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The proof of work concept is really interesting. It's a good way to deter spamming. I wonder whether email can utilize the same concept to force a cost for se
by ww520 13y ago
The proof of work concept is really interesting. It's a good way to deter spamming. I wonder whether email can utilize the same concept to force a cost for sending email. May be a two-tier system, emails with POW signature would be sent faster, while plain old email has lower priority.
- e1ven 13y agoIt's been used in anti-spam systems many years, but never caught on, due to the differing speeds of systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
- Groxx 13y agoWhich can probably take the route Litecoin has taken, and adopt Scrypt so systems are much more similar in performance.
- josephagoss 13y agoThe person who created hashcash, better known now as Bitcoins proof of work actually invented it for email use. Apparently it did not catch on that well and a decade later Satoshi used it among other things to create Bitcoin.
- dreamdu5t 13y agoI love information gold buried in comments.
- vy8vWJlco 13y agoInterestingly, Adam Back has a cache of a Satoshi Nakamoto bio, and related stuff on his home page, advertising a conspicuous interest. http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/ http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/ As long as we're speculating wildly, I have a theory... (Bear with me now) It is possible, if not probable, that Ted Nelson is himself Satoshi and was only trying to throw everyone off the trail (or it's Adam Back, I can't be sure, but it's definitely one of the two, if not both...).
- josephagoss 13y agoI do wonder... I love the Satoshi speculations a lot, I think Bitcoin is awesome enough as it is, but to add that the creator is unknown just makes the story even more compelling. If Bitcoin does take off or a derivative based on Bitcoin, it will be weird having this anonymous guy as the creator. Most computer science history has no large mystery like Bitcoin will have. (If Bitcoin is still around in a decade or more) Very exciting.
- mortenjorck 13y agoIt's funny, of all the William Gibson imaginings that have found their way into real life, Bitcoin is probably the most purely Gibsonian, in its plotline of the anonymous, genius creator of some earth-shaking thing whose identity is the stuff of legendary speculation. Makes me wonder if there's a Bigend out there with a crack team of Satoshi researchers on a globetrotting adventure...
- waterlesscloud 13y agoWith millions of dollars piling into bitcoin, both via startups and via direct purchase of coins on the markets, it does seem likely that someone somewhere has put a "due dilligence" team on the case. I wonder what, if anything, they've found...
- gizmo686 13y agoAssuming that Satoshi remains anonymous. It is entirely possible that he could out himself at some point in the future, or be outed by friends/family/collegues after he died (or before). Theres also the speculation that Satoshi is not an individual, but rather a government or organization. In this case, there are almost defiantly written records of 'who' he is. Or it might end up truly being lost to history.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Sami_Lehtinen 13y agoPOW is very important, without it I wouldn't have had any problems destroying the network totally and quickly. Because protocol allows very efficient attack amplification. Even with POW I can do serious damage, but I'm required to run cluster of high end servers. Without POW I can use any random computer to waste whole network using network propagation and attack amplification.