* Posts by PyLETS

682 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jul 2011

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Spamhaus victorious after 5-year fight with mass mailer

PyLETS
WTF?

jurisdiction

The initial Spamhaus course was to ignore it, as they don't have any business or presence in the US. US lawyers then took on the case 'pro bono publico' i.e. as a charitable donation, because it isn't in the public interest for US courts to make such an ass of themselves, especially as seen from abroad. So as I understand it, this dispute is between a public-spirited group of US lawyers who have offered to defend a UK organisation free of charge which doesn't really need defending because it has no interests or assets at risk, and the US spammers who started the case imagining they could either cause significant expense and nuisance to a foreign entity if Spamhaus bothered to contest the case themselves, or win a default uncontested case and gain a propaganda advantage in the process.

Green energy and jobs will cripple the UK economy

PyLETS
Thumb Down

@david 12

"Nobody would be worrying about Global Warming if NG and Oil were set to run out."

Per unit of energy, burning coal releases more C02 than oil which releases more C02 than natural gas. Given known global coal reserves of 118 years, oil at 46 years and NG at 59 years (at current production rates see http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-is-coal-found/ substitution of coal for oil and NG as these lighter hydrocarbons become more scarce and relatively expensive, without renewables to fill the gap this would exacerbate C02 levels and GW. So it's possible to have both problems, resulting in dirtier gas and oil from coal because many systems will continue to require lighter fuels, and coal can be (very dirtily) converted into gas (as with the old style gas works) and into oil, as done in WW2 Germany and Apartheid regime sanctioned South Africa.

PyLETS
Boffin

@Charles 9: limits to jobs (OT)

"With all other markets already balanced, and barring a market disruptor, where do you reach the point where you realize you have a grossly imbalanced labor system?"

Keynes realised that the labour system was grossly imbalanced in the 1930ies and came up with a partial solution. His market disruptor was for government to control money supply to even out the job market imbalances. Even with full Keynsian (i.e. based upon strict interpretation of Keynes' direct writings, not all the drivel so described) policies applied there would probably be an average 5-10% cyclical unemployment, possibly increasing as the economy shifts away from low skill demand towards high skill demand. If you want a further "market disrupter" to correct this level of unemployment, the only approach I'm reasonably aware of and particularly positive about is parallel currencies as proposed by Hayek and Michael Linton, and which the Swiss economy has employed with some effectiveness since the 1940ies using their Wir B2B parallel currency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIR_Bank , which may partly explain Switzerland's very high employment averages and very low interest rates.

PyLETS
Coffee/keyboard

taxes not always bad

Taxes create jobs in teaching which are sustainable within a population willing to continue voting for taxes needed to pay for state-funded education and the high-value, high-skill jobs which result from schooling compared to illiteracy. So not all taxes destroy jobs QED. A few societies prefer illiteracy to taxes for this purpose - I suggest you go visit such a place to see what it's like living there, but I don't think you'll want to stay long.

As you say, subsidies are not sustainable, to the extent an electorate is very likely to vote their discontinuation. Therefore it follows that green taxes which correct subsidies paid by the rest of society to polluters of the entire environment correct this imbalance within the economy caused by the free ride given to polluters at everyone else's expense. There isn't a better mechanism than green taxes to correct this subsidy in connection with C02 pollution, because we all generate this in different amounts and every act of pollution affects everyone else. As another commenter has pointed out, better to turn the tap off at source than plug a billion leaks elsewhere, so taxing large scale production and supply of fossil fuels does the job more efficiently than any other approach to ending this subsidy.

PyLETS
FAIL

fallacious argument proved wrong long time ago

Can't see any fundamental difference between this argument and that of the Victorian mill owner who argued that manufacturing his chemicals would be cheaper leading to more jobs if he didn't have to pay the cleanup cost of his effluent which poisoned a fishery downstream. When the inheritor of his business was forced to do this in the last century, it didn't prevent chemicals being produced, but it did enable them to be produced with more realistic costs picked up by the purchasers and not the environment (and loss if fishery jobs). Economists call the costs shifted off the balance sheets of the party responsible for them and onto other parties externalities.

