Friday, September 28, 2012
The institutionalization of OSHW -- a disturbing trend
Yesterday the Open Source Hardware Summit was held at Eyebeam in New York City. While there was a lot of awesome projects, in this post I want to write about a disturbing trend of some of the largest players.
Open Source Hardware
First, just to set the stage, as I'm sure everyone in the community knows, MakerBot is closing some of the files in the Replicator 2. AFAIK what portions exactly were not announced until the summit, and to credit Bre (or cynically, to credit him for backpedaling), it turns out that only the plans for the steel structure and the GUI will be closed. But once that door gets opened...
This was not the only presentation on this topic... in fact there were several talks presenting an attitude along the lines of: "Well, 99% of our customers just change the software so as we explore business models, maybe we'll just open source that...". For example, in the keynote speech (of all places) Chis Anderson mentioned that some of his planes' extruded parts are not open because nobody but knock-off fabricators have extruders. Well, nobody except this guy who made a DIY extruder I guess. And couldn't you print them in a Reprap?
Ok fine, I understand the need to discourage knock-offs. But if you do this you are NOT 100% Open Source Hardware. You are trading the openness of some aspects of your design for the ability to make a good profit on your work, which you use to fund more cool projects! Its actually great in many ways. You've rediscovered the motivation behind intellectual property. But let's not lie about it. Let's be honest and let the customers decide whether your product is open enough.
FCC Compliance
A bit later, a representative from Sparkfun stepped up to speak about FCC compliance. He explained to us what he called the "good news": its actually only about 1000 bucks to get tested (ignoring your time and effort to get it done) if you are an "unintentional radiator" (that is you don't use wireless). If you do, I may misremember but its 10k USD. And by the way, kits, partial products, etc are not exempt so pay up! Also, amazingly enough if you make 5+ items for your personal use, pay up. But 1-4 is fine. Of course this is only for the USA. There's a similar but different regulatory body in every other country.
A chilling effect settled over the crowd.
All of this was delivered in a happy cheery tone because as we learned, "straight from the horse's mouth" so to speak, this guy previously worked for the FCC for 5 years!
I can't resist a momentary troll: I'm imaging this guy running around the OSHWA demo area on his mobile reporting us to his cronies in Washington. Sorry Sparkfun, but you should not hire an ex-FCC guy to do the FCC-compliance job. You should hire a protestor. And not just to prove a point -- but because enthusiastic people tend to magnify their jobs.
Did you sit under that LED dome? -- turn it off -- it was made from 5 identical driver modules. How about those fabric artists and electric ink? Turn 'em all off. And there was an amazing talk about testing radioactivity levels in Japan after the nuclear disaster http://summit.oshwa.org/humanitarian-open-source-hardware/. And not surprisingly, it was discovered that the Japanese government was not reporting these radiation levels. If this had happened in the USA, as far as I can tell the FCC could have shut them down under the 5 unit rule. The problem with a technicality is that it can and has been used to keep the truth from the public.
While clearly some small oversight to ensure reasonable electronic emissions is needed for mass consumer devices (say greater than 50k units) the 5 unit rule (and many others) is clearly obsolete. After all, I can get 10 PCBs from Seeedstudio for about 15 bucks.
You may roll your eyes a bit, but these sort of things really do have "a chilling effect". In other words, an effect not instantly obvious but one that is certainly dampening innovation in America. I would imagine that the effect happens most especially in areas such as education or outreach. People won't go the next step and bring these PCBs to a school, etc. Why get fined 7000 bucks for volunteer work? And of course schools are incredibly sensitive to possible litigation, since the cost comes straight from the pockets of the townspeople who hire principals.
And even if in practice nobody will see your prototypes at home, let me point out that it is a very dangerous social situation to have citizens living in a constant state of breaking the law.
USB Connectivity
Next, we got to hear about USB from DangerousPrototypes. Ian at least presented the information mostly neutrally. (summary: 2000 bucks to get your company registered; nope nobody can sell you an ID). However, it is clear in his opinion that squatting on an address is for hack-ups and should only be done by raw (never sold) prototypes.
Ian, I guess you forgot about sit-ins as a method of protest.
At an OSHWA summit meeting, I would have preferred a more critical treatment. I have done a lot of research on this, since my Lightuino 5 board uses a USB microprocessor. Everything presented is easily discovered on the web. But unfortunately, the key issue was not addressed and barely mentioned:
If you choose to squat (vid: 0xF055 FTW!) is there ANYTHING the USB consortium can do about it?
