Transferring ownership of digital information (in a p2p system) ?

[Skybuck Flying]

Hello,

The digital coin idea mentions "transferring of ownership" of digital
information (credit coins).

I am very doubtfull/skeptical if this can actually be done via computers.
Computers themselfes seem more like copieing machines.

Computers can also pretty easily fool other computers into making them
believe information was deleted/or modified while in reality it was not.

So personally at this point I do not see how "transferring ownership of
digital information (in a p2p system)" could possibly work (securely) ?!?

What are your thoughts on this at your level of expertise
(software/hardware/electronics/game-theory/math wise) ?

In case you interested in the idea of digital coint then I can point you
towards this website:

http://digitalcoin.info/

It also has a forum where I also asked more or less this same question and
raised my doubt about it in a somewhat more lengthy posting ;)

Personally I think just because of this one issue it might be technically
infeasible but I hope I am wrong, who can prove me wrong ?! ;) :) =D

So in short the problem is as follows:

Computer A must transfer ownership of digital information to Computer B.

Computer A must give up ownership.

Computer B must take ownership.

My reasoning is:

Computer A can fool computer B and not give up ownership, thereby creating
duplicate ownership, which would be bad ?

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

I don't like the web much, information tends to get lost in it, therefore I
shall post my posting on that webforum here just for historical and
completeness reasons ! ;) :) =D
(Might be an interesting read for some or myself in the future ! ;) =D)

Hello,

I've always wondered if it was possible to create some kind of (possibly
p2p) digital coin system, therefore I think it's great that somebody who
seems to deeply know how the financial system works give it some thought.
Some of the predictions in the videos have already become true. Ofcourse it
could be a self-forfilling-prohecy or it could be the real thing So far
it's starting to seem to be the real thing

The digital coin concept which he presents is quite new it seems, at least
to me, the video on youtube is from 11 october(10) 2011, I just found it
today at 30-october(10)-2011.

I also took a quick look at the documents/specifications/pdf's for Digital
Coin. So far the documents seem to be about the general idea but are
faint/vague on technical details or implementation details which is probably
because it's still in an early stage/just an idea. Perhaps the
author/inventor(?) of digital coin idea is not a programmer, to me it seems
the inventor(?) assumes that his idea has no technical hurdles, I am very
much in doubt about that at this point in time. I do not expect this forum
to solve any technical problems any time soon, but I do hope that perhaps
some more light can be shine on the technical problems which I will discuss
below. Perhaps I will also discuss these problems on other forums/usenet to
see if technically-minded people can invent technical solutions to make
digital coin a (safe/secure) reality.

But before I ask/consult with technical people it could be wise to first
consult with this forum which is specifically ment for digital coin. Perhaps
my technical concerns have already been solved, in either idea's or perhaps
in implementations in the alternative systems which are also mentioned on
this forum.

My concern is with the following vague ideas about digital coin:

1. Uniqueness.
2. Transferring of ownership.
3. Use of computers.

My main concern is with 1 "uniqueness" and 2 "transferring" this goes
directly into what a computer basically is: a computer can be thought of as
a copieing machine. So the whole idea of "transferring" information from one
computer to the next worries me. This is not what happens in practice in
practice information is "duplicated/copied" not transferred.

My second general concern is introduction of computers into something which
should be pretty simply: "exchanging money from hand to hand". By
introducing computers enormous complexity is introduced.

I am willing to put aside my second concern just for the sake of discussing
the technical feasibility of the idea and to explore if perhaps some kind of
new technology could be created for it. However software/hardware doesn't
really matter since it's interexchangable. What matters is if the idea is
theoretically secure.

I will add one more word of advice/caution: In all my life as a gamer I have
yet to come across a video game which was not hackable/cheatable. The only
game which was somewhat secure was stratego, because players are able to
keep information secret. My diamond rule for warfare is: "never leak
information to opponent" perhaps that diamond rule might somehow apply to
conceiving a secure system. Having writing this weird advice I will now go
on to my first question:

So my first question is with "transfer of ownership" of "credit coins".