There are limits to how many jobs you want or need in automated manufacturing, the energy production sector or mechanised agriculture anyway due to limits to the amount of food, manufactured stuff and energy people will ever really want or need - with the rest of jobs (most jobs since the late 1950ies in the UK) having to be in services. Having higher quality production in these areas rather than just more production based upon shorter product life and higher wastage makes us all better off, so the analysis in this article is directed at encouraging optimisations we don't need at the expense of optimisations we do need.

Baidu produces cloned Android, web apps etc

PyLETS
Linux

Forking == duplicated effort

Google would be able to save themselves some cash if they did the development of Android in public, as is done for the kernel, and shared the cost with other interested parties. Instead they periodically get it to a stable internally tested state and then throw each successive release over the wall to comply with copyleft license requirements to enable Android to be distributed.

Baidu are likely to get processed for copyright license violations if they distribute binary copies on phones without source code being made available.

Kernel.org Linux repository rooted in hack attack

PyLETS
Boffin

ssh -o PubkeyAuthentication

Are you sure the devs don't use SSH public/private keypairs, as opposed to passwords ? If the latter, your analysis makes some sense. If the former you are way off the mark - in this event, presumably all that is compromised if the server was using public keys to authenticate its users private keys are the public keys the devs are happy to publish anyway.

from ssh_config(5):

PubkeyAuthentication

Specifies whether to try public key authentication. The argument to this keyword must be “yes” or “no”.

The default is “yes”. This option applies to protocol version 2 only.

PyLETS
WTF?

wrong target

Checked which operating system runs your NAS, your broadband router, your TV set top box, or even your TV or webcam if you bought a non trivial one in the last 3 years ? No ? I thought not.

Biofuel boffins pimp panda poo

PyLETS
Coat

Beats using sulphuric acid

To crack cellulose into sugars for making wood alcohol, as was done during the US prohibition bonanza for organised crime, here's a recipe: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_sawdust.html . But that's suitable for engine fuel, not happy juice. I don't think I'd like to drink this product myself, there lies the journey into blindness and insanity.

Mines the coat with the hydrometer, blackberries, dried yeast and granulated sugar in the pocket. Cerevisiae Saccharomyces is easily grown and has all the bio-enzymes I need, but these crack much shorter carbohydrates into yeast digestible form than panda poo.

Tony Sale, 'Colossus' crypto machine rebuilder, dies at 80

PyLETS
Unhappy

Saw him a couple of years ago

Enthusiastically demonstrating the Collossus rebuild to visitors, of which I was one.

Pre-paid Chinese users still anonymous despite new law

PyLETS
Big Brother

Buyer and user often different

About as easy to get around as it is for under 18s to obtain alcohol. Stopping Bob from buying a £10 phone for Alice who gives him £11, and whom he thinks is Eve, can only be prevented if enforcing the rule is likely to cost Bob more than £1 for registering a PAYG phone on behalf of someone else.

And then there's the question of what Bob does with his old PAYG phone once he buys a new one and can't be bothered to transfer the old number. As far as I'm concerned it's a bit like lending a casual visitor a working but slightly tatty old umbrella if it's raining on their way out the door. Blowed if I could always remember who I'd lent use of a mobile to.

People don't want tablets, they want iPads

PyLETS
Linux

overpriced or underspecified

Why should I want a less capable tablet than the £200 Linux Acer netbook I purchased 2 years ago and which I'm posting this on ? The Android tablets I've seen are either around the same price but lacking essentials such as networking ( or dare I mention keyboards ?) or of similar capabilities but at twice the price. Apple's products are in a different class, as these have buyers who regard them as the Rolls Royce of the product category - and are willing to pay premium prices compared to most potential users.

