blog/data/2010-12-10-bitcoin.txt

   1 Title: Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money
   2 Tags: english, debian, bitcoin, personvern, sikkerhet
   3 Publish: 2010-12-10
   4 Date: 2010-12-10 08:20
   5
   6 <p>With this weeks lawless
   7 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
   8 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
   9 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
  10 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
  11 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
  12 A blog post from
  13 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
  14 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
  15 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
  16 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
  17 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
  18 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
  19 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
  20
  21 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
  22 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
  23 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
  24 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
  25 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
  26 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
  27 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
  28 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
  29 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
  30 Debian</a> soon.</p>
  31
  32 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
  33 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
  34 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
  35 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
  36 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
  37 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
  38 you can even get
  39 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
  40 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
  41 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
  42 on the current exchange rates.</p>
  43
  44 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
  45 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
  46 donations to the address
  47 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>