You will be fine, there will be binaries provided, maidsafe purchased a license to be able to do that. It affects developers who want to do something more specific with a VFS on windows. We do hope eventually to create such a system ourselves or the community. So it wont affect users or developers, unless and dev wants a specific vfs change.

Its a current failing that windows has no open source alternative, Dokan looked good for a while but stalled. Somebody needs to create a proper fuse for windows.

There is some headline info here metaquestions.me/2014/04/12/safecoin-why-its-safe-and-what-it-means-for-us-all/ adn a ton of debate and detail on the developer list. We also have some info on the internal proof of resource token, but not publish state yet. You can see in the github history of the white paper (bad name). safcoin is a mutable data element on the network, if you check the docs here you will see how that works https://github.com/maidsafe/MaidSafe-Vault/wiki/Documentation adn the overview of the stack here maidsafe.net/network-platform-developers . The crypto details are in the common library (cryptopp wrappers).

This all needs pulled into a single implementation detailed design and this will happen pretty soon. If you think mutable signed data elements (xferable, so last and current owner, signed by last owner) then you will see it easily enough I think. The farming and builder algorithms though are a little more complex and several personas (from the vault docs) are chained in consensus groups of up to 6, these all have to agree on several items, these are then hashed and a PUT attempt is made on the network. If the key is empty for that coin then it is considered created. Otherwise teh attempt fails.   

So detailed design doc to come. Should not be long and it will appear in the wiki on github and on the dev mailing list.

Thanks for that. The folks in the office will appreciate that. Many worked all nighters several days in a row to get this done. We are all still in shock I think. The community spirit is amazing though, its looking very much a project with a ton of support and backing. Lot of hard work and not over yet. Thanks again though, we will try and live up to your expectations for sure.

It was thought by us all that as people seen MSC actually being used for the first time as the utility it was designed for that the price would climb quickly. So we thought it may be a bargain initially (if at all) and very quickly not be. So a balance early in sale, I told everyone when asked this was a BTC sale really, it needed MSC to run as that is how the protocol works. For a BTC sale we did have to set prices or have a dutch auction, then we wondered how to set prices each tx as there may be wild fluctuations and people thought it better to know exactly how  much msafe they ere buying for their purchase.

I never realised the speculative nature of purchasers would be so damaging or would even work. I honestly believed that people would see MP as increasing it's value as it proved itself. In the short time the sale ran it never had that chance. People were using it primarily as a route to cheaper msafe. I cannot blame them for that, but we thought only a few tx and the price would be probably past 0.2 quickly.

It seems many used MSC as a mechanism to purchase cheaply and the liquidity of it was less than we thought. David Johnston of BitAngels and JR Willets posted comment as well. You can get soem info  http://www.reddit.com/r/mastercoin/comments/23o60n/maidsafe_has_pulled_the_msc_payment_address/cgz6ag2 with links to David Johnstone who helped those MSC holders who felt left out. This all sounds bad for MSC holders and no way do I want that to be the case. I think MSC has a long way to go as many other projects have. I was very impressed by the MSC devs and team, very decent people, it's a shame to see some of the allegations they had to face. I hope it does increase in value as the MaidSafe foundation is holding a lot of it now.

We are having a public discussion to see what can be learned, obviously algorithms need to improve, guessing currency rates has to be better (can you ever get that right) and much more. It should be a great meeting for the projects that follow us.

I don't know how clear this is but it is honest for sure. tl;dr we got sidelined by a massive influx of support and had not set up for that speed of incoming MSC. The price was probably wrong, but hindsight exaggerates that for sure.    

[edit some typos and bad grammar as usual, clarified MaidSafe foundation]

You are more than welcome. If you read the papers and hear the Interviews. This was not about raising money for MaidSafe the company as much as for the community. The intention is that we build teams of developers in as many geographies as possible and get as many participants as we could.  This is hugely important to me and makes weird business sense. We raised money to create competitors, but being open source is not enough, there has to be a dissemination of the knowledge of the code for the SAFE network to be as successful as it can be. There is a commitment to pay 3 years of the current core team and this is to ensure the knowledge xfer can happen. After then we are exactly as valuable as any other core team or app developer on the network. This is key to the success I feel and is true decentralisation.