Boffins deduce chip's crypto just by looking at it

PyLETS
Boffin

Kerckhoff's principle

Nothing new here that wasn't known about in the 19th century. If security of a cipher depends upon attackers not knowing the algorithm it isn't going to be secure unless you can prevent enemies obtaining _any_ instance of the system, which in practice prevents the system from being widely used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_Principle

That is why modern cryptographic security depends upon secrecy of a software (i.e. changeable) key. If an enemy obtains an instance of an asymmetric crypto system using individual embedded private keys then other instances remain secure once the public key of the compromised system is revoked. If symmetric keys are used, the system security property based upon secrecy of the symmetric key is restored when all instances using the symmetric key are securely replaced.

The WW2 Enigma codes were symmetric, and suffered the weakness that new keys being distributed to field units were encrypted using the old keys, so once the old keys were compromised, so were any new keys secured for distribution using old ones.

Acoustic trauma: How wind farms make you sick

PyLETS
Linux

Internet journalism and astroturfing

Unfortunately if we have no way of knowing who pays the piper we have to guess. I'm all in favour of content paid for by subscribers who read it, e.g. as lwn.net have succeeded in achieving, though us readers had to persuade the content providers to stay in business on this model, once they realised advertising was never going to pay enough.

PyLETS
WTF?

@Gordon 10

+1 vote on this as I generally agree this is likely to be a very mild and mitigatable issue. Low frequency noise does carry further than higher frequencies. I'd agree with more independent research being needed to help host communities improve planning of these sites, but I suspect few applications should be rejected on noise grounds. Sound also carries very differently depending upon atmospheric conditions, neighbouring trees which will tend to muffle sound and the local topology which may dissipate or concentrate sounds of different frequencies. For example, a wind farm on the top if a rounded hill is likely to radiate energy away from the ground, while one facing a rounded valley is likely to use the latter as a parabolic echo concentrator. Fortunately the hilltop site is much more likely to have the high wind averages making siting the windfarm there more productive than somewhere facing a rounded valley with dwellings at or near a parabolic echo focus.

Good news: A meltdown would kill fewer than we thought

PyLETS
Linux

@Chris Miller

"There are, however, plenty of places that actually welcome nuclear build."

In the UK there are a few such places and you mention these, due to the premium these localities place upon nuclear jobs. As to whether this number is 'plenty', I would agree with this if generating 20-30% of UK electric demand at half a dozen or so nuclear sites over the next UK nuclear station project lifecycle is the proportion of eggs we want and need in this particular basket.

I've seen evidence of one or two nimby protests against onshore wind, but these seem very minor compared to what results from proposals for a nuclear site where none has existed before in the UK, and most neighbours of windfarms seem comparatively OK about these, though those living in Shropshire near to where proposed new overhead grid lines are projected to carry renewable wind electricity generated on the Welsh hills into the industrial Midlands are not very happy about this.

I'd rather not have to mortgage future generations of humans on the decomissioning cost resulting from putting all of our eggs into the nuclear basket as has been foisted upon the French. I'm not convinced either that renewable electricity can be developed fast enough that we don't need one last generation of nuclear generators on sites in the UK already familiar with these.

As to whether the cost of renewable electricity can be driven down in the next 20-30 years and siting problems resolved so that we won't need another generation of nukes after that remains to be seen - that will be a debate for the 2030ies and will also depend upon how nuclear costs including provision for long-term waste management and adequate nuclear accident insurance shape up over that period, a cost currently beyond the capacity of private sector insurers to be able to underwrite it.

PyLETS
Linux

@bill 36

"But you don't answer the fundamental question. Shifting resources around is not going to solve the worlds energy problems ..."

But that is exactly how energy problems have been solved for millennia . By shifting resources around. It's how these problems will continue to be addressed. In reality energy demands and resources are too complex and multifaceted for there to be one single solution. Fossil fuels are overused already, with oil in far too much demand in relation to limited supply considering the rate of industrialisation of many highly populated parts of the world and clean coal technology currently a research pipe dream.

