Quote from: Judson on December 09, 2010, 08:25:38 PM

Quote from: RHorning on December 09, 2010, 07:20:18 PM

I don't think this is going to go away, as there are other application for Bitcion which can use this same principle. As I've tried to abundantly explain, the method of "attack" here is also a more generalized database for other kinds of data besides DNS records.

The benefit to Bitcoins is in regards to the mining activity needed to produce block chains containing non-financial data: Either that CPU activity can be applied to the main Bitcoin block chain and thus strengthening Bitcoin as a whole or it can be applied to a "parallel currency".

If people want to use fake Bitcoin transactions and use either the timestamp or some other method of encoding data into a regular bitcoin transactions, that is fine. But what I am against is the main Bittorent protocol officially sanctioning some kind of Domain registry protocol, or any other arbitrary data protocol for that matter. The chain still benefits from the increased cpu power, without having to create a different transaction type.

I am mostly in agreement here too in terms of putting a hash into Bitcion blocks, and then letting whoever has data to lock in with a block to decide on the protocol to associate with that hash. There is no reason for uninterested parties to have to deal with BitDNS data.... that is up to those who want to participate in giving that hash any sort of meaning, however that meaning is established.

Satoshi himself seems to be mostly in agreement with at least that basic concept. I'm glad that this is being addressed head on and being dealt with. It is a hook to put data associated with a Bitcoin transaction block, not the data itself. The data from a hash can represent a single byte or represent all of the data at various national repository libraries like the Library of Congress. It is application specific for how that hash will have meaning, if any, and those are applications beyond Bitcoin.

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Would you not agree that at least for mainstream adoption, you wouldn't want to confuse the message about what bitcoin actually is?

No, not really. This is an additional service which can be provided to those in the Bitcoin community, and one that will also result in more widespread adoption of Bitcoins overall. I think this is a good thing, even though I do think there should be some strongly proscribed limits in terms of how much of this junk data can be thrown in. Restricting the extra data to just a single hash puts such a limit in.

The issue here is that a block chain in and of itself has value, and that somehow some applications can be derived which can use the concept of a block chain in some way to serve their own ends and add value to something they are doing. Domain registration happens to be a good fit, and furthermore it is something which is currently of interest among those who are trying to develop a peer to peer registration system outside of the Bitcoin community. It is a ripe opportunity to both further the cause of Bitcoin and to reach out to others.

I do agree that some sort of illicit types of activity would better be left to the side even though we as a community have discussed how to do various things like engaging in drug trade or sharing child pornography. Bitcoin isn't a replacement for bittorrent and it certainly shouldn't see abuse like the Twitter File System. TwitterFS is something to behold and really shows how a public free good can be abused. The one check here, beyond rejecting "non-standard transactions", is also to charge for the bandwidth through requiring a transaction fee.

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And FWIW, there is not more "built-in" demand for another alternate currency. If anything, only being able to use them in a DNS setting makes them a less viable competitor to Bitcoin.

On this I disagree, but then again it would be something settled in the marketplace of ideas. I'm using economic theory here to suggest that Bitcions forcing these "non-standard" transactions into another currency is going to also drive value out of Bitcoin into that alternate currency. If I am right and you are wrong, Bitcoin simply collapses as a currency. It might be fun to find out though.... do you want to really engage in that kind of experiment? That is why this is on the economic forum, as this is an economic question rather than simply a technical forum.

If you are correct and I'm wrong, no harm to Bitcion, yet I think there would still be some value in the alternate currency so far as rewarding "miners" who create the blocks. I outlined at least one alternate currency idea in the BitDNS thread, even though now it is buried in a wall of discussion. I also expressed concern that it could conceivably become stronger than Bitcion and tried to come up with perhaps a few "tweaks" to deliberately make it weaker but I'm not sure if that is possible either.

Quote from: FreeMoney on December 09, 2010, 09:07:36 PM

Quote from: kiba on December 09, 2010, 08:33:10 PM

Quote from: Judson on December 09, 2010, 08:25:38 PM

And FWIW, there is not more "built-in" demand for another alternate currency. If anything, only being able to use them in a DNS setting makes them a less viable competitor to Bitcoin.

Alternate currency? BitDNS is not a competitor to bitcoin, it's [edit] supposed to serve the purpose of domain registration.

But there will be some reward for generating in the bitDNS chain, right? And that reward will be transferable? And used for fees? Maybe I'm confused, but that sounds like a good money.

It is good money. So good that in fact I think it might in the short term dominate Bitcoin for awhile depending on how it is done. From a pure economic standpoint, we know for a fact that there are people willing to pay on the order of a few dollars to hundreds of dollars for buying domain names using existing domain registries. Other figures are up that there are as many as 300,000 domain transactions per day going through InterNIC, so that represents potentially over a million dollars per day of overall economic activity for just this one concept. That is huge money in terms of its impact upon the Bitcoin economy and perhaps even a "killer app" in terms of kick starting Bitcoin to being accepted by many more people than the current geek/paranoid about the government community we currently have. I'm not saying that this would bring in millions of dollars for the collective BitDNS registrars in the first several years, but it certainly would bring in new users for Bitcions that don't exist. By driving this concept into another currency, those people are thus driven from Bitcoin as well.

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I'm pretty conflicted on whether new apps should attach to the chain or start a new one. I know the security benefits of having only one chain. But doesn't it seem silly for the first bitDNS users to need the whole list of previous bitcoin transactions? And then both chains will grow faster than otherwise. It just doesn't seems optimal for every app to need all the data from every other app in order to work.

Reality is though that if a few people think it's good to put the data in there then they are going to do it. If this is a problem for bitcoin then it is a problem with how bitcoin works. We can't just trust that people won't use something that would be useful to them for all time because it wasn't the original intent.

Pandora's box is already open on this issue. The main thing is trying to see how to limit the damage this might cause, not if Bitcoin can be used in this fashion.

If you are setting up a second chain and thus a second currency, it is more than just security, it is also driving away a population of potential users. Perhaps Bitcoin would be better off without them. But that is a political and not a technical question. I am suggesting that at this juncture that Bitcoin would suffer more harm than good.

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I fully realize that I may be making a bad assumption about the viability of using the current chain as a DNS, I'd love to hear why it can't work or wouldn't be the most efficient way. An explanation that completely ignores any harm to bitcoin.

Anybody adding data to the current Bitcoin data chain (particularly for just a simple hash) is going to be required to "pay their freight" in terms of getting included in a particular block. Large transactions already have to pay a per kilobyte fee that is rather substantial even with current network rules, and there is no reason why extra "penalties" can't be put upon those who shove other random data into Bitcoin. I would suggest economic rules rather than technical rules to keep this stuff out if that is your goal.

The real potential harm here is that it will end the day for free transactions (for the most part). This new "additional data" is valuable enough that getting it put into a block chain is going to throw down the gauntlet of transaction fees and would compete against those who just want to experiment with sending a few Bitcoins back and forth to try out how you might start up some sort of enterprise with Bitcoins. Instead, to get those kind of transactions included may require paying a transaction fee instead. I can see where some people are angry with that happening, but it is going to be a fact of life for those using Bitcoins sooner or later. Raising the bar on fee transactions where there is a market willing to pay much higher fees for a transaction than is currently the case is certainly an issue, but one that I think Bitcoin will survive. Having more transaction fees included in a block chain is also going to add an incentive to create a miner, as on average much more money is going to be "made" by doing that.

I really think the complaint here is on the part of those who don't want to pay transaction fees and want to keep that free.