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Showing 17 of 17 results by kurtosis
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: [Open Discussion] Centralized Bitcoin Services at Mt. Gox
by
kurtosis
on 07/03/2012, 00:16:07 UTC
Everyone agrees, it's finding a safe alternative that's hard.
Has anyone taken a look at the Dark Exchange project?  Appears stalled now, but was an attempt to build a decentralized P2P bitcoin exchange on top of I2P.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoinica lost 43,554 BTC from Linode compromise, suspicious TXIDs publicized
by
kurtosis
on 04/03/2012, 09:23:09 UTC
I just want to note that after MtGox got severely hacked, it became one of the most secure Bitcoin exchanges out there.
I was wondering about that, being one of the people whose account was hacked.  How do you know this?
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Peter Thiel on Bitcoin
by
kurtosis
on 02/03/2012, 19:55:02 UTC
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoinica Warning: Please do not re-use any old Bitcoin deposit addresses
by
kurtosis
on 02/03/2012, 03:18:39 UTC
- Customer data is safe.

The compromised server was entirely dedicated to holding our bitcoin "hot wallet" only. Thankfully, this function is the –only- one ever hosted at Linode. No customer data has ever been hosted at Linode. Also, there is no privileged access from the affected server. This means that no passwords, account activity, or any other customer data has been exposed by this incident.
I just noticed that the Bitcoinica login page appears to have no lost/forgot password functionality, that the only way to change your password is to successfully login and change it from the admin account.  Might I suggest adding this feature?  

The reason is that if Bitcoinica is ever cracked and the pwd database stolen, the thieves could run a script that changes all the passwords, as the Mt. Gox hackers did last summer.  I, having stupidly used the same login credentials as my Facebook and Twitter accounts, lost both those social media accounts in addition to my Mt.Gox one.  

It was only because they had password reset functionality publicly exposed on the login page that I was able to quickly send myself a pwd reset email and get them back before they also changed my account email address or any other harm was done.  

But as it is, if such an attack ever succeeds on Bitcoinica, the account is gone, no way for the user to quickly recover it.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoinica Warning: Please do not re-use any old Bitcoin deposit addresses
by
kurtosis
on 02/03/2012, 02:48:38 UTC
That's why

we should support BIP16 as soon as possible...
Actually no.  This too will pass.  Bitcoin is a multi-decade project, and once technical decisions are written into the blockchain they are very hard or impossible to reverse.

Hence, it's much more important for the dev team to resist artificial time pressures and focus on making the right decision for the long-term, even if they need to take longer in the short-term to fully understand the ramifications and consequences of crucial technical decisions.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Advertise Bitcoin on every single banknote ( and make a new game ? )
by
kurtosis
on 02/03/2012, 02:17:32 UTC
Why isn't wheresgeorge shut down then?  There must be some way around it if they have managed to keep straight for so long.
Government couldn't care less about WheresGeorge.  Judging from the legal history of alternative currency attempts, they care a great deal about that.

Keep in mind that while there is a lot of energy and enthusiasm among bitcoiners, the project is still in its infancy, is still relatively untested, is breaking new and unknown ground, and still needs to be husbanded to maturity and robustness before 'taking on the world'.

There are still known problems that have to be solved, like concentrated mining pool power undermining the whole notion of a decentralized currency, and unknown unknowns (say, what if Facebook created a bitcoin client which overtook the canonical one in users and then forked the blockchain with an incompatible mod?).

So I think it's best not to get too ahead of ourselves just yet, stay humble, and avoid antagonizing governments.  

Further, the establishment appears to be doing the work of popularizing bitcoin all on their own.  It's looking more and more inevitable that the USD is on a path of no return, and one day the consequences of decisions being made now by the Fed and US Govt will materialize, and all of sudden things like bitcoin and precious metals and other non-inflationary assets will get real popular real fast.  No need to rush it or force it, it will happen.  In the meantime, better to focus on working to the make core technology and supporting ecosystem as hardened, robust, and mature as possible.