We know it ain't fossil fuels, we know it ain't nuclear either, and we know it ain't renewables entirely in the short term as it will take 20 years to develop these to meet half UK _electricity_ requirements even with a lot of conservation, let alone UK _energy_ requirements. So it's going to have to be some combination of the three with a declining share of fossil fuels and an increasing share of renewables and conservation, at least until the currently being or likely to be built soon generation of nuclear wears out, which is unlikely to be useful for more than 20-30% of UK electricity demand.

Nuclear isn't much use to solve the peaking problem and is made more expensive and can be developed in fewer places by the fact people don't like a nuclear plant as their next door neighbour and siting of nuclear plants causes large reductions in property values. No amount of 'nuclear is safe' propaganda and lobbying will convince us otherwise ; house buyers are not fools - call us that if you choose, but if your case relies on an elite priesthood telling the rest of us what we want and imposing it on us, as happened in nuclear France, then your case really hasn't moved beyond the 'too cheap to meter' propaganda of the 1950ies.

PyLETS
Linux

@bill 36

"I read that the worlds data centres require almost 200 billion kw/h to run. How can that be done with windmills and cow shit exactly?"

The article puts data centres and server closets using around 2% of US electricity plus or minus 0.2% in 2010. Let's assume the rest of the world catches up to US current figures in relation to data centre requirements. This Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy claims that 19% of world electricity comes from renewables currently of which 16% is hydroelectric. Hydro is a very good match for data centres due to extreme supply reliability needs. For this reason, most data centres have local diesel generators and emergency fuel supply contracts in place to cover shorter or more extended periods of mains supply failure.

Dried cowshit continues to be used in many developing countries for heating and cooking fuel, and there is growing interest in small scale agricultural power generation use from this source in developed countries - this is not a good match for datacentre requirements and doesn't need to be because other energy markets are better matched. Wind electricity is currently growing from a low base (around 2% of electricity) at around 30% per annum - doubling about every 3 years. The rapidly declining cost of wind electricity and exponential growth in production of it is likely to result in interest in using existing hydro dam storage capacity to take up variations in wind electricity supply. This research indicates Scottish hydro dam capacity is capable of balancing UK wind electricity to up to 40% of UK grid requirements: http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/wind/content/conclusions.html .

In practice data centres generate sufficient revenue that they will be able to pay a premium price for the electricity they need at the levels of extreme reliability they require. The cost of provisioning and maintaining backup generators on site means they are paying top whack already. There is discussion of relocating some data centres to Iceland, due to underexploited hydro electric generating potential there: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/22/new_transatlantic_cable_due_2012/

Obama drops Twitter bombs on debt-ceiling foes

PyLETS
Thumb Up

it's called politics, get used to it

Since when was asking constituents to talk to their representatives spamming ? Because the person suggesting this course of action is the President of the US ? Twits who tweet can follow and respond to whoever they like, I can't be bothered myself and simply blacklist those who send me unsolicited bulk email so it stays out of my inbox. Managing a large correspondence is part of the job of any representative in any democracy, especially at a time of crisis.

BT on site-blocking: Every case will need a court order

PyLETS
Flame

Ludicrous idea

The idea that an ISP isn't primarily concerned with providing communications facilities to its customers seems disingenuous. As if their primary motivation is to act as unofficial censor whenever a big enough content company claims something communicated infringes its rights. The job of judge, jury and executioner has to stay with the courts. As if Big Content ever could be trusted to police fair use and act impartially when shareholder value is at stake.

It's one thing for a court to order the Post Office not to accept parcels from Joe's Cheapest DVD Car-Boot Sale Emporium, as only a court can test the legitimacy of what Joe is selling against an over-complex set of legislation and case law. Expecting the Post Office "voluntarily" to steam open parcels from anyone and second guess the contents when a contributary copyright infringement litigation gun is held against their heads is another thing entirely.