Anyhow the point was that this is to fuel the network and it will, maybe a little less financially but still a huge amount of supporters. We really thought only very few people knew of us and figured we would burn a lot of the 10% back for farmers and builders. Many of the processes the Master Protocol guys had set up were to roll out over the 30 days. We were all totally caught on the hop and that is why it was the best day for us all and the most scary thing I have ever seen. 

All 10% got purchased and that is great, even better is the amount of people, a huge amount of small purchasers was my goal and we reached that for sure. So all the staff in maidsafe were in with all their BTC as well as what seems like thousands of others, so a huge success, yes, lessons for others, absolutely. Tired, well yea you would not believe how much.

Do not worry we gave everyone the 40% discount. This was the step we had to take, to be fair. I figured that BTC holders were running the risk of being pushed out, also they ran the risk of all the bonus going to MSC holders. It was something we should have catered for better and a mistake in hindsight. We know now the Maser protocol rules way more than we did 2 weeks ago. It is a great system and we pushed it to the limits, those developers are amazing, but we slaughtered them with the speed of this.  

So we ended up with a super fast sale where the project got way too many MSC. We figured we may get 25% or so MSC and that was great as they had provided this system for us to be able to do the crowd sale and the devs there worked like mad to do it. As MSC is not as liquid as BTC we did want only a small amount, but this was us supporting the Mastercoin project as they supported us. I believe supporting each other is good. The 25% figure was something we could hope to see build value and liquidity over time, so great.

What happened shocked everyone, we had to act fast. So we purchased all msafe for BTC backers up front rather than manually converting on each purchase. This allowed everyone the same deal, even though our 0.2 figure for MSC was also clearly wrong in hindsight. This is a brand new space, there will be more mistakes by other projects, we need to support and help as well as critique when necessary. We learn by understanding our own mistakes and we progress by helping others.

I think it's amazing we were seen as some kind of pump and dump (not by you). We ended up with less liquidity when we need it to get the community developer teams up and running. The Master Protocol guys certainly did not want us to end up with a huge portion of MSC either as that is not great for them. So we made a mistake we never seen the rush come, but we paid for it by sacrificing approx $2-3.5 million in liquidity, but it was a stance we felt was fair on the community, our own concerns were secondary at that time. This does not count the fact the whole thing went for the 40% bonus rate, we (when I say we I mean the community not MaidSafe, it's the community that gets most of the funds we raised if we get it right) paid the price for our mistake in that way for sure. We can partially repay the wider community and we will by holding a meeting with all parties on Monday evening to figure out the mistakes, the good parts and how others can benefit, this will all be made public and hide nothing (as usual).

Why would we want loads of MSC and less BTC, people need to ask themselves this question, all our staff went full in BTC so it would make no sense at all.

The sale was amazing, we have several thousand buyers who are now part of making this all happen and now we have to work very hard to make sure they are all rewarded with a new Internet and an incredible currency. It's a humbling thing to see that level of support for a project, as a community we need to be very honest critical and brave. The huge majority are of the same opinion and that's amazing. We do need to clear up the messaging and everyone is very welcome to watch our meetings, read our emails (they are public at the dev list) and hopefully meet us at a show soon. Nothing like a meeting in person I think.

so thanks for your support and we will not let you down.

I am currently seen as the public head (not for long if I succeed). We have just spread this across the planet. It is all open, all owned by everyone and will be very difficult to stop. So now there is no public head, no company at the centre, this is decentralisation of the whole system. In terms of being infiltrated etc. if you knew anything at all about me (I am not being cheeky here) then you would know this was impossible for me to allow. If I quit all of a sudden then worry, I never and the code is our there. Many eyes are being trained on this now, many devs are to receive training from us and others to develop the core.