Pretend for a moment that I am a hacker/cracker not interested any more in
hacking video games but instead want to hack the system. Do not
underestimate the extent to which hackers will go, they will stop at nothing
to break the system. My first attack vector would be the ownership issue.

What stops me from "keeping ownership of the coin" and only "pretending to
transfer ownership to the other party" ?

For example the hacker's computer makes the other computer believe that
ownership was transferred but in reality the hacker still has ownership and
can now trade the credit coin again and again and again, creating duplicates
everywhere it goes ?!?

In theory perhaps it's impossible to create "uniqueness" with a "global view
of all data". How can local systems know if something is "unique" if they
have not a "global view of all data" ? This could be a mathematical question
or perhaps even a mathematical/logically impossible.

My intention is not to demotivate anybody with persueing a digital coin
idea, however I must be critical at current idea's/specification to point
out any possible weaknesses, perhaps solutions can be found for those if not
already existing.

So do not let my critique demotivate but please do try to explain or find
solutions for it, that would be great. Also if it's agreed upon that these
are potential weaknesses, then perhaps others can be asked to get involved
to see and try if they can solve it somehow.

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

Woops gotta correct one little typo see *correction*.

"Skybuck Flying" wrote in message news:...

In theory perhaps it's impossible to create "uniqueness" *without* a "global

[Mark Thorson]

Skybuck Flying wrote:
>
> In case you interested in the idea of digital coint then I can point you
> towards this website:
>
> http://digitalcoin.info/
>
> It also has a forum where I also asked more or less this same question and
> raised my doubt about it in a somewhat more lengthy posting ;)
>
> Personally I think just because of this one issue it might be technically
> infeasible but I hope I am wrong, who can prove me wrong ?! ;) :) =D
>
> So in short the problem is as follows:
>
> Computer A must transfer ownership of digital information to Computer B.
>
> Computer A must give up ownership.
>
> Computer B must take ownership.
>
> My reasoning is:
>
> Computer A can fool computer B and not give up ownership, thereby creating
> duplicate ownership, which would be bad ?

This problem has been completely solved.
See, for example:

http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savings-into-bitcoin/

[Skybuck Flying]

"Mark Thorson" wrote in message news:4EB0750A...@sonic.net...

Ok link not working, but I did find this link which is kinda interesting:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Apperently here bitcoin uses some kind of chain of
calculations/transactions/hashes and such.

I am not yet sure if it's per coin, or just a chain of all kinds of
transactions, I suspect the last.

I am kind of suprised that people actually take part in this complex
specification. It's nice but complex ;) :)

From reading the document it seems bitcoin does not yet use the concepts of
"digital coin".

So perhaps bitcoin would still be vunerable to certain financial problems
which are explained by that link I gave earlier ! ;)

Perhaps the new ideas of digital coin could be integrated into bitcoin or a
new system created based on bitcoin ! ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

Now that I looked and thought about BitCoin some more it seems to me that
the side with the most CPU processing power wins which could be the flaw in
bitcoin ?!?

On youtube it's visible that people are building gigant clusters of GPU's
trying to mine bitcoins.

Then again the document does mention something about "having to catch up to
the honest chain".

The document also mentions something about people/cpu's being able to work
on different blocks at the same time.

However calculates the next block successfully can add it to the chain...
this apperently assumes some kind of honesty/inability to have catched up...

So in reality it doesn't really matter that millions of people are all
working on different blocks, it only takes one bad block to allow fraud.

From the moment an attacker has catched up I do not see why the attacker
would now be at a disadventage compared to the rest of the world.

Once the attacker has catched up it's an even game, and whoever has the most
cpu/gpu/computational processing power wins.

That's a dangerous game to play me thinks ! Let alone hacks into user
systems.

What's perhaps even worse is the merkle hash tree which allows to dump older
data/transactions making it perhaps even easier for an attacker.

