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RMS Calls For "Truly Anonymous" Payment Alternative To Bitcoin
BitVulture writes "Richard Stallman took time to air his views on the crypto-currency that has become virtually as valuable as gold. In an interview with Russian media giant RT, Stallman praised Bitcoin for allowing people to 'send money to someone without getting the permission of a payment company'. But he also warned against a major weakness of Bitcoin and called for the development of 'a system for truly anonymous payment' online."
Stopped reading right there
Yes the size of the blockchain is fast becoming a problem, especially now that enthusiasm about Bitcoins is growing much faster than the technological means to store the blockchain. Also, the size of every block is going to grow explosively as soon as online services everywhere start accepting bitcoins as payment option, and THAt will be much more problematic.
But then, it'll just drive some more division of labor, with people storing the blockchain and verifying transactions getting paid for the service, much like what is happening now in the mining part. There will definitely be growing pains and I can foresee a near-term future where transactions get a LONG time to validate because miners are swamped with transaction volume.
As for your suggestion, it cannot apply to Bitcoin in any way or shape. Reducing the size of the blockchain means making a "summary" of it where all the wallets that are now zero get short-circuited in the transaction history. i.e 'wallet A sends 1 BTC to wallet B which then sends it to wallet C', you shorten it as 'Wallet A sends 1 BTC to wallet C'. But that eschews the hashing process entirely, so it cannot be done trustfully AFAIK.
Can I just ask your opinion, how does this protect someone who buys into Bitcoin from it actually being a Ponzi scheme?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Maybe you missed that whole GNU project thing. He contributed so much he can barely type without a special low pressure keyboard anymore because his hands are ruined from all the contributing ungrateful fucks like you ignore.
Oh, fuck you, Tim Landers. His questionable hand problems have little to do with any contributions you think he made and as always, lying trolls like you inflate them to astronomical sizes. He's a fat blob with poor circulation who needs to go on a diet and stop digesting his own toe cheese, among other things. Low pressure keyboard? The tubby bastard STILL uses a cheap Chinese laptop slapped together by slave labor, something he's very proud of. More lies from Tim Landers. I'm shocked, I say, shocked.
Now he contributes the best way he can via public awareness, speeches, etc. When he's dead I bet you'll be bitching about how his corpse doesn't even advocate for free software anymore.
Yeah, now he trolls, spreads FUD, and wants everyone to only use software that matches HIS definition of "freedom." I'm sure long after he's dead zealots like you will continue to flame on because, like religion, your life would be empty without something to proselytize.
RMS is good at taking positions on issues, and does a good job representing his particular viewpoint, but I wouldn't expect much more out of him.
He's an out-of-touch loon whose advocacy is as much about preserving the beatnik, circle-jerk computing culture he was the center of as much as anything else. His message really only resonates with extremists like yourself. Outside of GNU/Linux land, he ain't shit, and quite frankly, neither are you, Tim Landers.
"So, with only a rudimentary knowledge of x86 assembly, and not a single programming lesson, I did just that."
"It only took a couple of weeks to make an interpretor and then a simple compiler for my language"
A complete novice writes an interpreter AND compiler in a couple of weeks? In assembler? Suuuuuuure. And I guess you helped achieve world peace and solve fermats theorum while you were at it?
Oh, btw Mr Bullshitter - BBC BASIC ran on a 6502, NOT x86. Just a little FYI for you there.