

EFF no longer accepts donations in Bitcoins - mike_esspe
http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/6100385027/eff-bitcoin-donation-review

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tptacek
I'm torn between liking stories that shine a skeptical light on the bitcoin
fad and being appalled at how much coverage bitcoin gets on HN. The "hiring"
thread for June was pushed off the front page in less than a day, but we've
had, what, 5 bitcoin stories hit the front page in the same time period?

I think it's time for some REPL intervention.

~~~
SandB0x
It's so tedious. I would have literally no idea that Bitcoins existed if it
weren't for the flood of articles on HN. I don't understand - who are all the
people who find this interesting or relevant?

~~~
ry0ohki
It's at the intersection of a lot of things that people here find interesting.
It's potentially a way to make money (some say ponzi scheme), it has a tech
component, there's a anti-government component, etc... so I do believe a lot
of people here do care about it. I mean I keep reading the damn articles
too...

~~~
tptacek
I think the kernel of contributors with a good-faith interest in bitcoin is
smaller than you think it is, but either way: if bitcoin is getting multiples
of the attention that the hiring thread is, I think most reasonable HN people
can agree that it's being overrepresented.

Lawyering over the site guidelines here isn't productive, since nobody (that
I've seen) is arguing that bitcoin contravenes them directly.

~~~
talaketu
Do you think the "reasonable HN people" who can agree bitcoin is
overrepresented are the same ones giving it all the attention?

I for one find bitcoin far more "intellectually gratifying" than the hiring
thread, which, with great respect to our host, has no interest for me.

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armored
I love this comment: "UPDATE: The EFF is still unofficially accepting
Bitcoins, but their address has changed to:
16g5mes4kW1gpX9Vp1F5VG7HXqN8ySar9EI've just donated a few BTCs to help them
protect the freedom of the Internet - please help them too!" Nice one "Rebecca
S. Reagan"!

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StavrosK
There's a website that shows you how much money you've received, from whom,
and how much you have now? Wow, the public nature of bitcoin had never sunk in
until I saw that.

It's like my wallet is open to everyone!

~~~
stordoff
You can create a new Bitcoin address for every single transaction you make if
you wish.

~~~
StavrosK
Sure, but you have to transfer your money somehow, and it will be easier to
track, let alone a huge hassle for you...

~~~
burke
Not quite. Your wallet can have an arbitrary number of addresses. You can
receive at one address, then send that balance out to a dozen different people
using a dozen different sending addresses.

~~~
caf
To do that, you still have to perform a transaction to transfer the amount
from your recieving address to your sending address.

~~~
burke
...no. That's not how it works. Your wallet has a pool of private keys.
Addresses are the corresponding public keys. You can send or receive from any
address you have the private key for (minor simplification, but doesn't affect
my point).

There is no transaction necessary to send money from a completely new address,
other than the transaction itself. All of your addresses point to the same
wallet.

~~~
caf
Each bitcoin is owned by the public key that it was last sent to. You can't
send it from a different key - it won't be accepted by the network. The public
key continues to own it until a transaction _signed by that public key_ is
accepted by the network. Read the whitepaper.

------
wccrawford
I'm not a big fan of bitcoins, but if there's anything I would want to buy
with them, it'd be a donation to the EFF. Somehow, that just seems to fit
together in my mind.

I hope they review what they need to and decide to put the donation link back.

------
fecklessyouth
"The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling which allows anonymous
spending in the campaign finance environment and its impact on elections may
be one of the issues triggering this review by the EFF."

Sorry, but what does that have to do with it? The ruling is a 1A issue.

------
anon123098
all those who naysay - why not yasay or say nothing at all?

i get a big impression that all(most) would at least agree what we have in
place now is more flawed than bitcoin. corruption is but a moral decision away
(to those in the right positions). politics are slimy, and rub off on current
currency models. violence has strong leverage over societies current credit
symbol (crack-head in dark alley - good luck punching your way into my SSH box
on the other side of the world. and if you do, ill just make a transaction,
rendering my wallet you stole useless).

whats holding you back from going all in? hmm, IF ONLY everyone would put some
faith behind a new system, and accept it as the new standard. that system
could grow, and overtake the current shady one in place (or at least parallel
it). it could become as common as visa, accepted everywhere.

ahhh, but not everyone will adopt this overnight - it will be a long slow
road. don't look for the overnight solution. if i told you bitcoin would
overtake the worlds currencies in 100 years, would it be worth taking a slight
risk now? what have we got to lose? a shitty status quo?

FULL DISCLOSURE honestly, i don't have any bitcoin ...yet. and i say all this
by ignoring the fact there seems to be at least a slight whiff of scam
afoot... perhaps a few admins with access to a few petaflops are laughing away
printing these bits like water... as long as that's not the case, wellll, GO
BITCOIN! but even GIVEN that scenario, it would be just as easy (if not
easier) for many more people to print counterfeit paper. but at least there is
a maximum amount that can be scammed in bitcoin, and then that's that -
bitcoin could live on and fulfill its purpose.

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lsparrish
It's kind of funny to watch people trying to justify not having bought in
earlier, with the logic that it's going to crash. Good old sunk costs fallacy.

Yeah maybe it'll crash one day. Maybe it'll go from $1000 clean down to $100,
destroying much of the world economy (i.e. that part that was backed by
speculation rather than real stuff to begin with) in the process.

~~~
antiscam
The entire value now is backed by speculation rather than "real stuff." The
widely repeated "market capitalization" figure vastly overestimates the actual
value given and obtainable for Bitcoins, and the price does not even closely
reflect that value. The price is simply the result of what game-theorists call
a "beauty-contest" game: it's based on baseless estimates of the value that
others will assign to it in the future.

Alone, that's just speculation. Backed by a massive marketing push that
doesn't convey the right message to the public, it's functionally
indistinguishable from a pyramid scheme.

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tobylane
Two negative parts of BC, 1 - A group of nerdy/freedom-chasing (that's a
complement) say no to it without any reason (such as legal advice on it), 2 -
Read the first comment of the blog post.

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anigbrowl
Well that didn't take long.

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hugh3
They're still accepting pinecones, confederate dollars and unicorn horns
though, right?