There are some formula's explaining chances of all this happening and such,
but perhaps those formula's irrelevant it's the ideas/algorithms/the way it
works that matters the most.

I didn't completely get the part yet about these formula's and the chances
of it happening, but I have learned to never under estimate the will of a
cheater.

Cheaters will go to extreme lengths to cheat. Therefore it's highly likely
that a gigantic network of computers will be build to repeatedly cheat
bitcoin.

Seeing plenty of these weaknesses in it is probably enough reason for me to
not get too deeply involved into it... though I like the idea... perhaps
some day it might be even more secure/evolved ! ;)

^ Just some vague thoughts but could be on the mark ! ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Globemaker]

On Nov 2, 9:23 am, "Skybuck Flying" <Windows7I...@DreamPC2006.com>
wrote:

Hello Skybuck,
Today I am starting work on a Silicon Wallet Architecture for Bitcoin
(SWAB)

Skybuck Flying summarized the goals:

1. Uniqueness.
2. Transferring of ownership.
3. Use of computers.

Bitcoin is poorly explained :

R Horning wrote:
"The paper describes the principles of the protocol, not how the
protocol is actually implemented.  The "official bitcoins client" is
really what is called a reference implementation, but its behavior is
not formally specified except in the C++ programming language.  I
personally think that is a bad thing and has a number of shortcomings
as a result, but at the very least it has to work when specified in
this fashion, which sometimes isn't always the case with stuff written
down on paper.

At the moment, the real description of the protocol is not really
specified anywhere else besides the source code to the client,
although there have been a number of efforts that have partially
described the protocol and some very informal descriptions of the
protocol being used, none of which would allow you to re-implement the
protocol without some massive reverse-engineering. "

at https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=1894.0

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The SWAB idea (silicon wallet architecture for bitcoin) is summarized
by Alan Folmsbee (AF) on November 7, 2011 :

Digital money can use software only, as Bitcoin does, but SWAB creates
more trust in that cash. Call the software BitKoin because it is
modified to comply with the hardware chip. A silicon chip is purchased
by BitKoin users to act as a vault and as a trusted financial auditor.
SWAB is a distributed Comptroller and a distributed Mint. A
Centralized Comptroller is not needed for small transactions, but it
adds more Trust for large transactions of BitKoin and to restore lost
money hardware..

The silicon chip for SWAB is based on the VISTI project by AF
(Variable Instruction Set erminus Architecture). A unique key is used
for each Wallet, so the VISTI instruction set is unique for that one
Wallet under the SWAB dogma. In the silicon wallet, a non-volatile
memory Table is kept to record past money transfers. New money
transfers are done only after the past transactions are checked for
duplicates in the Table. This checking prevents duplicate BitKoins
from being minted. When money is spent, it canot be spent again. The
person who is paid with that money places that cash into hur SWAB
wallet. No other person has the codes in that money information. When
she spends that cash, the SWAB chip records an audit trail to prevent
hur from spending it again.

A Centralized Comptroller can be used to recover lost Wallets and lost
money. Lost cash can be voided so re-issued cash cannot be duplicated.

SWAB hardware can be sold using FPGA USB chips during early 2012.
Venture Capital is requested. Send Euroes soon. Or Yuan. Bitcoin not
accepted.

[Skybuck Flying]

Hello there,

"
Hello Skybuck,

Today I am starting work on a Silicon Wallet Architecture for Bitcoin
(SWAB)
"

I can understand your enthousiam about new ways of doing money or bitcoin.

But starting new projects or bussinesses based on enthousiam sounds a bit
risky ! ;)

I think you should first do a much more thorough analysis of how bitcoin
works and if some hardware could facilitate it.

There could be some merit in bitcoin hardware, where users can exchange
money on the streets, however perhaps mobile phones will be used for that in
the future, so then your hardware would be quickly obsolete... unless mobile
phones become infected with trojans and such, then your hardware which could
be trojan free could be more trusted.