I am not money driven, so a hard target, no amount of cash could buy me off when I can see the face of some child who would be disadvantaged by not doing this. We are single entities us humans and part of a species. It is our individual duty to protect and further the species. If you can remove greed from your person you are already protected beyond belief. If the target becomes more than money, then that's the risk we take. I choose to accept that risk gladly.

My well being is irrelevant to the world when all is taken into account. The opportunity for a free privacy enhancing and secure mechanism of information transfer and protection is way more important than any single person or team. Knowing this, absolutely and with 100% conviction makes you a very difficult adversary for those who would choose to stop freedom. I believe this stance is an easy one for people to follow and adopt, the greed stance is so last century, more of us can count now, more of us are educated and more of us are building project SAFE each day.

I doubt there will be any backdoors, there may be attacks, we seen all the mt gox lies and deceit already spewed about , that only works with weak minds, I do not believe society is made up of weak minds. We can see now our eyes are opening and the path ahead should be clear. Lets take our Internet back for a start, a very small start, but a start never the less. We are taking these steps now, everyone is welcome to join, we can be legions for change and we all know this is an inevitability, no need to wonder. We will take back our freedom and dignity.

Backdoor that :-)

the heartbleed "bug" was discovered. That the beauty of open source. [there fixed that for you]

We are updating safecoin.io at the moment to explain this all a bit better. We have many similar emails and your point is valid. There is a spreadsheet linked on there now, you may still be in the last few people to receive the coins. It will become much simpler very soon. The Maser protocol guys are working their buts off to make it easier and that is a good thing. A wee bit of pressure sometimes makes things move faster. Sorry about any hassle, we will come good.

Yes we have refunded a load of people who made that mistake to allow them to buy in from another source if they wish.

I just came across this a few mins back. I am not quite sure what it means. Are these stolen coins? and what does it mean. Is there a way to stop them or perhaps even block the MSAFE whilst it is still a digital asset. I will speak with the MSC guys, I think we need more info though. If some bitcoin core devs could pitch in and work with us it would be great. Gavin for instance. Is it possible to shout out to him?

I have seen this sort of thing a lot and many times Gavin and co can provide more info and even investigation. If it is indeed bad behaviour then I am all in favor of stopping it as it harms the community for sure. We do need to be 100% though and the bitcoin core dev team can help.

Yes, the data is always encrypted chunked compressed and obfuscated. A huge part of the crowd sale was the importance of making this a global community. So the community are now taking over, creating their own forums etc. We will assist in setting up international independent dev pools. This is our best protection as the code becomes more community owned and importantly community driven. When we have devs from all over the place working on the core then we will be protected against such issues. I would hope if MaidSafe were forced to put in a backdoor

1: I would certainly quit immediately

2: I think many, if not all staff would do likewise

3: The community would detect this and ban us from any repository immediately.

I have said to many people this is evolution, you cannot stop evolution. We all need to change our ways as new tech happens (bitcoin for instance). Sometimes the harder the man pushes the tougher the crowd becomes. I think natural evolution will give us a free Internet and this is our shot at it. Somebody else may do it better and that is cool, as long as it happens.  

We got caught on the hop, systems were still being developed and tested and we were to introduce things through the 30 days as it developed. It finished even before we could tell what was happening nearly. Amazing and great to see support, but the most frightening thing in my life so far (and I took to rough seas as a volunteer lifeboat helmsman to save people in danger, so this is no exaggeration on how scary this was).

What we did was allow BTC funders to participate, MSC was all purchased by us. BitAngels offered and paid out MSAFE to MSC holder who were aggrieved and could prove they had MSC. I think what was achieved was the fairest mechanism possible and we did the whole sale for 40% discount for everyone. I cannot see that as greed or erosion of trust. It was a difficult and fast decision which rightly alarmed everyone. We did do a release as soon as we could to explain it all, but no action would have meant all early BTC funders were locked out and that would have been the unfair part.

