With this weeks lawless +governmental +attacks on Wikileak and +free +speech, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can +not be trusted to handle money transactions. +A blog post from +Simon +Phipps on bitcoin reminded me about a project that a friend of +mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get +involved with BitCoin. I got +some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me +some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon +for helping me remember BitCoin.
+ +So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital +crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer +networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central +control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments +and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The +source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9 +for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command +line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas +will get the package into +Debian soon.
+ +Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR. +There are companies accepting +bitcoins when selling services and goods, and there are even +currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There +are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you +want to get started and lack a friend without any bitcoins to spare, +you can even get +some for free (0.05 +bitcoin at the time of writing). Use +BitcoinWatch to keep an eye +on the current exchange rates.
+ +As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my +machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin +donations to the address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b. Thank you!
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