Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Justus Ranvier]

Notice how they keep throwing around "fraud proofs" as a reason to merge SW as quickly as possible, and yet won't answer questions about whether or not what they want to merge will actually include them, or what they actually do.

The only thing they will confirm for sure is that it's needed for Lightning Network.

Actually having working fraud proofs is fairly involved. It requires adding new messages to the P2P protocol, and a documented protocol for creating and verifying them, among other things.

If them merge SW without those things, they will actually be merging a fraud proof. It will just be a different fraud proof than what everyone was lead to believe.

 

[sickpig]

@Justus Ranvier what's sure is the fraud proof was not included in the initial Pieter' implementation (cited both by gmax's state of the nation email and even in the HK talk)

Let's see what they will replay to your direct question on btc dev ml.

One last point: is it me or core devs are trying to retreat and pushing for a SegWit only solution?

edit: grammar

 

[Aquent]

"> Peter, you allude to a specific suggestion from Luke-Jr. Can you
> > please describe what it is?
>
> Basically you have the pool pick a secret k for each share, and commit
> to H(k) in the share. Additionally the share commits to a target divider
> D. The PoW validity rule is then changed from H(block header) < T, to be
> H(block header) < T * D && H(H(block header) + k) < max_int / D
>
Thanks, this requires a change to the Bitcoin PoW. Good luck with that!

Once again, this suggestion would make the GHash-at-51% situation
possible again. Working extra hard to re-enable those painful days
sounds like a terrible idea."

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-December/012078.html

On a side note, glad to see Todd called out on his scaremongering tactics of NSA, GCHQ, CIA, kyc/aml, regulators etc. As we saw from the leaked btcdrak modlogs, their favourite tactic seems to be the raising of the specter of the NSA/kyc boogeyman, then once they have their audience terrified they move on to sell censorship, 1mb limits, etc.

Not to say of course that these concerns are always invalid, but then that is what makes this scaremongering strategy work.

 

[sickpig]

@Aquent wait "leaked btcdrak modlogs"? care to share a pointer?

 

[Aquent]

Pretty nice feature this. If only you could scroll up and down through it. Same with embedded quotations from reddit and other websites.

 

[sickpig]

If Gavin or one other said no to RBF, then shouldn't it be dead? Period.

this criteria seems to works one-way only.

all external proposals have to be scrutinized applying the 100% consensus rule and hence rejected.

for internal proposals as long as a core dev with commit bit set to 1 push it to the tree you're good.

some times you don't even need a BIP, namely opt-in full RBF.

internal are all the proposals that come from core devs and related crew.

 

[Aquent]

Wow. Some serious allegations towards Gregory Maxwell by a 0day account:

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3xoggf/was_maxwells_personal_reasons_to_drop_out_of_core/

"Fact: Gregory is an expert in elliptic curve encryption and co-author of the encryption codes in Core. Gregory was also one of the inventors of HD wallets.

Fact: Gregory used to work at Juniper Networks.

Fact: Juniper had a highly complex elliptic curve based backdoor added to their products in 2012.

Fact: The day the vulnerability was found Gregory quietly had his access to BlockstreamCore removed. Gregory has been completely silent and inactive since.

Fact: Several pieces of evidence have been posted connecting Maxwell to the US Government in the past.

Question: Was the removal of access voluntarily and for "personal reasons" as was claimed? If so what were those reasons?"

The only link he provides has an interesting exchange:

"nullc 15 points 5 days ago

Yes. Several of us have worked on production systems supporting multiple millions of users in the past. E.g. Outages in distributed systems I've worked on repairing prior to Bitcoin on have made international news."

"enlightened1024 [S] 3 points 5 days ago

Are you not at liberty to share details? It sounds like a cool story.

• petertodd 5 points 5 days ago
  
  /u/nullc used to work for Juniper Networks on their internet routers; given NDA's he's probably not in a position to get too specific. (he's never told me specifics)
  
  • PreventFlow -4 points 5 days ago
    
    Probably http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/global_net_outage/[1]
    
    I'm sure the failures Bitclown Core has has since Maxwell joined in are just coincidental and do not show a history of shoddy engineering."
  The clickable link provided by this second 0day account (PreventFlow) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/global_net_outage/

They are of course just allegations at this point, but pretty serious in nature. I would be shocked if they were shown to be true, but not hugely surprised (if that even makes any sense).