Looking back, yes I would have done it different, so would the Master Protocol guys. It was a tsunami we never seen (yes possibly we should have) coming and we had to action in the benefit of the masses and we did. There is a public meet tonight with many of the parties involved to do a 'warts and all' walk through to improve any upcoming crowd sales. This should help out anyone following us in the leading edge process we took part in. On that point we managed the situation by sticking together and focussing on the community first, then the projects last.

So yes mistakes happened and will be learned from, but lack of morality is not very fair for anyone involved as far as I could tell anyway.

Good point, I think many of these projects all get along at the team level. It seem to be supporters of some who argue and cast wild allegations against who they think are competitors. As a community I think we need to support everything and keep very vigilant for the vapourware or poor projects and scams that will inevitably come. Since we started (maidsafe) speaking to the press etc. for instance we got some strange mails that we mostly ignored.

I was a slashdotter for years and that community were very good at pulling things apart and getting to the bottom of most things. They relied on the RTFM mentality and really forced people to speak with some authority in many cases. The [citation required] etc. comments seemed to work well and people trolling or just being accusing were dealt with pretty well. I cannot say much now as I am not there as much, it was great for a while though.

In talking with MasterCoin guys, NXT and Ethereum we seem to be very friendly at the project level, I think each of us projects need to jump on that behaviour to. We tend to vote down people who go on reddit etc. and slag off bitcloud or ethereum saying (incorrectly) maidsafe are simply better. It's not even a comparison as some of these projects have different goals and motivations, i.e. ethereum and MaidSafe could be parts of an amazing system in harmony, but they will not depend on each other for sure. The world will decide who is best not us.  I think many of the projects perhaps do the same and try and calm down extreme comments or misguided behaviour, we should maybe do more.

Opinion is great though, but mis-information or trolling kills good community forums. I think your approach seems pretty balanced and not always positive to MaidSafe, which is fine, we kinda like that. Everyone needs their feet on the ground.

We have something slashdot never though and that's lots and lots of meetup opportunities, nothing like looking in somebody's eyes when they speak to you. So if anyone see's me about feel free to do just that.

Not really, I am not sure the source is available for that. I see they use FEC, we do not, instead we use replication, and we disperse data randomly across a DHT Address space with replication and failover techniques involving account synchronisation and an accumulator pattern.

The point is it is not maidsafe any more. MaidSafe is now part of a huge community and one that grows each day now. The community are taking over creating forums, looking at and testing code and networks and developing applications. The raise will pay for some of this, so MaidSafe will be using some money to set up competitors in core development, which is great.

We are proud members of the maidsafe community and believe this is true open source, open development and real decentralisation. We have a huge job to do in the next few months to kick off the network and help some devs get their apps on line, we will become less important very soon. We should all celebrate this way of working, it is decentralisation and a business model that may prove to be radical and copied by many. Of course we all see the dangers etc. but nobody got anywhere without moving things forward, lets see what's round the next corner :-)

Excellent opinion, all of the network is a probability matrix really. I suppose all crypto is as well. The key as you rightly point out is to make the probability of loss or collision so low it is negligible over a huge timescale. It is hard to get your head around this for some people, me included at the start, as you think cpu == 100% correct math all the time. It's just not true in real life, everything is a probability and this is an excellent point, well made.

Thanks (btw address space is 2^512 so larger than the number of atoms in visible universe almost squared, not always good to use that number but a good starting point in the thought process)

The encryption is all handled client side and explained in the papers and in the code (encrypt library). It is a form of convergent encryption and chunking. The network cannot decrypt the data, neither could any human without the keys (barring of course some massive code error etc. like any system). The code is all open source and audited by many devs universities and other parties. You can take a look and see how we have done some of these things, it is pretty good we think.

The point of the whole thing is you are in control, you and the machine, no humans and no intermediaries. That is a more natural way to work and very scalable.