<elliottcable>
So! What'll do you already know about Bitcoin? Do you want any primers or help before I drop you a bucket 'o cash?
<whit537>
I have a basic theoretical knowledge, and an even more basic practical knowledge.
<whit537>
I have a Coinbase account.
<whit537>
And a couple years(?) ago I installed some piece of local bitcoin software.
<whit537>
I need to give you a transaction token, yes?
<whit537>
An address?
* elliottcable
nods
<elliottcable>
I'd advise you to move your bitcoin away from Coinbase immediately, by the way.
<elliottcable>
Quite aside from the reliability issues I mentioned in the GitHub thread, that is.
<alexgordon>
not fucking coinbase
<elliottcable>
I've nothing personally against Coinbase, but especially much in this particular case ... hosted wallets are *extremely* ill-advised. Never use any service or system wherein your private keys leave your own computer, at least in any unencrypted form.
<alexgordon>
people keep going on about how shit it is
<alexgordon>
but they keep using it
<alexgordon>
I don't understand it
<elliottcable>
Personally, I'm a huge fan of http://blockchain.info/ ... and those more paranoid and less practical than me, tend to stick to local-software wallets
<elliottcable>
alexgordon ⑊ Frankly? It's the easiest and cheapest, if least reliable and reasonable, way to acquire Bitcoin in the U.S.
<elliottcable>
You people get fancy Euro bank transfers and shit. Over here, nobody allows bank-to-Bitcoin transfers, much less buy-with-plastic, except Coinbase.
<alexgordon>
to be fair pingit is pretty new
<elliottcable>
After Coinbase, if you don't want to go through a *lengthy* and *painful* verification process with Dwolla *and* Mt. GOX, your next-best option after Coinbase is walking fucking cash to that shady CVS down the street with all the hoodies hanging out.
<alexgordon>
heh
<elliottcable>
and after that, creepy Craigslist meetups. /=
<elliottcable>
Believe me, first-hand experience with all of the above ... Coinbase makes sense, in some ways, despite all the issues.
<elliottcable>
at least for acquiring bitcoin.
<alexgordon>
what does coinbase do that's so special that they can charge ridiculous rates?
<elliottcable>
My advice to whit537 was predicate on his having a *business* need to be buying/exchanging BTC for $US or similar.
<elliottcable>
Ridiculous? Their rates are fairly low.
<elliottcable>
Bitinstant is something like 4%, and that's not even including the MoneyGram fees, gas to drive to a CVS or bank, ATM fees to get the cash, or anything else.
<alexgordon>
but their prices are out of wack with market prices no?
<elliottcable>
I wound up spending a total of ~540$ to get 480$ worth of BTC when I tried that.
<elliottcable>
Coinbase is nice and cheap, with a flat 1%.
<elliottcable>
no, their prices are out of *sync*. Different thing. You still get the market price, plis 1%, plus 0.05%, but you get that price *on the day their purchase goes through*. Which could be higher or lower than you expected.
<elliottcable>
anyway
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ either way, you should set up a temporary address for this transfer; you generally want a new address for every transfer you process.
<alexgordon>
elliottcable: where's this github thread you were talking about?
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ (although, for whatever BTC mechanism you may decide to implement on Gittip, I could easily see you using a single address for all ins and outs; as I understand it, you're big into radical transparency, and Bitcoin can easily provide that, if you so desire.)
<alexgordon>
offtopic: I wonder if you could find out satoshi's identity by analyzing code style
<elliottcable>
already tried
<alexgordon>
damn
<alexgordon>
:P
<alexgordon>
do it better?
