blog/tags/bitcoin/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged bitcoin</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="bitcoin.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "bitcoin".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         10th December 2010
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>With this weeks lawless
  32 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
  33 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
  34 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
  35 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
  36 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
  37 A blog post from
  38 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
  39 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
  40 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
  41 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
  42 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
  43 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
  44 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
  45
  46 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
  47 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
  48 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
  49 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
  50 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
  51 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
  52 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
  53 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
  54 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
  55 Debian</a> soon.</p>
  56
  57 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
  58 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
  59 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
  60 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
  61 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
  62 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
  63 you can even get
  64 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
  65 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
  66 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
  67 on the current exchange rates.</p>
  68
  69 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
  70 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
  71 donations to the address
  72 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
  73
  74       </div>
  75       <div class="tags">
  76
  77
  78         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
  79
  80
  81       </div>
  82     </div>
  83     <div class="padding"></div>
  84
  85     <div class="entry">
  86       <div class="title">
  87         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
  88       </div>
  89       <div class="date">
  90         11th December 2010
  91       </div>
  92       <div class="body">
  93         <p>As I continue to explore
  94 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
  95 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
  96 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
  97
  98 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
  99 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
 100 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
 101 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
 102 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
 103 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
 104 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
 105 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
 106 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
 107 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
 108 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
 109 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
 110 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
 111 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
 112 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
 113 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
 114 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
 115 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
 116 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
 117 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
 118
 119 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
 120 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
 121 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
 122 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
 123 If the Skolelinux foundation
 124 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
 125 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
 126 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
 127 Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
 128 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
 129 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
 130 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
 131 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
 132
 133 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
 134 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
 135 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
 136 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
 137 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
 138 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
 139 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
 140 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
 141 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
 142 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
 143 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
 144 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
 145 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
 146 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
 147 currencies.</p>
 148
 149 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
 150 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
 151 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
 152 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
 153 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
 154 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
 155 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
 156 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
 157 BitCoins.  Check out
 158 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
 159 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
 160 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
 161 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
 162 yet.</p>
 163
 164 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
 165 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
 166 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
 167 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
 168 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
 169
 170       </div>
 171       <div class="tags">
 172
 173
 174         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 175
 176
 177       </div>
 178     </div>
 179     <div class="padding"></div>
 180
 181     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="bitcoin.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
 182     <div id="sidebar">
 183
 184
 185
 186 <h2>Archive</h2>
 187 <ul>
 188
 189 <li>2012
 190 <ul>
 191
 192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 193
 194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 195
 196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 197
 198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 199
 200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
 201
 202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (19)</a></li>
 203
 204 </ul></li>
 205
 206 <li>2011
 207 <ul>
 208
 209 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 210
 211 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 212
 213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 214
 215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 216
 217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 218
 219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 220
 221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 222
 223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 224
 225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 226
 227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 228
 229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 230
 231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 232
 233 </ul></li>
 234
 235 <li>2010
 236 <ul>
 237
 238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 239
 240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 241
 242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 243
 244 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 245
 246 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 247
 248 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 249
 250 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 251
 252 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 253
 254 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 255
 256 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 257
 258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 259
 260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 261
 262 </ul></li>
 263
 264 <li>2009
 265 <ul>
 266
 267 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 268
 269 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 270
 271 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 272
 273 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 274
 275 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 276
 277 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 278
 279 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 280
 281 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 282
 283 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 284
 285 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 286
 287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 288
 289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 290
 291 </ul></li>
 292
 293 <li>2008
 294 <ul>
 295
 296 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 297
 298 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 299
 300 </ul></li>
 301
 302 </ul>
 303
 304
 305
 306 <h2>Tags</h2>
 307 <ul>
 308
 309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 310
 311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 312
 313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 314
 315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
 316
 317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
 318
 319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 320
 321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (55)</a></li>
 322
 323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (105)</a></li>
 324
 325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
 326
 327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (3)</a></li>
 328
 329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (137)</a></li>
 330
 331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (16)</a></li>
 332
 333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 334
 335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (28)</a></li>
 336
 337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (16)</a></li>
 338
 339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 340
 341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
 342
 343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 344
 345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (21)</a></li>
 346
 347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (179)</a></li>
 348
 349  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (133)</a></li>
 350
 351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (3)</a></li>
 352
 353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 354
 355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (30)</a></li>
 356
 357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (48)</a></li>
 358
 359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 360
 361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 362
 363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 364
 365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
 366
 367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 368
 369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 370
 371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (1)</a></li>
 372
 373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (23)</a></li>
 374
 375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 376
 377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (34)</a></li>
 378
 379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
 380
 381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (4)</a></li>
 382
 383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (10)</a></li>
 384
 385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (6)</a></li>
 386
 387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (29)</a></li>
 388
 389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
 390
 391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (24)</a></li>
 392
 393 </ul>
 394
 395
 396     </div>
 397     <p style="text-align: right">
 398  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
 399 </p>
 400
 401   </body>
 402 </html>