Regardless, someone needs to very carefully check libsecp256k1:
I am not sure if any outside and renown cryptoexpert has reviewed it. Custom crypto is known to be dangerous as there are countless of attack vectors hence why everyone suggests sticking with tried and tested.

 

[sickpig]

"10 GB Blocks" Ryan X. Charles

It is remarkable that it is possible for me to do this [1]. Imagine if I didn’t like the way ACH or Swift worked, and I wanted to change the protocol. There would be nothing I could do besides lobby banks and try to get them to listen to me. Since I have no relationship with banks, I would be powerless to affect change. But with bitcoin, I can implement any change I want, immediately, just by modifying the software.

[1] running his own version of full node software with a max block size limit set to 8 MB

 

[kyuupichan]

@molecular, @kyuupichan

I dunno. My feeling is that D&T's company simply went out of business and perhaps there were some communication issues towards the end. From what I know, Gerald worked extremely hard to make BitSimple successful.

I'm sure. And he was under pressure from regulatory BS too.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Fact: Several pieces of evidence have been posted connecting Maxwell to the US Government in the past.

About a month ago a zero day account showed up on Reddit posting screenshots of Facebook pages apparently showing that Gregory Maxwell came from a military family, and has a brother who is a "cyber operations flight commander" in the Air Force.

The post was deleted from Reddit, and also the pictures were removed from Imgur shortly after.

 

[rocks]

this criteria seems to works one-way only.

all external proposals have to be scrutinized applying the 100% consensus rule and hence rejected.

for internal proposals as long as a core dev with commit bit set to 1 push it to the tree you're good.

some times you don't even need a BIP, namely opt-in full RBF.

internal are all the proposals that come from core devs and related crew.

Well by those criteria shouldn't Gavin be able to push BIP101 in since he has commit access?

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[cypherdoc]

Wow. Some serious allegations towards Gregory Maxwell by a 0day account:

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3xoggf/was_maxwells_personal_reasons_to_drop_out_of_core/

"Fact: Gregory is an expert in elliptic curve encryption and co-author of the encryption codes in Core. Gregory was also one of the inventors of HD wallets.

Fact: Gregory used to work at Juniper Networks.

Fact: Juniper had a highly complex elliptic curve based backdoor added to their products in 2012.

Fact: The day the vulnerability was found Gregory quietly had his access to BlockstreamCore removed. Gregory has been completely silent and inactive since.

Fact: Several pieces of evidence have been posted connecting Maxwell to the US Government in the past.

Question: Was the removal of access voluntarily and for "personal reasons" as was claimed? If so what were those reasons?"

The only link he provides has an interesting exchange:

"nullc 15 points 5 days ago

Yes. Several of us have worked on production systems supporting multiple millions of users in the past. E.g. Outages in distributed systems I've worked on repairing prior to Bitcoin on have made international news."

"enlightened1024 [S] 3 points 5 days ago

Are you not at liberty to share details? It sounds like a cool story.

• petertodd 5 points 5 days ago
  
  /u/nullc used to work for Juniper Networks on their internet routers; given NDA's he's probably not in a position to get too specific. (he's never told me specifics)
  • PreventFlow -4 points 5 days ago
    
    Probably http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/global_net_outage/[1]
    
    I'm sure the failures Bitclown Core has has since Maxwell joined in are just coincidental and do not show a history of shoddy engineering."
  The clickable link provided by this second 0day account (PreventFlow) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/global_net_outage/

They are of course just allegations at this point, but pretty serious in nature. I would be shocked if they were shown to be true, but not hugely surprised (if that even makes any sense).

Regardless, someone needs to very carefully check libsecp256k1:
I am not sure if any outside and renown cryptoexpert has reviewed it. Custom crypto is known to be dangerous as there are countless of attack vectors hence why everyone suggests sticking with tried and tested.

last year i pointed out that Bitcoiner's are putting unprecedented amounts of faith in the home brew crypto that nullc has inserted into Confidential Transactions. i'm not a CS but even i know that individuals should not be cooking up their own forms of this.
[doublepost=1450716104,1450715463][/doublepost]

"10 GB Blocks" Ryan X. Charles



[1] running his own version of full node software with a max block size limit set to 8 MB

there's something brilliantly simplistic with what he just did. maybe it's b/c he wrote a blog post about it explaining his past history and motives.

congrats Ryan Charles!
[doublepost=1450716483][/doublepost]Nordstrom's continues to drop. this was the one of the first, if not the first, stock i was able to identify in Feb 2007 that led to the stock mkt crash of 2008/09:

[doublepost=1450716565][/doublepost]Apple continues it's roll:

 

[sickpig]

Well by those criteria shouldn't Gavin be able to push BIP101 in since he has commit access?