Currently the answer seems to be no -- they have no legal control over those particular bits in the USB protocol. In fact there seems to be no mechanism to even gain such control (hooray!). And history seems to prove this out; all that they have ever done is kicked companies out of the consortium (in fact one such company is still selling VID/PIDs).
But if I was invited to take up ten minutes of 450 peoples' time, I would have presented a legal opinion.
So, its getting pretty clear that the many of our most prominent OSHW members and companies are growing up.
And let's be clear, I do not blame them for following these laws -- it is important to be a productive member of the society you choose to live within. But I blame them for following them enthusiastically. A person's ability and proclivity to make things is literally as much a part of us as is our hands. Similarly, economic theorists affirm that a person's right to trade goods is fundamental to any society. Please do your part to ensure these freedoms are not taken from us.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
A Bit on Bitcoin
Bitcoin is simultaneously an amazing and very scary technology. It has a lot of potential, but seems to be doomed to repeat all the mistakes and scams that have been seen in traditional banking. This guide is for people who are interested in Bitcoin but still wondering about it.
Why use Bitcoin?
In a nutshell, it is essentially internet cash. This means:
1. It transfers value extremely efficiently worldwide.
2. It is usable for intangible goods like music or video game items.
3. If you are very careful, transactions can be anonymous.
It is quantity limited (more like a commodity then a modern currency) and stored/transferred via a peer-to-peer internet protocol. This means:
4. It is likely a good long-term store of value.
5. Your ability to spend cannot be "frozen" or otherwise inhibited, other than by depriving you of internet access.
6. The peer to peer nature means that it will be extremely difficult to disrupt, even for large organizations.
7. It can be transferred across borders during times of strife easily since it it possible to hold the "combination" to your bitcoins in your head.
So, if you are looking for a shelter against high inflation, a mechanism to inexpensively pay for goods from China (or other locations), or just want a "rainy-day" nest-egg, then Bitcoin might be for you.
However, please note that Bitcoin is still an experimental currency, so do not purchase more then you can afford to lose!
Is it legal?
This is a strange question because in this world truly "new stuff" is assumed legal and needs to be explicitly declared illegal. For example, it was not necessary for the Wright brothers to get a pilot's license to fly their airplane and TiVo skirted copyright issues to bring DVR technology to the world without getting a legal ruling a-priori.
A better question is whether it is likely that Bitcoin will some day be declared illegal.
While there has been no determination of its legal status in any country (edit: looks like an official in Finland affirmed its legality in that country), it is generally considered by lawyers to be legal to hold bitcoins. Essentially Bitcoin can either be considered a commodity, a currency, or pedantically just a bunch of (uncopyrighted) digital bits! If a commodity, certainly it is legal to own just like you can buy a bushel of corn. If a currency, no issue; it is legal in most countries for citizens to hold another country's currency. And while Bitcoin is not a particular country's currency, in the USA (for example) there are ample instances of corporations issuing currencies, like the Disney Dollar or the Second Life Linden Dollars.
Is Bitcoin a deflationary currency, and does that presage disaster?
Right now, Bitcoin is in fact highly inflationary -- a lot of new coins are being created every year. However, the inflation rate will decrease as the years go on and eventually stop altogether.
If you are like me, you have been inculcated to believe that a deflationary currency is "evil", causes recessions, and even may have caused the great depression. Keynesian economic theory claims that a deflationary market causes people to stop consuming to the point where the economy shudders to a halt. But the "Austrian" school of economic thought questions this gospel for many reasons:
First computer technology is massively deflationary; if you haven't noticed you can read about Moore's law which states that if you just wait a few years, you'll get a much better computer for the same price (or the same one for half price). And I'm sure people have deferred purchases to wait for the "next great thing" (I know I did). But did this deflationary environment hamper technology innovation? In fact, IT technology's contribution to GDP growth in the USA has equaled the contribution of all other sectors combined.
Second, unlike what we learned in school, it is now theorized that the recessions of the 1800's that culminated in the great depression were not in fact caused by the gold standard, but by over-regulation of the currency market. See this lecture (start a few minutes earlier then the link to get the full picture).