<elliottcable>
was found to be an odd amalgam of styles
<elliottcable>
the people analyizing it said “not an expert programmer, but neither a complete beginner”
<elliottcable>
their assumption was was that he had a lot of theoretical knowledge, but little experience
<elliottcable>
personally, I think a group is more likely
<alexgordon>
I remember a thing on HN, where someone posted an anonymous comment and challenged HN to identify them by the words they used
<alexgordon>
their style of writing, etc
<elliottcable>
two huge news organizations had investigative journalists investigate him;
<alexgordon>
yeah but what do journalists know about programming :P
<elliottcable>
and of course the hacker-y, geeky, and obsessive Bitcoin nerds have been trying to, pretty hardcore, for years
<elliottcable>
so I'll assume it's fairly impossible
<alexgordon>
BUT I'M SMARTER THAN OTHER PEOPLE
<elliottcable>
this isn't like _why or something, where a bunch of loyal, not-so-nerdy feely-gooders knew but kept the mystery for fun
<elliottcable>
this is basement-beards going HAM and failing
<alexgordon>
I guess I just don't believe that anonymity is possible
<elliottcable>
Again, personally, I find it unlikely that an individual could mask their identity so throughly from such investigation ... so I'll be a bit conspiracy-theorist for once in my life, and throw it out there that I suspect the involvement of a larger organization or government
<alexgordon>
yeah
<alexgordon>
I would be inclined to agree with you
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ got me an address?
<elliottcable>
alexgordon ⑊ got a moment to speak of Paws/proglang things?
<alexgordon>
yah but it's almost 4am and I want to go to sleep :P
<elliottcable>
fack.
<alexgordon>
I've been up since 5am for the past few days
<alexgordon>
not doing me any good
<alexgordon>
but who am I talking to
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ wanna learabout my batshit-insane programming language? I need a foil for time-travel semantics.
<elliottcable>
alexgordon ⑊ yeah, it's 10:40, and I've got a plan departing at 10:00AM. I won't be sleeping before I board.
<elliottcable>
alexgordon ⑊ <3
<alexgordon>
elliottcable: go: bloody my anus with proglang talk
<elliottcable>
m'kay.
<elliottcable>
Remember time-travel?
<elliottcable>
yesnomaybe?
<elliottcable>
or anything about ownership/responsibility semantics at all?
<alexgordon>
lol
<purr>
lol
<alexgordon>
errrr
<alexgordon>
maybe?
<elliottcable>
ick.
<alexgordon>
I remember it was a thing
<elliottcable>
I'd have to re-explain half of the language shit to get into specifics.
<elliottcable>
I don't particularly want to talk about Paws itself.
<elliottcable>
Let's see if we can have a Paws-less discussion of PLT. Yah? Yah. I'm sure that'll make you happy.
<alexgordon>
THIS IS WHY PAWS NEEDS A WIKI
<alexgordon>
yay
<alexgordon>
RUTRUTRUT
<whit537>
:)
<whit537>
I do not have an address.
<whit537>
What is the very simplest way to get one?
<elliottcable>
Any wallet software you're using, should have a functionality to generate new addresses on demand.
<elliottcable>
it's technologically interesting because the entire application is one, big fat-client; none of the functionality involves sending any data to their server.
<elliottcable>
all of the encryption, verification, hashing, etceteras happens *locally* ... “logging in” is the act of downloading an encrypted copy of your wallet from their server (via two-factor authentication with your cellphone), and then dis-encrypting it locally with your password.
<alexgordon>
but yeah blockchain is probably easier still
<elliottcable>
(in Bitcoin, unless you have a good reason to be being radically and permenantly transparent with your actions, these addresses are generally single-use)
<devyn>
yo elliottcable, you rang?
<elliottcable>
devyn ⑊ o7
<elliottcable>
I'd love to chat time-travel and bubbling here in a moment
<whit537>
elliottcable: Are you intending this to be a donation to Gittip, LLC, for the purposes of exploring 310?
<elliottcable>
Actually, I'm intending it to be a personal gift.
<elliottcable>
Consider it Gittip's first one-off, Bitcoin-transacted, tip, to you.
<alexgordon>
whit537: it's oil money, don't take it!
<elliottcable>
I *am* very interested in Gittip's Bitcoin integration; so if you'd like me to split this up, and transmit part of it publically as a public Gittip donation to a public address, that might not be a bad idea.
<alexgordon>
SAVE THE ALASKAN PENGUINS
<elliottcable>
Will also give you a chance to experience the different flow of private, and public, transactions.
Sgeo has joined #elliottcable
<whit537>
elliottcable: Thank you! :D
<whit537>
I just wanted to be clear about it.
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ I believe in what you're doing. (=
<whit537>
Thanks, man. :)
<elliottcable>
But yes, to be clear, you have my explicit permission to eventually withdraw this as $US for your own use.