"
Skybuck Flying summarized the goals:
1. Uniqueness.
2. Transferring of ownership.
3. Use of computers.
"

These are just some questions about how bitcoin achieves these goals, there
are probably more goals.

"
Bitcoin is poorly explained :
"

There is some wikipedia article somewhere, the protocol seems quite complex
or at least has a lot of fields.

"
The SWAB idea (silicon wallet architecture for bitcoin) is summarized
by Alan Folmsbee (AF) on November 7, 2011 :

Digital money can use software only, as Bitcoin does, but SWAB creates
more trust in that cash. Call the software BitKoin because it is
modified to comply with the hardware chip. A silicon chip is purchased
by BitKoin users to act as a vault and as a trusted financial auditor.
SWAB is a distributed Comptroller and a distributed Mint. A
Centralized Comptroller is not needed for small transactions, but it
adds more Trust for large transactions of BitKoin and to restore lost
money hardware..
"

Hardware or software doesn't matter, both can be hacked, reverse engineerd,
or faked.

It's the theoretical system/algorithms that count, if those are theoretical
secure then that matters.

"
The silicon chip for SWAB is based on the VISTI project by AF
(Variable Instruction Set erminus Architecture). A unique key is used
for each Wallet, so the VISTI instruction set is unique for that one
Wallet under the SWAB dogma. In the silicon wallet, a non-volatile
memory Table is kept to record past money transfers. New money
transfers are done only after the past transactions are checked for
duplicates in the Table. This checking prevents duplicate BitKoins
from being minted. When money is spent, it canot be spent again. The
person who is paid with that money places that cash into hur SWAB
wallet. No other person has the codes in that money information. When
she spends that cash, the SWAB chip records an audit trail to prevent
hur from spending it again.
"

It's more of a gimick to prevent someone from double spending.
If the chip is faked, what happens then, that's what matters most ;)

Bitcoin more or less tries to solve that with a "whole system approach".

"
A Centralized Comptroller can be used to recover lost Wallets and lost
money. Lost cash can be voided so re-issued cash cannot be duplicated.
"

This part I don't get... bitcoin is decentralized, what's a comtroller ? You
trolling ? ;) :)

"
SWAB hardware can be sold using FPGA USB chips during early 2012.
Venture Capital is requested. Send Euroes soon. Or Yuan. Bitcoin not
accepted.
"

Sounds like some custom/consumer grade FPGA solution which will be quickly
faked so count me out.

Bitcoin could be the way of the future though. I do not understand it and
it's formules well enough yet to make any accurate predictions ;) :)

Perhaps your money would be more wisely invested in trying to create some
special "bitcoin mining hardware" ! ;)

Or perhaps indeed a bitcoin wallet, but this would probably also require
communications with the internet, so a mobile phone seems more suited for
that, though wifi and blue tooth also come to mind... again I don't
understand bitcoin well enough to actually know if this is a hard
requirement, perhaps communicating with the internet could be postponed for
a while, but then I don't see how double spending could be prevented, so it
is probably based on internet communications and perhaps some waiting time
before transactions are "approved"/"recorded into the system/chain".

Perhaps this "waiting time" could prevent bitcoin from being used by people
on the streets, not wanting to wait too long for a transaction to complete.

I have no experience with bitcoin so a good question to start with would be:

"What is a typical transaction time/duration for a bitcoin transfer ?"

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

I read up a little bit on bitcoin.

The principle behind the chain seems to be a bit like this:

1. People do transactions with each other, these are broadcast to the nodes.

2. The nodes receive these transactions, and probably select a few and place
them in a block, the node also places a newly generated bitcoin in the block
(the first transaction). This free bitcoin is a reward for the node to
process the blocks. (Only valid transactions are added to the block).

3. The block is hashed and and potentially added to the chain. The hashing
seems to involve finding a hash which has the leading bits all zero, how
much zeroes is not specified and could probably fluctuate to make it more
difficult in the future (?!). This finding of zero bits in hash is done via
a "nonce" at the end of a block.