Finally, an argument against a deflationary currency like physical gold is that in practice it cannot represent all other economic activity. The reason is simply because if the price of gold increased to the point where it DID represent all other economic activity, it would require an infinitesimally small amount to purchase something cheap like a piece of gum. This amount would be too small to coin! However, Bitcoin does not have this issue; it is divisible by 8 decimal places today, and in fact a reasonably painless protocol change could extend this by as many more decimals as needed. Therefore even if all but one bitcoin (or .1 bitcoin, etc) were taken out of circulation, there would STILL be enough to simultaneously represent both the smallest transactions and all the economic activity in the world.
Whether you believe these arguments or not is immaterial -- you need only recognize that Bitcoin is a currency with unique properties; properties that have never been tried before. Therefore it is not possible to look at prior deflationary currencies and conclude that Bitcoin behave similarly.
Is Bitcoin itself a ponzi or a scam?
Bitcoin has been called a ponzi scheme because a bitcoin has no inherent value (and the early adopters "mined" a lot before others jumped in). But in fact unbacked paper money also has no inherent value, so are they a Ponzi scheme? (actually, they often end that way...)
Additionally, while value-store commodities like gold and silver have industrial use (that is, "marginal utility"), the price of these commodities so far exceeds that justified by the intrinsic "marginal utility" value that they might as well have no inherent value. Is investment in gold and silver a Ponzi scheme?
A Ponzi scheme or other scam is not defined simply by an unfortunate massive loss of value, but by whether the scheme provides or attempts to create any value or provide any service. Like the Spruce Goose, if it attempts but fails it is not a ponzi or scam -- it is just a mistake.
Bitcoin in fact has tremendous "marginal utility". It is both a "coin" and a worldwide, free, instant transfer, 10-minute confirm transaction network. It therefore out-competes other transaction networks like Visa/Mastercard (worldwide but exclusive, 2% fees, instant, 30-60 days to confirm), bank transfer (worldwide exclusive, 25-30 USD + 1-3% currency exchange fees, 2-3 business day transfer, 30-60 day "confirm" with the never-ending low-but-non-zero chance of a "clawback"), and finally Paypal (worldwide exclusive, 2.5% + .30c + 1-3% currency exchange fees)
Additionally, Bitcoin is much easier to get started in then these other systems. Since no credit is extended, anyone can create a Bitcoin "account" (wallet) instantly and with nobody's permission.
Finally, Bitcoin is/will be very valuable for the purchase of digital commodities like music, video game items, etc. Traditional transaction networks essentially stop fraud with "chargebacks". This is the ability to reverse a transaction once the theft is discovered. The reversal passes through every step of the financial network like a hot potato and ultimately lands on the merchant. The merchant theoretically has law enforcement follow the purchased goods to the address they are being sent to and arrests whoever picks them up. But this technique does not work for immaterial items -- the items are not sent to a physical address! In fact, so much fraud occurs in certain digital commodities that some traditional financial service providers (paypal, ebay) refuse to allow purchases of them.
The genesis of this unfortunate situation -- that financial networks are forced to use the chargeback mechanism -- is because all the information needed to charge a credit card or access a bank account is passed to merchants and middlemen every single time money is spent. Therefore many instances of fraud are not the account holders fault but actually caused by some person working in the institution that was paid.
This is the digital equivalent of storing your money in a safe, but telling every single person you pay your combination and letting them take out the cash!
Bitcoin solves the fraud problem by NOT telling every payee the combination of the safe. Therefore if someone steals your combination, you have only yourself to blame. Instead of issuing chargebacks that end up costing the merchant, you must report the loss and hopefully recover your own money when the thief is caught. Or more likely, responsibly safeguard your combination so your money is not stolen in the first place.
So Why Do I Hear About So Many Hacks and Scams?
In fact, the Bitcoin network and currency has never been "hacked". It is secured by the same advanced cryptographic techniques that secure your normal electronic bank transfers. However, online services that use bitcoin have been hacked. This is equivalent to saying that people have broken into banks and stolen money, but that the money itself has never been counterfeited. So Bitcoin is thought to be more secure then paper dollars...
But bitcoin is a fledgling currency. Teenagers from China, hackers from England, and moonlighters in NYC have built currency exchanges. These people perhaps were not the best choice for the public to entrust with the handling of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Additionally, one of the features of Bitcoin is that, like cash, it can't be taken back without asking. And, also like cash, it can be used anonymously if care is taken to access the internet anonymously.