<elliottcable>
I just hope to also give you some capital to explore the Bitcoin system in the meantime. (=
<devyn>
ah, so elliottcable actually decided to join the bitcoin club? o/
<elliottcable>
devyn ⑊ → #Paws.Nucleus?
<devyn>
sure
<elliottcable>
devyn ⑊ for a given value of join. I'm still skeptical, but I find it interesting, and am happy to teach others what I've learned in my intense research.
<devyn>
of course, of course. I actually don't care much for bitcoin I think, but cryptocurrencies are a good idea
<devyn>
that said I have mined 1 BTC now, as of a few days ago
<alexgordon>
<elliottcable> intense research
<alexgordon>
devyn: in how long?
<devyn>
alexgordon: a month of on and off I guess
<alexgordon>
lolol
<purr>
lol
<devyn>
I was only mining part time lol
<whit537>
It was a couple years ago.
<whit537>
I have Bitcoin v0.3.23-beta on my machine.
Nuck has joined #elliottcable
<whit537>
(c)2009-2011
<whit537>
I just installed 0.8.1 as well, and it's named Bitcoin-Qt.app.
<Nuck>
Woah there's life in here wtf
<elliottcable>
in the native client, there's basically the same flow as I showed you:
<Nuck>
Holy shit hi elliottcable
<whit537>
elliottcable: I have an address!
<alexgordon>
devyn: that's like 45¢/hour
<elliottcable>
generate a new address, give it a label if you wish, give it to me to accept money from me, and then archive it, because you won't be using it again
<Nuck>
And alexgordon! And devyn!
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ private-message me a signed message involving that address.
<alexgordon>
nuck: elliottcable was going to bloody my anus, but then he refused because he didn't want to explain time travel again
<Nuck>
alexgordon: wat.
<purr>
beep.
<elliottcable>
in Bitcoin, it's important that you can verify that you're talking to the person you're trying to give money to; and because it's intended to be difficult to tie *identity* to an address/person ... instead, you tie cryptographic keys to a person.
<Nuck>
I prefer tying bows to persons.
<elliottcable>
I *am* explaining, in a different channel. Trying not to muck this one up while I work with whit537, so kindly shut yer traps.
<whit537>
S'fine. :)
<Nuck>
Halp me decide. I'm looking at two essentially identical items but one is $1.50 more and has 2 day shipping
<alexgordon>
YOU CAN'T SILENCE ME
<devyn>
alexgordon: at a cost of probably about 5¢ an hour, not too bad :p
<Nuck>
Is it worth it? ;_;
<alexgordon>
WHAT ABOUT MY 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS
<Nuck>
alexgordon: FUCK YOU YOU'RE NOT AN AMERICAN
<devyn>
alexgordon: I think when averaged out I probably did only 7h/day of mining
<alexgordon>
THAT'S NOT WHAT MY UNDERWEAR SAYS
<alexgordon>
devyn: nope still shit
<devyn>
it's free money alexgordon
<Nuck>
alexgordon: RUBBING THE AMERICAN FLAG ON YOUR BALLS DOESN'T MAKE YOU AN AMERICAN, IT JUST MAKES YOU A CONGRESSMAN.
<devyn>
are you going to fucking complain
<alexgordon>
uh oh
* elliottcable
grins
<whit537>
Is that sufficiently secure?
<whit537>
dm, that is
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ Well, part of the purpose here is to help you understand the generally-accepted payment flow between to individual parties.
<whit537>
Okay.
<whit537>
So you want a PGP encrypted message?
<elliottcable>
Again, some of this will differ for your upcoming real-life purposes, simply *because* you wish radical openness.
<elliottcable>
Actually, this has nothing to do with PGP; you can encrypt a message directly in the client.
<elliottcable>
If you don't have or wish to use the desktop client, there's also a nice utility on http://brainwallet.org
<elliottcable>
I've only done this once. let me make sure I'm doing it right.
<elliottcable>
forgive me. Something's come up. Be back in a couple minutes, need to write an e-mail to support. fuawibtaeitjewts.
<elliottcable>
okay. moving right along.
<whit537>
I don't see any signing UI in the 0.3.23 version.
<whit537>
So I've launched the 0.8.1 version, and it's doing "things."
<whit537>
Currently it's "Synchronizing with network ..."