4. Now comes some part of the tricky bit. The tricky bit is for the parties
involved with transactions to wait a while until the chain grows and grows
and grows, so that there transactions have been taken up into the chain.
This distance from the moment of transaction towards the end of the chain is
the Z value. (Z distance).

Now comes to concept of security, the idea is that this Z distance is so
great that an attacker cannot calculate all the blocks leading up to the
Z/end. So all nodes are working together to try and find blocks and advance
the chain.

So this is were things start to get fuzzy, since each block must contain the
previous hash of a block... so apperently all nodes are trying to work
together just to find the next node and get it accepted into the chain or a
chain, the longest chain ultimately wins...

So this is a bit strange, since the real distance of Z always seems to be 1
sort of... but the transaction parties will wait and wait and wait until
that Z grows... but the attacker could probably grow with it... and
ultimately try to overrule the chain with a longer chain... so it still
seems somewhat shaky to me ! ;)

Fortunately the previous transaction was then already done, so maybe it will
be difficult to do some sort of transaction attack... I cannot imagine a
transaction attack at this moment.
(Like double spending ? probably not possible since part of that chain would
be valid...)

Anyway this leaves the last possibility of trying to find the private key
for the RSA/public key encryption thingy which the transactions seem to use.

If an attacker can find the private key, then he/she can probably robb your
bank account easily.

One possible counter-measure against this could be to make many
"mini-bank-accounts". So that each "mini-back-account" has a limit to how
much money it can contain.

So that the damage/robbery is minimized.

So the software could do that, but if it's already doing it and if there are
some sort of drawbacks to that I don't know... perhaps "account explosion"
could result from it (too much harddisk space required to store all those
mini accounts on all nodes ?!?).

And lastly there is ofcourse a classic software/takeover hack with key
loggers and all of that involved ;).

None the less funny system this bitcoin ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

I'm starting to like bitcoin, now that I know some more about it.

I have also ran the client.

It installed/unpacked smoothly, it did take a day to download all the
blocks.

So far the gui is kinda boring, it doesn't do anything, I can't see any
network activity, so that will have to change to make it more fun to watch
;)

The gui is nice and simple though.

So for now I am bullish about bitcoin ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

[Skybuck Flying]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention one important thing:

People can probably forget about free money with the bitcoin client as it
currently is the 4.0 version...

because mining is no longer part of it ?! cpu's are simply too slow.

This does not mean that the gui/client might have gpu support in the future.

But maybe even a single gpu is not enough anymore.

People do seem to gather in mining pools and split the profits/coins.

So that might still be a possible way to make some money, which I guess is
still better than nothing.

But I do feel kinda sad that the basic concept of it is now in shatters more
or less.

The network has probably fallen in the hands of the bitcoin miner and those
who run the bitcoin servers.

Perhaps this pooling of bitcoin miners can be added back to the bitcoin gui.

I think it probably makes more sense to pick a single block which everybody
works on together and prevents duplicate calculations from taking place.

This would probably prevent the coin miner pooling systems all together, and
would bring back some fairness to bitcoin.

Perhaps bitcoin nodes should all somewhat share in the free money ;)

And then there is also the issue of not broadcasting transactions to each
other, so perhaps bitcoin will need to be changed some more to reward all
processing/bandwidth/diskspace activities/all resources needed activities of
bitcoin to keep the system attractive for people to participate into... by
getting rewarded.

Also the client generates a lot of data... I am surprised by it, it's in the
order of 1 GB at least !

Probably debug logs or something... but that's quite a lot already for a
system that has been running for only a few years ? maybe 2 ?

Some say of doubted scalability issues, though bitcoin is still pretty new !
;) :)

It will be interesting to see how it develops further ;) :) =D

I can also not imagine the limit of 21 million coins to be upheld in the
future, it makes sense to lift this limit slowly to 22 million and so forth
as needed, to compensate coins which are locked up/held in accounts... money
most roll/keep in circulation... so some new money/bitcoins might need to be
created in the future.