These two features are very convenient on a daily basis for legitimate use. Yes even the "anonymous" feature. While waiting in line at the checkout counter, have you ever suddenly grown fearful and embarrassed that your credit card would be declined for some reason? Perhaps you were out to lunch with your boss. But if you held cash you carry peace of mind, secure in the knowledge that you can pay. Requiring proof-of-identity (and by extension declining payment from some identities) will always admit the uncertainty that some glitch in the system will halt a perfectly credit-worthy individual's ability to pay.
But the media amplifies the problem. In fact, to date I've managed to avoid opening accounts with Chinese teenagers, investing in obvious Ponzi schemes, contributing to scams, or losing a single Bitcoin. It was not hard. It was obvious from the beginning that money should not be kept on Bitcoin exchanges like they were bank accounts due to "counterparty" risk. These are not FDIC insured institutions and do not claim to be. In fact, the great advantage of Bitcoin is that you can easily and safely hold your own money. So hold it; don't hand it to someone else!
Honestly, given how obvious the scams have been, the real question in my mind is why other people are falling for them.
OK, I'm Convinced. So How Do I Get And Hold Bitcoins?
You need to start doing your own research now. But...
Its really easy to get a few Bitcoins in an account on your Android phone (or desktop web browser), but these should be your "spending" account -- like the cash in your wallet, if they are lost you should not be too upset. Try https://blockchain.info/wallet for one (they also have a great Android app). Sorry iphone users -- Apple feels Bitcoin threatens their monopoly on phone payments and so have removed all Bitcoin apps from their store. [Personally, I think you should research this and other heavy-handed Apple tactics, realize that personal choice is more important then incremental convenience and put your iPhone up on ebay...]
Compared to buying a wallet or purse, its a lot harder to buy, take delivery of, and install a secure safe for holding valuables -- and its a lot harder to do the same for Bitcoin. Well, actually, if you choose to trust just one service, it can be quite easy. Please research "bitcoin paper wallet" for a primer on the subject.
An intermediate option is to download and use the original Bitcoin client. This client is capable of storing an encrypted wallet on your computer, and you can back that wallet up. By the way, you actually only need to back up any wallet once. The "bitcoin wallet" is actually more accurately described as the key to a safe held on your behalf in a distributed peer to peer network. That is, if you back up your bitcoin wallet, deposit more coins, and then restore your wallet from the backup you will NOT lose the coins you just deposited -- they are still in the safe, you just restored the file containing the safe's key.
But if you delete this wallet (this key), ALL YOUR COINS ARE LOST (so make backups)! If you forget your password, ALL YOUR COINS ARE LOST (so don't forget it)! This is not document "encryption" where if you ask the company that produces the software really nicely they'll crack it open for you. This is more like if all the energy that the sun will EVER produce was used by the largest, fastest, most efficient computer theoretically possible, the sun would burn out long before it found the key to the safe containing your coins.
On the bright side, this makes it very hard to steal someone's coins.
Good luck Bitcoiner!
Why use Bitcoin?
In a nutshell, it is essentially internet cash. This means:
1. It transfers value extremely efficiently worldwide.
2. It is usable for intangible goods like music or video game items.
3. If you are very careful, transactions can be anonymous.
It is quantity limited (more like a commodity then a modern currency) and stored/transferred via a peer-to-peer internet protocol. This means:
4. It is likely a good long-term store of value.
5. Your ability to spend cannot be "frozen" or otherwise inhibited, other than by depriving you of internet access.
6. The peer to peer nature means that it will be extremely difficult to disrupt, even for large organizations.
7. It can be transferred across borders during times of strife easily since it it possible to hold the "combination" to your bitcoins in your head.
So, if you are looking for a shelter against high inflation, a mechanism to inexpensively pay for goods from China (or other locations), or just want a "rainy-day" nest-egg, then Bitcoin might be for you.
However, please note that Bitcoin is still an experimental currency, so do not purchase more then you can afford to lose!
Is it legal?
This is a strange question because in this world truly "new stuff" is assumed legal and needs to be explicitly declared illegal. For example, it was not necessary for the Wright brothers to get a pilot's license to fly their airplane and TiVo skirted copyright issues to bring DVR technology to the world without getting a legal ruling a-priori.
A better question is whether it is likely that Bitcoin will some day be declared illegal.
While there has been no determination of its legal status in any country (edit: looks like an official in Finland affirmed its legality in that country), it is generally considered by lawyers to be legal to hold bitcoins. Essentially Bitcoin can either be considered a commodity, a currency, or pedantically just a bunch of (uncopyrighted) digital bits! If a commodity, certainly it is legal to own just like you can buy a bushel of corn. If a currency, no issue; it is legal in most countries for citizens to hold another country's currency. And while Bitcoin is not a particular country's currency, in the USA (for example) there are ample instances of corporations issuing currencies, like the Disney Dollar or the Second Life Linden Dollars.
