can.

Re: Non-scammable?

"You didn't mention the part of bitcoin which prevents paypal implementing a chargeback mechanism for bitcoin payments. Cash has no chargeback mechanism, but you can pay to use a mechanism created by someone else...or choose not to. Bitcoin...the same."

Right, so you agree it's a crap payment method, and in order to make it into a good one we effectively need paypal and VISA. excellent.

The pretty paper is not really printed by the government - they just mint the coins. The paper is printed by the banking system...

This is factually false. It's outsourced by the government to printing firms like De La Rue. Are you actually labouring under the illusion that coins are 'real' money but notes are just the bank promising real money? What an interesting world you live in.

So a banking system using credit-based money denominated in bitcoin is not inconceivable, and would grant you the inflation you desire.

So why bother? We already have that, so bitcoin adds nothing. Also, as with payment systems, it's good to see a BTC enthusiast admit we'll still need banks issuing fiat, only now we've decoupled them from any government regulation where it comes to currency. Awesome.

If inflation is 4% then everyone would look for investment opportunities which lose 3% per year; they will come out on top by destroying value. Do you see that you don't make sense?

No, in fact you don't make sense, that sentence doesn't even make sense. What the hell are you even trying to say there? I'll restate in case you missed the point -

If inflation is 4% then you come out behind the game by 4% if you stuff your mattress with cash, so instead you look for saving and investment opportunities to earn greater than 4% so you can at the least break even. This has knock-on positive effects on the economy.

If deflation is 4% then you come out ahead of the game by 4% just by stuffing your mattress. This has no positive knock-on effects for the economy.

To paraphrase your initial comment on this and really hammer it home - if you want 3% return in an inflationary environment you charge inflation + 3%, at the end of the day you come out 3% better off than if you had done nothing. If you want 3% return in a deflationary environment you *could* charge deflation +3%, but if deflation is greater than 3% you'd actually be better off doing nothing.

Do you understand the difference yet?

Re: Question?

Your actual bitcoin is a record in a public ledger that says addess a2342134c32d23e23441a..... contains this much. The address is really a public key, AFAICT. Your 'wallet' file contains the private keys that unlock all this. This is what can be moved around.

Therefore what they mean is that they have put the bitcoin into public accounts, viewable by all, but put the wallet with its private keys into a safe deposit box.

Unlike some other schemes, there is no such thing as an offline transaction with bitcoin, everything is online and public.

Re: Non-scammable?

No part of the bitcoin system prevents chargebacks being implemented, just as no part of Sterling specifically enables it.

Well, except we're talking about bitcoin-itself-as-payment-method, one of the many things its boosters say it's awesome for, a drop in replacement for paypal and credit cards, which it fails hard at. And before you say "nobody says it's the perfect payment method", please look around the internet and in fact in this very thread.

If you want a 3% return on your lending in an inflationary environment then you charge inflation+3%. If you want the same return in a deflationary environment then you charge deflation+3%.

But why would you bother? If deflation was (for instance) 4%, you're better off sitting on the cash and not taking the risk. This is the fundamental difference.

Re: Non-scammable?

Remember this is a currency not a payment processor.

Which is exactly why I said "this does mean it's not a very good online payment system". And you'd be surprised how many people say, when they've had it pointed out to them just how bad a currency it is "but remember this is a payment processing network too!"

Re: What can I say

It's a terrible replacement for paypal - once a vendor has your coins there's no way to get them back, if they don't deliver or just drop off the face of the earth, you have no recourse. Paypal and credit cards are very, very good for the consumer.

Non-scammable?

That depends entirely on what you do with it. As it has no chargeback capability it's a scammer's dream in a lot of ways. I know, I know, it's like cash and you can't chargeback with cash either. However this does mean it's not a very good online payment system, which is one of the things that it gets pushed forward for.

What's that, chargeback is open to abuse? Sure is, but compared to the abuse you'd get without it, and the lack of trade as people like me *never* shop online again, it's a blessing.