This will probably require some consensus of 51% of the total processing
power. Hopefully people can agree on that in the future.

There is also the scary though of the entire blockchain getting replaced by
an attacker theoretically ?!?

I am not yet sure what counter measures bitcoin employs for that ?!?

Perhaps transactions after 1 day or a certain time limit become irrevokable
? Or is it still possible in theory to replace the entire block chain ?!?
Hmm...

If such a thing would happen, an entire block chain replaced with a bullshit
block chain then everybody would loose their money ?! ;) :)

Sigh I will also put some more words about the mystic figure who started it
all... is bitcoin just an enrichment scheme one wonders ? This is a fair
question to ask...

I think the guy who invented most have been really smart. He is also in
danger of getting tracked down... Perhaps special people are monitoring
bitcount for any suspicious transactions so he not out of the woods yet...
statistical analyses could reveal his identity still, so he should be wary.

Setting the difficulty really low at the start seems a bit of
cheat/gimick/unfair thing... but then again maybe it's not that unfair...
but does feel a little bit like a cheat though... so this probably creates
some paranoia for people.

I also wonder what would happen if these initial coins were blocked, for
example: their difficult was too easy... would that break down the trust in
bit coin ? Would people like it or refuse it ? I think this would/could lead
to a bitcoin blocking war, where people start to block each other...
assuming it’s possible to trace back to the origin of coins.

I also wonder about the blockchain that has been downloaded, is it the
complete chain ? or does it have pruned merkle hash leaves ? That would be
interesting to find out...

Seeing the enormous data I would think so... but I have also read that
perhaps it’s not the case and there was some pruning.

If so then this could also have been done to hide the identity of the
author/inventor which could feed more paranoia but could also been seen as a
logical privacy step to take.

So seeing this logic I would not be surprised if the first/earlier
transactions/hashes have been pruned away. Which is another testimony of the
author smartness ;)

Will he be secretly killed by adverserses or will he survive ?!? :) What a
thriller ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

[Skybuck Flying]

Potential weakness in bitcoin and the blockchain idea in general:

During slow transaction days, attackers could create much more secret
transactions and work on blocks much faster than the defenders could...

The attackers could then easily overtake bitcoin's blockchain ?! ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

New posting about new potentially weaknesses, confusion and doubts about
bitcoins.

These are interesting questions, and possibilities for attack, which I also
asked on bitcoin forum.

But in case it goes down it would be nice if it remains on usenet/in my
outlook express folder as well, it's also on my harddrive somewhere.

I am trying to find answers to my own questions, hopefully the forum will
help answering some of them.

Here is one posting of mine on the bit coin forum:

1. Why bitcoin could be a pyramid system:

Let's see if I understand correctly, and then examine a possible way of
totally replacing the blockchain.

Conceptually speaking, all bit coins in existence form a chain of coins.
These coins can be moved around from person to person, account to account,
can be transerred, sold, bought etc.

Everytime coins are exchanged the chain starts to grow with new coins.

A possible problem with this concept is the chain grows too large.

So the idea is to cut away the tail of the chain to make it shorter again.

The idea behind cutting away the tail is to replace the tail with a single
hash. (Merkle Tree Partially collapsed ? or perhaps something else, simply a
single hash unrelated to merkle, or perhaps a new merkle hash root node,
since something has to be the previous hash for the last block in the tail
?).

Anyway the question is now:

What happens about all the transaction data ?

You seem to imply as well, that this transaction data would have to been
thrown away as well, since that would otherwise also grow to large, and
since the blocks have been thrown away it makes no sense to store the
transactions.

So the bottom line is:

1. Blocks are thrown away.
2. Transactions are thrown away.
3. What remains is a single hash.

My claim/idea was that an attacker could create "fake" transactions which
represent the transactions which were thrown away in step 2.