Is Bitcoin a deflationary currency, and does that presage disaster?
Right now, Bitcoin is in fact highly inflationary -- a lot of new coins are being created every year. However, the inflation rate will decrease as the years go on and eventually stop altogether.
If you are like me, you have been inculcated to believe that a deflationary currency is "evil", causes recessions, and even may have caused the great depression. Keynesian economic theory claims that a deflationary market causes people to stop consuming to the point where the economy shudders to a halt. But the "Austrian" school of economic thought questions this gospel for many reasons:
First computer technology is massively deflationary; if you haven't noticed you can read about Moore's law which states that if you just wait a few years, you'll get a much better computer for the same price (or the same one for half price). And I'm sure people have deferred purchases to wait for the "next great thing" (I know I did). But did this deflationary environment hamper technology innovation? In fact, IT technology's contribution to GDP growth in the USA has equaled the contribution of all other sectors combined.
Second, unlike what we learned in school, it is now theorized that the recessions of the 1800's that culminated in the great depression were not in fact caused by the gold standard, but by over-regulation of the currency market. See this lecture (start a few minutes earlier then the link to get the full picture).
Finally, an argument against a deflationary currency like physical gold is that in practice it cannot represent all other economic activity. The reason is simply because if the price of gold increased to the point where it DID represent all other economic activity, it would require an infinitesimally small amount to purchase something cheap like a piece of gum. This amount would be too small to coin! However, Bitcoin does not have this issue; it is divisible by 8 decimal places today, and in fact a reasonably painless protocol change could extend this by as many more decimals as needed. Therefore even if all but one bitcoin (or .1 bitcoin, etc) were taken out of circulation, there would STILL be enough to simultaneously represent both the smallest transactions and all the economic activity in the world.
Whether you believe these arguments or not is immaterial -- you need only recognize that Bitcoin is a currency with unique properties; properties that have never been tried before. Therefore it is not possible to look at prior deflationary currencies and conclude that Bitcoin behave similarly.
Is Bitcoin itself a ponzi or a scam?
Bitcoin has been called a ponzi scheme because a bitcoin has no inherent value (and the early adopters "mined" a lot before others jumped in). But in fact unbacked paper money also has no inherent value, so are they a Ponzi scheme? (actually, they often end that way...)
Additionally, while value-store commodities like gold and silver have industrial use (that is, "marginal utility"), the price of these commodities so far exceeds that justified by the intrinsic "marginal utility" value that they might as well have no inherent value. Is investment in gold and silver a Ponzi scheme?
A Ponzi scheme or other scam is not defined simply by an unfortunate massive loss of value, but by whether the scheme provides or attempts to create any value or provide any service. Like the Spruce Goose, if it attempts but fails it is not a ponzi or scam -- it is just a mistake.
Bitcoin in fact has tremendous "marginal utility". It is both a "coin" and a worldwide, free, instant transfer, 10-minute confirm transaction network. It therefore out-competes other transaction networks like Visa/Mastercard (worldwide but exclusive, 2% fees, instant, 30-60 days to confirm), bank transfer (worldwide exclusive, 25-30 USD + 1-3% currency exchange fees, 2-3 business day transfer, 30-60 day "confirm" with the never-ending low-but-non-zero chance of a "clawback"), and finally Paypal (worldwide exclusive, 2.5% + .30c + 1-3% currency exchange fees)
Additionally, Bitcoin is much easier to get started in then these other systems. Since no credit is extended, anyone can create a Bitcoin "account" (wallet) instantly and with nobody's permission.
Finally, Bitcoin is/will be very valuable for the purchase of digital commodities like music, video game items, etc. Traditional transaction networks essentially stop fraud with "chargebacks". This is the ability to reverse a transaction once the theft is discovered. The reversal passes through every step of the financial network like a hot potato and ultimately lands on the merchant. The merchant theoretically has law enforcement follow the purchased goods to the address they are being sent to and arrests whoever picks them up. But this technique does not work for immaterial items -- the items are not sent to a physical address! In fact, so much fraud occurs in certain digital commodities that some traditional financial service providers (paypal, ebay) refuse to allow purchases of them.
The genesis of this unfortunate situation -- that financial networks are forced to use the chargeback mechanism -- is because all the information needed to charge a credit card or access a bank account is passed to merchants and middlemen every single time money is spent. Therefore many instances of fraud are not the account holders fault but actually caused by some person working in the institution that was paid.
This is the digital equivalent of storing your money in a safe, but telling every single person you pay your combination and letting them take out the cash!
Bitcoin solves the fraud problem by NOT telling every payee the combination of the safe. Therefore if someone steals your combination, you have only yourself to blame. Instead of issuing chargebacks that end up costing the merchant, you must report the loss and hopefully recover your own money when the thief is caught. Or more likely, responsibly safeguard your combination so your money is not stolen in the first place.
So Why Do I Hear About So Many Hacks and Scams?
In fact, the Bitcoin network and currency has never been "hacked". It is secured by the same advanced cryptographic techniques that secure your normal electronic bank transfers. However, online services that use bitcoin have been hacked. This is equivalent to saying that people have broken into banks and stolen money, but that the money itself has never been counterfeited. So Bitcoin is thought to be more secure then paper dollars...
But bitcoin is a fledgling currency. Teenagers from China, hackers from England, and moonlighters in NYC have built currency exchanges. These people perhaps were not the best choice for the public to entrust with the handling of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Additionally, one of the features of Bitcoin is that, like cash, it can't be taken back without asking. And, also like cash, it can be used anonymously if care is taken to access the internet anonymously.
These two features are very convenient on a daily basis for legitimate use. Yes even the "anonymous" feature. While waiting in line at the checkout counter, have you ever suddenly grown fearful and embarrassed that your credit card would be declined for some reason? Perhaps you were out to lunch with your boss. But if you held cash you carry peace of mind, secure in the knowledge that you can pay. Requiring proof-of-identity (and by extension declining payment from some identities) will always admit the uncertainty that some glitch in the system will halt a perfectly credit-worthy individual's ability to pay.
But the media amplifies the problem. In fact, to date I've managed to avoid opening accounts with Chinese teenagers, investing in obvious Ponzi schemes, contributing to scams, or losing a single Bitcoin. It was not hard. It was obvious from the beginning that money should not be kept on Bitcoin exchanges like they were bank accounts due to "counterparty" risk. These are not FDIC insured institutions and do not claim to be. In fact, the great advantage of Bitcoin is that you can easily and safely hold your own money. So hold it; don't hand it to someone else!
Honestly, given how obvious the scams have been, the real question in my mind is why other people are falling for them.
OK, I'm Convinced. So How Do I Get And Hold Bitcoins?
You need to start doing your own research now. But...
Its really easy to get a few Bitcoins in an account on your Android phone (or desktop web browser), but these should be your "spending" account -- like the cash in your wallet, if they are lost you should not be too upset. Try https://blockchain.info/wallet for one (they also have a great Android app). Sorry iphone users -- Apple feels Bitcoin threatens their monopoly on phone payments and so have removed all Bitcoin apps from their store. [Personally, I think you should research this and other heavy-handed Apple tactics, realize that personal choice is more important then incremental convenience and put your iPhone up on ebay...]
Compared to buying a wallet or purse, its a lot harder to buy, take delivery of, and install a secure safe for holding valuables -- and its a lot harder to do the same for Bitcoin. Well, actually, if you choose to trust just one service, it can be quite easy. Please research "bitcoin paper wallet" for a primer on the subject.
An intermediate option is to download and use the original Bitcoin client. This client is capable of storing an encrypted wallet on your computer, and you can back that wallet up. By the way, you actually only need to back up any wallet once. The "bitcoin wallet" is actually more accurately described as the key to a safe held on your behalf in a distributed peer to peer network. That is, if you back up your bitcoin wallet, deposit more coins, and then restore your wallet from the backup you will NOT lose the coins you just deposited -- they are still in the safe, you just restored the file containing the safe's key.
But if you delete this wallet (this key), ALL YOUR COINS ARE LOST (so make backups)! If you forget your password, ALL YOUR COINS ARE LOST (so don't forget it)! This is not document "encryption" where if you ask the company that produces the software really nicely they'll crack it open for you. This is more like if all the energy that the sun will EVER produce was used by the largest, fastest, most efficient computer theoretically possible, the sun would burn out long before it found the key to the safe containing your coins.
On the bright side, this makes it very hard to steal someone's coins.
Good luck Bitcoiner!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)