<whit537>
It's taking a long time.
<elliottcable>
That'll take a long time.
<elliottcable>
For now, choose to export your private key
<elliottcable>
and import it into blockchain.info, or copy-paste it into brainwallet.org's message-signing interface
<whit537>
I do see UI to sign messages in this version, though.
<elliottcable>
hm
<elliottcable>
should be able to sign messages without it being synchronized
<elliottcable>
greyed out or sommat?
<elliottcable>
sorry, I never use the official client, all to un-Mac-y for me
<elliottcable>
er
<elliottcable>
probably!
<elliottcable>
I love you, I'd never leave you baby D:
<elliottcable>
except to get laid in Chicago, but, I'll be back eventually
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ Basically, sign a message saying something identifying between us (For instance, “I'm whit537, I run Gittip.com, and I'm accepting a donation from you for the purposes of GitHub Issue #310.”)
<elliottcable>
then privately transmit both that message, verbatim, and a Bitcoin-signed signature for it, to me.
<elliottcable>
privmsg on IRC is fine, or e-mail. Twitter's probably inappropriate, as DMs are too limited in length.
<elliottcable>
I can then retain that signature and message, to verify that a particular address sent it to me, and I can further transmit money to that address.
<elliottcable>
Make sure you're signing it with the address you wish to have me send money to. That's, at the moment, a temporary one you generate for specifically this purpose, this transaction.
<elliottcable>
all make sense, whit537?
<elliottcable>
incomprehensibly ⑊ lol
<purr>
lol
<elliottcable>
you just missed everyone; we decided to talk tomorrow-ish
incomprehensibly is now known as micahjohnston
<elliottcable>
one of these coming nights
<elliottcable>
unless you have a lot of time and boredom right now
<micahjohnston>
I don't, really
<micahjohnston>
I have a metric fuckton of exams that I am smack in the middle
<micahjohnston>
of
<micahjohnston>
gotta get sleep and do a bit of last minute studying
<micahjohnston>
I have 11 exams, many of them split over 2 days
<micahjohnston>
today was a full school day of just tests, and so are tomorrow and thursday and monday, and friday is a half day, and the next monday is another one
<micahjohnston>
I took AP computer science today and probably got every thing on it right
<micahjohnston>
:p
<elliottcable>
LOL
<elliottcable>
well, have fun :3
<micahjohnston>
thanks :p
<micahjohnston>
also having a bit of girl troubles :p
<micahjohnston>
Real Life is taking up my whole brain right now lol
<purr>
lol
<elliottcable>
girl troubles, eh?
<elliottcable>
same page, as usual
<elliottcable>
I have a perfect girlfriend.
<elliottcable>
It's the worst thing.
<micahjohnston>
why? lol
<elliottcable>
He's quoting a song, micahjohnston.
<elliottcable>
A bit before your time. ;)
<micahjohnston>
did I miss some messages?
<elliottcable>
huh?
<elliottcable>
the logs are public.
<micahjohnston>
I got "it's the worst thing." and said "why? lol"
<purr>
lol
<micahjohnston>
was there something in between?
<micahjohnston>
or am i super dumb
<elliottcable>
ahhhh shit
<elliottcable>
Didn't realize I'd done that.
<Nuck>
Das better.
<elliottcable>
yeah, read the logs, nuck was talking.
<Nuck>
elliottcable: You need to go have some native american ritual where you and your brain get frisky and friendly.
<elliottcable>
stupid +z means I don't notice.
<Nuck>
And 99 problems is not before micahjohnston's time
<elliottcable>
whit537 ⑊ Going to FaceTime aforementioned Chicago, but I'll be back in a few minutes. Go ahead and sign that message for me.
<Nuck>
It's 2004
<micahjohnston>
yeah i get 99 problems lol
<purr>
lol
<micahjohnston>
elliottcable: anyway why is it the worst thing to have a perfect girlfriend? :p
<micahjohnston>
is it that you're competitive?
<elliottcable>
lol
<purr>
lol
<elliottcable>
micahjohnston ⑊ errrr ...
<whit537>
Yeesh.
<whit537>
What a day!
whit537 has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer]
whit537_ has joined #elliottcable
<elliottcable>
whit537_ ⑊ back!
<whit537_>
Ish.