Actually he does not belong to the bitcoin core dev crew any more even if he still has commit rights and own keys to send message to full node operators.

You have to completely, uncritically accept the bitcoin core dogma to belong to the crew

 

[cypherdoc]

Interest rates continue to drop flying directly in the face of the Fed's stated decision to raise rates:

dollar continues it's drop. might as well buy Bitcoin:

$DJI hanging on by a thread:

Retail ETF telling the truth:

Energy? who the hell needs energy?:

[doublepost=1450717043][/doublepost]

Actually he does not belong to the bitcoin core dev crew any more even if he still has commit rights and own keys to send message to full node operators.

You have to completely, uncritically accept the bitcoin core dogma to belong to the crew

yeah, that was my impression too.

but that represents a total failure of Core governance; that they are able to push out someone who has the bona-fide and long standing credentials of a historical contributions and commit keys and access.

Blockstream has got to go.

 

[cypherdoc]

junk bonds continuing over the cliff:

[doublepost=1450719605][/doublepost]Hillary just solidified my non-support:

Clinton said, "I would hope that, given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project — something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/edward-snowden-clintons-call-for-a-manhattan-like-project-is-terrifying-20151220

not b/c i, or any other legitimate encryption user, has anything to hide. backdoors simply ruin the entire concept which is based on math.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

That would explain the lack of top altcoins advertizing their big blocks to capitalize on this debate: if they push too hard, they know that very pushing of the idea that Bitcoin is pointlessly stuck will cause Bitcoin to respond. They have to walk a fine line.

https://www.zapchain.com/a/l/litecoin-should-take-up-the-slack-for-bitcoin-its-made-for-micro-payments/z2lGBJkdoQ

 

[cypherdoc]

doesn't look too promising:

[doublepost=1450722507][/doublepost]here's the 1yr:

 

[solex]

This is from September, interview with Ross Nicoll of dogecoin:

...no-one seems to be leading an anti-increase group, so I’d not anticipate problems. We use 1MB blocks, but every minute instead of 10 minutes, giving us effectively 10 times the throughput of Bitcoin, which reduces pressure for a change to be made soon. The recent stress test of Dogecoin on the testnet up to around 500kB blocks (so 5MB equivalent for Bitcoin) went far better than expected, which is extremely encouraging about our ability to scale. I’m going to write up a proposal once Dogecoin Core 1.10 is out, and that will most likely involve moving to parity with the BIP 101 block size increments.
http://digiconomist.net/interview-ross-nicoll

@cypherdoc
Re: the Tylers of ZH
They seem to be ex-Goldman Sachs people, and keep a low profile. All I am thinking is that their regular posting of Bitcoin-positive articles shows that they are now likely to be investors in it too.

 

[cypherdoc]

this is a fairly sophisticated article almost parroting everything i've been saying about the general economy and Fed over the last year:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-21/feds-confidence-game-ending
[doublepost=1450723758][/doublepost]

This is from September, interview with Ross Nicoll of dogecoin:

...no-one seems to be leading an anti-increase group, so I’d not anticipate problems. We use 1MB blocks, but every minute instead of 10 minutes, giving us effectively 10 times the throughput of Bitcoin, which reduces pressure for a change to be made soon. The recent stress test of Dogecoin on the testnet up to around 500kB blocks (so 5MB equivalent for Bitcoin) went far better than expected, which is extremely encouraging about our ability to scale. I’m going to write up a proposal once Dogecoin Core 1.10 is out, and that will most likely involve moving to parity with the BIP 101 block size increments.
http://digiconomist.net/interview-ross-nicoll

@cypherdoc
Re: the Tylers of ZH
They seem to be ex-Goldman Sachs people, and keep a low profile. All I am thinking is that their regular posting of Bitcoin-positive articles shows that they are now likely to be investors in it too.

i get what they're saying but sometimes you're better off just following the charts: