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  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    King George would just love the idea
    Now that I think about it, King George (Bush) created it in defiance of his 'just a GD piece of paper' oath.
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  • Posted by SaltyDog 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Tragically, we now have 'secret' federal courts as well to deal with just this kind of situation. In theory it might be a good idea (an idea that I don't share), but in practice, secrecy begets tyranny.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It appears to be as I understood.
    There is no bigger money than the banksters (at present) and the feds not far behind. If destruction/control of the market becomes a priority, processor capability will not be an obstacle. Likely there are investments already in play with the goal of controlling the market.
    These organizations exist by controlling financial markets to their advantage and have done so for centuries under constant change. To assume their advantages will be overturned by bitcoin would be naive. I would love to be wrong about this though.
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  • Posted by RobertFl 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    They still require CPU time. 10 VM's require 10 slices of time off the one CPU -10 vm's running at 1/10th speed. It's processor intensive. When it's mining, your processor does nothing else. No running a mining operation in the background while chatting in the Gulch :-)
    Miners are usually paralleling ASIC processors, or high speed video cards. Standard Motherboard CPUs just don't have the computational ability to compete. I looked at mining, and the fact is, unless you get some expensive, high speed, water cooled stuff, the electricity cost will exceed your mining gains.
    Once people with money got into the mining game, they pushed mom-n-pop miners out. If you wanted to setup a small scale miner on a solar panel, you might make a little scratch off it.
    Last I heard, there are 100,000's of processors running. VM's won't do it to over take it. These dedicated processors are running 180,000 MegaHashes/second. You can actually go to ZeroBlock and see what the hash rate currently is. That's what you'd have to over come.
    FWIW, I make bitcoin by MicroLending bitcoins. (btcjam.com), and I move bitcoin in and out of gold/silver with bitreserve.org - that takes the volatility out of it. Not wanting to get rich, just keep what I got. I do actually make more purchases through Overstock.com now because they accept bitcoin. they're a bit more expensive then say Amazon, but I really want to do what I can to encourage bitcoin acceptance.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Embrace the coin, for it is good. :-)
    If for no other reason than it pisses of(f) the government."
    Hear hear!
    Thanks for the tech explanation, but how are virtual machines accounted for in the process?
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  • Posted by RobertFl 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I really think it's worth the time to fully understand bitcoin. I was skeptical of it at first until I researched it. I'm on board with it. It just needs time to grow, it'll happen.
    go to youtube and search for "world bitcoin network", James DeAngelo has some very good Bitcoin 101 vids. He has a number of technical, and non-technical vids. They don't seem to list in any order, but that's a youtube thing, so you have to hunt around his channel to find them.
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  • Posted by RobertFl 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I've always heard, size doesn't matter, but a two pump chump is a non-starter.
    Now that I have that out of my system...
    Theft of Bitcoin only occurs if you leave you bitcoin wallet unprotected - they aren't hacked and stolen.
    The block chain is freely accessible to anyone. It isn't encrypted.
    The safety is that everyone has a copy of the block chain. The challenge would be to convince all those computers to nearly instantaneously accept a false transaction. The only way to do that is to exceed the number of computers that are working the block chain. All it would take is one computer to reject that transaction, and its done.
    So, if bitcoins popularity diminished such that only 1000 computers were working transactions, then apparently there is no longer interest in it - so, there is no need to attack it.
    As for control, control what? That's the other nice thing about it, there is no control, the control is in the public trust. Ergo, the only way to wreck it, or control it is to destroy the public trust in it. But, that would only destroy the trust in bitcoin, not the block chain technology. Another digital currency would emerge. I think digital currency is here to stay, in some form.
    Embrace the coin, for it is good. :-)
    If for no other reason than it pisses of the government.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think size and speed makes a difference, too, but imo, when it is important to wreck and control bitcoin market it won't be computer power that does it.
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  • Posted by RobertFl 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No. It is calculable how much computer power, and electricity it would take for such an attack and with over 100,000 computers mining bitcoins and processing transactions, they would half to have 100,000+1 more computers to do it.
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  • Posted by RobertFl 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    They can't. They do not have the computational power to perform a 51% attack on the block chain. That's the nice thing about bitcoins.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 7 months ago
    The Nuremberg Defense "I was only following orders," was explained to us in our UCMJ and Oath of Allegiance classes this way.

    "It's not a defense but a voluntary admission of guilt combined with a plea for clemency or lighter sentence."

    Thereafter followed a lecture with discussion on what would constitute an illegal order. Two points.

    The individual giving the illegal order would have no protection under the ''officers appointed over" clause.

    Neither was the illegal order confined to such things as overtly barbaric acts that violated the Status Of Forces Agreement, Rules Of Engagement or any of the governing laws or Laws of Land (or sea or air) Warfare.