<whit537_>
I'm going to let this network sync run overnight.
<elliottcable>
whit537_ ⑊ okay. let's do this? I'd like to get some implementation done before I hop on my plane tomorrow.
<whit537_>
D'oh!
<elliottcable>
you don't need the network sync to sign a message, do you?
<whit537_>
You are hopping on a plane tomorrow. :(
<elliottcable>
because I want to get my side of this handled tonight, if I can
<elliottcable>
all the network sync means is you won't be able to send your own transactions, or possibly see the reception of the ones *I* send you, until it finishes it. Shouldn't be relevant to what we're doing here, in other words.
<elliottcable>
Generally speaking, it should be pretty easy.
<whit537>
I just don't have bandwidth right now for the deep dive.
<elliottcable>
The only complex process is something as *important* as creating a permenant address.
<elliottcable>
For general transactions it should be pretty easy. Two steps? Nah. Three, though? Sure:
<elliottcable>
1. Verify the connection between address and identity. (How you do so, your discretion)
<whit537>
I propose we do the one-off personal transaction now, and leave the public transaction alone for now.
<whit537>
If that's not okay then let's take a break and regroup later.
<elliottcable>
2. Generate a new address to send from, if you're worried about privacy, and fund it (either by transferring money in, or a shared-send type thing.)
<elliottcable>
3. Generate *a transaction* from/to the address you were given by the other party.
<whit537>
Okay, you have an address from me that can be used to send bitcoin.
<elliottcable>
yah. fine by me. You're already done for that, as a matter of fact; I'll generate a transaction sometime tonight. It's a lot of money, so I'm waiting for a large number of confirmations on my end.
<whit537>
Are you willing to disclose how much you're sending?
<whit537>
Or is that a surprise?
<whit537>
:)
<elliottcable>
We can talk more about gittip's Bitcoin plans in the near future when we both have more time. (Index: I should be back around computers middle-of-next-week at the latest.)
<whit537>
Where are you flying, btw?
<elliottcable>
Chicago.
<whit537>
Where are you now?
<elliottcable>
Wilmington, NC.
<elliottcable>
I travel a hell of a lot.
<elliottcable>
Only within the U.S. though, generally speaking. Don't get a lot of opportunities to even visit Canada.
<whit537>
Mmm.
<whit537>
Okay, so you have what you need from me tonight for the personal transaction?
<elliottcable>
Nothing more!
<whit537>
:)
<elliottcable>
When it's complete, I'll private-message you the hash.
<whit537>
Cool.
<elliottcable>
that gives you everything you need to verify it with the blockchain (there's various tools for that.)
<elliottcable>
It
<whit537>
I'll leave my laptop open so I should stay in here.
<elliottcable>
... 'll eventually show up in your private client, too. Theoretically.
<elliottcable>
also: the Twitter Boostrap comment, jesus H. christ, I hear you.
<whit537>
:)
<whit537>
It's cresting.
<whit537>
Coinbase just got $5M, I guess.
<elliottcable>
Learning about Bitcoin as a web-developer is sickening. There's so, *so* much comp-sci ability behind this system and the community, and not an ounce of design talent.
<whit537>
Hopefully they suck less a year from now. :)
<whit537>
Yeah, it's like the complement of the Ruby on Rails community. :)
<elliottcable>
anyway. let me know if you copy the private chat into a gist.
<elliottcable>
generally speaking, you might want to remove the message-signature line; but the rest is entirely safe to make public.
<elliottcable>
The amount itself will eventually be public as well; I'm only keeping it out of this channel, specifically. There's enough speculation about my financial history and status in here as it is.
<Nuck>
elliottcable: Nazi gold.
<elliottcable>
nuck ⑊ Black gold?
<Nuck>
elliottcable: No no, gq told me it's nazi gold~
<elliottcable>
I don't know, I'm pretty sure the running assumption was that I'm a drug-dealer, with “kills people for a living” as a close runner-up. ಠ_ಠ
<Nuck>
I like the new nazi gold theory.
<elliottcable>
Everyone in this damn town thinks I created Google or sued Apple for rights to the iPod or some shit.
<Nuck>
You look like Hitler's Wet Dream, elliottcable
<elliottcable>
Programmers think I deal drugs; druggies think I programmed Google.