Three prunes prices of smartphone contracts

PyLETS
Thumb Up

Not alone

I'm on a rolling monthly £10/month contract with 3 which gives me all the data and texts I need and 100minutes which I rarely exceed. That's the advantage of buying your phone outright - in my case an LG Optimus one which does tethering as well. I might switch to a 12 month version of the same deal if I ever want significantly to exceed 100 minutes as this goes up to 300 minutes for the same price, but 12 months bound to one supplier is about as long as I'm ever likely to feel comfortable with. I've found 3's coverage generally OK but could be better.

Crypto shocker: 'Perfect cipher' dates back to telegraphs

PyLETS
Boffin

limited usefulness

The one time pad is only useful if a secure alternative channel of communication is available to send the key. The British Diplomatic service used this up to the seventies based on punched paper tape one-time pads which were sent by diplomatic bag taken by couriers to embassies abroad, which enabled a secure transmission channel back to the Foreign Office in London. I saw one of the machines used in the computing museum at Bletchley Park a couple of years ago. It shredded the pad immediately after being used as an integral part of the machine, which guarantees the pad tape is used no more than once. The advantage was that for this purpose, a secure alternative communication channel was available but time limited, and the secured communication could occur electronically at any time in the opposite direction to the key transmission.

Nominet pilots .co.uk domain security pump-up

PyLETS
Thumb Up

could be similar to IPV6

IPV6 was 20 years in gestation and is only now starting to generate significant traffic i.e. more than 1% of total Internet IPV4 + IPV6 traffic. I've upgraded my server to handle IPV6 for about half of the websites I run, am part way through upgrading various web applications and starting to think about how to handle some others (e.g. email). The support resources for IPV6 are now quite good for someone at my level (as someone who isn't a core developer of the technology itself, but a fairly early implementer), though 3 years ago I would have found this more difficult.

My last look at DNSSEC suggested this wasn't yet quite ready at the same level, due to complexity and limited support for relevant tools and level of support from domain registries. What Nominet are doing is bringing feasible implementation for more sites closer. I'll definitely be more interested in doing business with domain registrars which support DNSSEC than with those which don't. DNSSEC also needs a certification program similar to that provided by Hurricane Electric for IPV6 to test knowledge and implementation practice for smaller server operators.

I've read DJ Bernstein's eliptic curve DNSSEC alternative proposal paper, but I think the mainstream will go with current IETF DNSSEC standards because I'm not sure DJB's proposal covers all the bases of the IETF DNSSEC standards. Whether DJB's proposal is 'better' probably isn't the whole story. CSV/DNA responsible SMTP client identification was arguably better than SPF. My mail filtering software (Tagspam) was one of the first CSV/DNA implementations, but that's not much use if everyone else adopts a different approach.

Four illegal ways to sort out the Euro finance crisis

PyLETS
Boffin

@Mickey Finn

"... USA ... c1930's… around the time that Keynes became popular there… And just look where that got them!" .

Out of the great depression to become the most active economy the world has ever seen, which played the lions share in winning WW2 (with some help from us), which bankrolled the rebuilding of Europe afterwards, and which then went on to put a man on the moon ?

Not the single currency which they had had for decades before, and which didn't prevent the 1929 crash.

Pity about how much things started going wrong when Thatcher and Reagan listened to the monetarists and Keynsian economics went out of fashion in the eighties. Pity also that much economic drivel which was tagged against his name (Keynsianism) after Keynes' death, was never supported by his writings when he was alive. Interesting also that the policies which stabilised economies to a large extent after the 2008 crash put Keynes' conceptual framework back onto the map.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

'Green' trans-Atlantic cable set to launch in 2012

PyLETS
Thumb Up

Iceland == green and stable electricity

Hardly anyone lives there. The fact so few people live there means there has been little incentive to make use of renewable energy resources readily accessible and currently largely undeveloped. