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What's to stop someone from taking apart the software/building rogue software and generating their own bitcoins without going through any of the complicated mat
by rick888 16y ago
What's to stop someone from taking apart the software/building rogue software and generating their own bitcoins without going through any of the complicated math calculations?
If they can't, then there must be some central authority preventing this..which means it's no different than the government
It also doesn't really help with privacy. In fact, it does the exact opposite:
Taken from: http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=5907.0 http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=5907.0
"Every bitcoin transaction ever made is public, and the life of every bitcoin is fully recorded in public for all to see,"
- prodigal_erik 16y agoForging a solved bitcoin block is like making counterfeit currency in crayon. No central authority is needed because every peer running correct tools will reject blatantly invalid blocks. The history of each bitcoin is public, but the ownership of the sending and receiving addresses is not, and generating fresh anonymous addresses (keypairs) is nearly free. I don't know how resistant they are to traffic analysis attacks, though.
- rick888 16y agoI'm still not convinced. Currency has gone through many corrections because of counterfeiting and I feel pretty confident that most people won't be able to counterfeit money (especially with the new designs). Bitcoins also do not have the backing of the government (and it never will, unless the government is issuing them, which would defeat the purpose). A security flaw in any of the peers could potentially mean lots of stolen money/devaluing.