Patience, grasshopper Smiley.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Advertise Bitcoin on every single banknote ( and make a new game ? )
by
kurtosis
on 02/03/2012, 01:40:35 UTC
There's probably enough leeway there for the government to construe widespread defacement of bills with adverts for competing currency as illegal.  I wouldn't try to start such a movement, more likely to attract the kind of attention bitcoin doesn't want.
The fed don't need to take up any "leeway" they gave, advertising on money is illegal. OP is 100 years too late to the idea of putting advertisements on US money. Somebody already annoyed them enough they made a law against it before we were born.
I was sure that was the case, thanks for digging up the statute.

I'd estimate this idea has a negatively assymetrically skewed expected payoff for bitcoin as a whole, better to shelve it and come up with something else that doesn't directly antagonize governments.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoin Magazine
by
kurtosis
on 01/03/2012, 21:00:03 UTC
Great idea!  Just checked the site, no social media icons yet.  Don't forget to create Twitter, FB, G+ accounts and post periodically so your followers can re-tweet and whatnot.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Advertise Bitcoin on every single banknote ( and make a new game ? )
by
kurtosis
on 01/03/2012, 20:46:32 UTC
It's legal grey area:  

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5711/has-anyone-been-charged-with-defacing-money

TLDR:  It's illegal if done with intent to render the bills "unfit to be reissued".

There's probably enough leeway there for the government to construe widespread defacement of bills with adverts for competing currency as illegal.  I wouldn't try to start such a movement, more likely to attract the kind of attention bitcoin doesn't want.
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Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: How to create a PULL request
by
kurtosis
on 26/02/2012, 00:42:28 UTC
or optionally (for posterity of a stickied thread):

Code:
git add -A
git commit -m 'added awesome new feature'
git push -u origin master

Explanations for -A and -u.  Generally only use -A if all the modifications to be committed are a single bundle of functionality, describable by the same commit message.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Peter Thiel on Bitcoin
by
kurtosis
on 21/02/2012, 23:43:43 UTC
I still believe there is little use in trying to convince people up high to buy into Bitcoins and just let them be with their ignorance and/or FUD and instead just come to an understanding that it's us who are in charge.

The less you debate about Bitcoin the more gets done > more applications > more users > more profit.

+1. 

"Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn't violate too many of Newton's Laws!"  - Alan Kay
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Peter Thiel on Bitcoin
by
kurtosis
on 20/02/2012, 10:16:02 UTC
Did you know?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel

Quote
Thiel is listed as a member of the Steering Committee of The Bilderberg Group, a controversial group of influential business and government leaders who meet annually behind closed doors under a media blackout to discuss world issues.
He's an interesting cat for sure.  Log cabin Republican, strong Libertarian, and basically head of the Bilderbergs.  One of these things is not like the others (and these days, that would be Libertarian rather than Bilderberg).
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Board Beginners & Help
Re: Newbies Hangout
by
kurtosis
on 16/02/2012, 03:49:45 UTC
... going to get my 5th post here and be done with it.  Think I've lurked, listened, and learned long enough.
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Board Beginners & Help
Re: Newbies Hangout
by
kurtosis
on 16/02/2012, 03:48:44 UTC
All the threads I want to post in are outside the Newb forum, so...
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Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: Tradehill shutdown & the Money Transmission Act
by
kurtosis
on 14/02/2012, 01:43:07 UTC
Not with Tradehill, they're all available for withdrawal.
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Board Beginners & Help
Topic OP
Tradehill shutdown & the Money Transmission Act
by
kurtosis
on 14/02/2012, 01:19:55 UTC
I'm been a lurker till now, don't have 50 posts, so can't post this in the main thread, but it looks like Tradehill has been a victim of the California Money Transmission Act.  For anyone curious about the details, this Quora post from last year explains it.

TLDR:  Money transmission companies operating in CA now have to get licensed for domestic transfers (previously only for international).  Costs:
1.  $500,000+ (just in CA, not to mention 43+ other US states with similar laws)
2.  Requires background check, fingerprinting, the works.
3.  Jail for founders now a possibility under the PATRIOT Act for transmitting money illegally without a license.
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Board Beginners & Help
Re: Introduce yourself :)
by
kurtosis
on 26/06/2011, 22:38:04 UTC
Hi all, I've had an interest in currency systems for several years now and a casual interest in bitcoin for several months.  The MtGox hack really got my attention, so I'm here to learn as much about btc, virtual currencies, and virtual currency exchanges as possible.  My new hobby.