    An interesting point for the 60's and 70's was to what extent was the military to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

    One point was in the event of a material or legal change without a supporting change by amendment as required.

    Given the contents of the Patriot Act it makes one wonder when the military is going to follow it's oath, or what it would take, if ever.

    I'm wondering if some future President might repeal all the unamended changes or parts ignored, or slithered around, or redefined and called the current military leaders in front of a General Court - if they would make such a voluntary confession of guilt.

    Might live to see it. But not with the present None Of The Above candidates being offered. I do not follow the Jesuit saying that the end justifies the means. Nor do I accept supporting the lesser of two evils defense. Like the accused in the Nuremberg Trials the degree of support for evil only affects the sentence awarded. The guilt is a self proclaimed foregone conclusion.

    Case in point is appointing people when Congress was In Session but not holding business on the floor of the Senate. Clearly a power not given to the Chicago Shyster and not excused by the defense ''the Supreme Court hasn't yet visited that particular portion.

    To me it was an immediate reason for impeachment proceedings which along with other items having not occurred should have rung bells in the leadership of the military.

    The foregoing was personal opinion - yet it makes me wonder what instruction and discussions are being held in the ranks of today's military.
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  • Posted by strugatsky 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ha!, No one had to get any dirt on Him to back down from that promise! (BTW, he brought enough of His own dirt). Did you really believe any of His promises in the first place? I am sooo sorry!
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  • Posted by strugatsky 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Which court? -- the kangaroo one run in Washington? Really? Should the former Soviet dissidents that escaped from Mother Russia have been sent back to face the Soviet courts?
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  • Posted by $ Genez 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Exactly right. This is not the nation it was even just 30 years ago. I read the Wired article with Snowden and got the impression of a true American who loves his country. He is realistic though about the totalitarian government that we live under.... We are not as free as we think we are...
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  • Posted by $ jdg 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It was Bush II who created our country's Bastille. One of Obama's few campaign promises I liked was to close it. I wonder what dirt they got on him to make him back down. ("They" being the secret government.)
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    To ffa:
    I thought that was true under the current administration, but was hopeful that a change of parties might ameliorate that situation. Upon examining my thoughts of the last few years, I may be deluding myself, substituting a desire for reality. Maybe I've been watching too much Law &; Order or Blue Bloods.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    To jdg:
    It was beyond my comprehension that the USA has gone that far down the totalitarian road. I thought that perhaps in another 10 years or so, but you believe that we're already there. Examining your take and giving a lot of thought I have concluded that you just might be right. You have no idea how much this saddens me, because I was raised and lived through an entirely different country.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 10 years, 7 months ago
    In a perfect world, Snowden would be assured of a fair and public trial. He would then agree to return to the US and face the music. There would be such a trial as promised - and he would be found guilty of having broken a contract of confidentiality but the jury would nullify any charge of treason.

    He would be sentenced to two years of cleaning out the latrines in public parks all over the US, living in a van and driving from park to park. (Since it is a hypothetical perfect world, security would not have to be provided to keep someone from ambushing him.) This would put him in casual contact with people all over the US, who could personally tell him their varied feelings about what he did. He would listen, and grow.

    At the end of two years, his sentence would be done. Maybe we could have a parade and give him a big freakin' medal for service to the American people. Then he could be put on the president's cabinet as an adviser for security and freedom.

    (Unfortunately, the delta between my vision and the real world is large.)

    Jan
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  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Exactly right, jdg.
    There is no justice in the Justice Dept, especially for political prisoners. Snowden would love to come back if he could get a fair trial with jury nullification as a possibility. That is not likely from the gang of looters and thieves in the Dark Center. Republicans and Democrats: United Statists .
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  • Posted by $ jdg 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Espionage per se needs to be illegal. But the government cannot be allowed to classify anything it wants, or the first amendment becomes worthless. Indeed, existing law quite rightly limits classification to facts that would harm the national security if revealed. The trick is getting courts to enforce that condition and not just take spy agencies' word for it, even when there are obvious motives for them to wrongly classify stuff (such as, revealing it would embarrass some VIP with a lot of pull).

    As things stand now, the courts are not willing to do this, and that does make the law unconstitutional as applied.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 10 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Get real. They would never try Snowden in open court; they'd send him to Gitmo just to make sure he never gets to open his mouth in front of an American TV camera.

    I don't think anyone is a coward for refusing to subject himself to that. I just hope he doesn't try to sneak home anyway; that's how a lot of other defectors get nailed.

    If he's smart, he'll find asylum somewhere better soon. Maybe Germany -- Angela Merkel doesn't especially appreciate having been a US spying target.
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