You claim that doing so would be useless, because the entire network/system
has apperently agreed to cut away the tail.

So everybody using bitcoin throws away the tail, the blocks, the
transactions that went with it, and everybody agrees that that data is now
no longer in play.

So you say making those fake transactions won't be usefull because they
would be rejected by the system

You seem to say that these transactions cannot be re-injected into the
system ?!?

But then my question is:

How does the remaining part of the system, the section beyond the tail, the
section that was not cut off know who owns what ?

All those transactions which were done before the tail was cut off, result
into some kind of wealth, some kind of account money ?!?

I assume that when a bitcoin application starts up, it starts to scan all
transactions for it's own addresses, sums them together and thus figures out
what it's balance is ?!?

If those transactions have been thrown away, and/or the blocks are not
available for verification purposes ?!?!? Then how would the client know
what it's balance is ?!?!?

Is this perhaps why bitcoin could be considered a pyramid scheme ?!?!? Once
the cut happens wealth disappears ?!?!?

2. Plus another potential attack vector: "worm changes enough systems":

Addition to my previous posting: By the way this means there is another
potentially way/attack to bitcoin:

A trojan/virus/malware/worm could start to alter the data which is on
everybodies drive and starts to create it's own fake chain as an attempt to
chain the thruth.

If the trojan/virus/malware/worm manages to infect enough system for example
the 51% then history could be altered ?!?

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

Perhaps I miss-understand the roll of the hashes and the merkle hash tree.

This article seems to explain it a bit more:

http://sakabatou.dyndns.org/b2evolution/index.php/2011/09/04/how-does-bitcoin-work-technical

Apperently the merkle hash tree is used to allow, multiple chains to exist.

Once the longer chain is discovered after 100 blocks it becomes the main
chain.

The other leaves/trees are collapse and re-fed into the system/chain/merkle
hash to be tried and reincluded into the system.

So perhaps the blockchain itself is never pruned ?!? The tail is never cut
off !?

The blockchain must allows keep existing ?!?

This then raises the question:

What is the blockchain becomes to large for average computers to store
?!?!?!?

Does this mean that if bitcoin grows faster then harddisk space that bitcoin
will more or less be doomed ?! ;) At least for average people ?!?

Hmmm...

Maybe some compression can help for a while...

I shall have to re-examine how it all works and what's possible for attack
vectors ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck.

[Skybuck Flying]

I think I have discovered a very serious flaw in the bitcoin situation as it
currently is, somewhat weakly/indirectly/unintentionally assisted by others
in this discovery.

The flaw with bitcoin is now as follows:

1. The blocks are essential to it's security and record keeping and
transaction keeping.

2. Only miners can produce blocks.

3. Therefore the miners are now in control of bitcoin.

4. The non-miners are no longer in control, for them rejecting invalid stuff
is pretty useless since they can never win the chain/win the race because of
insufficient processing power.

So even if there were 4 billion clients, only the few miners maybe 100.000
would be in control with their massive mining farms.

^ Pretty dangerous situation.

Unless this problem is somehow solved I think I am going to bail out on the
whole bitcoin idea ! ;)

And I just registered www.skycoins.com lol ! ;) =D

Oh well maybe I will use it some day in the future, perhaps with a solved
situation, or maybe never ;)

Maybe I will give this concept a try myself with improved algorithms some
day.

Oh well, the bitcoin c/c++ code/client is pretty shitty anyway.

Maybe not worth my time continuing with that anyway, though I was hoping to
learn/discover some interesting new things.

It was interesting/challenging to try and build it, which so far has failed
because of build/link problems. Two days were spent trying.

I was thinking about trying mingw instead of visual studio... but now I am
not so sure anymore...

Maybe I will try to see if that would work with make files or something...
but seeing these dangerous flaws my interest in bitcoin is going down real
fast !

By tomorrow I might already have lost all interest in it ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D