Now, as for currency use, it's pretty worthless as it fluctuates in value so damn much. And it always will because there's no central bank around to try and keep it stable. Were those the 'scammers' you were thinking of when you said "It's the only non-scammable currency."? I rather like them, they keep my currency roughly stable, keep a low, positive level of inflation (a positive for myriad reasons), and expand the money supply to suit the economy. They do make mistakes, sometimes huge ones, but it's better than a rudderless, bubble prone, speculative 'asset' that encourages mass hoarding.

IMHO, of course, you are within your rights to disagree with any and all of that.

Don't worry, lots of folks got in when its cheap, and are now cheerleading like crazy.

BUBBLE.

For redundancy reasons your friendly banks included the FULL MAGSTRIPE on the chip which can be sent in the clear to the point of sale terminal.

Actually it's only a Track 2 equivalent, not the full track 2 details.

Additionally, the majority of chip and pin cards will accept an offline authentication whereby they verify the PIN between the chip and the point of sale. Again, they send this data back and forth unencrypted

This is factually false, the PIN is encrypted ASAP and never transported around the place as plaintext.

And If you have a chip cloning method I'm sure the class would love to hear about it.

Re: What no solutions?

"As this is a civil matter, they simply have to show on balance of probability that it was you."

With a credit card this is incorrect. They have to return the money now, pending investigation, as they are a party to the debt and you have disputed it. They will likely get you to sign something to the effect that you agree it is fraud under penalty of perjury, but that's the law.

Re: How to address skimming?

@Mike - "Errr. The magstripe contents and information is easily available and openly published."

And when the bank check the track2 data in the transaction, BOOM, transaction declined because it doesn't match a known card.

Re: Playing devils advocate or just being bloody minded?

"Yes, a huge number of cards are stolen. It's a very big business. With a chip in the card, skimming of cards should be pretty pointless. After all, the systems should be expecting a chip and they're very difficult to copy....so what's the point of skimming?"

You have your wires crossed. I meant actually, physically stolen cards.

We were talking about contactless cards and the ability for small-scale fraud, I was noting that in order to do this you need the *actual* card, you can't just skim.

Re: Funny Stuff - Tom 35

You might want to read the card agreement that came with the chip and pin cards. At least in Canada there are paragraphs of text that boil down to chip and pin is perfect, it's your fault. All of this text was new for chip and pin cards. In any case where chip and pin is used they assume you gave your card to a "friend" who bought stuff while you setup proof that you were someplace else at the time, then got the card back later.

In the UK it is their responsibility to prove that the transaction was not fraud if you say it was. With credit cards they are a party to the debt and this is their legal resposibility as lenders - return the money now, investigate later. With debit I'm less sure, but the banking code tends to support the same thing.

Re: Funny Stuff - RE: AC

"1. Have the ATM machine inside a booth/reception area which you can only gain access to by swiping your card."

Guess where the fraudsters attach their skimming device then?

I'm not even kidding, I saw this one on tv years ago!

Re: How to address skimming?

"The crooks solved that one too. A bit of nail varnish will ensure the EVM is not sensed, and so the terminal can fall back on mag swipe :("

At which point the liability is with the terminal operator, because there is a code on the stripe that says "I'm a chip card, process me at your peril".

Re: Playing devils advocate or just being bloody minded?

"Oh yeah, I wont even go into the fun to be had with contact-less payment, where you don't even need to know the pin, yet the transaction is reported as chip and pin. (on top of that the £15 a day limit is also toss, having used it myself at to at least £40 in a single day)"

Your limit is personal to you and is more about transaction limits than daily limits.

It is absolutely not reported as Chip and Pin though it is processed in much the same way.

The liability is between the bank and the merchant, so it really shouldn't worry you.

Re: Funny Stuff

"The whole point of "Chip and Pin" is to move the ownership of loss and fraud to the account holder, it has nothing to do with security,"

FAIL.

It's to move liability to the merchant. Also yes, it has a lot to do with security, and despite a few attacks being published, has largely succeeded in at least part of its mission to reduce card copying and related fraud.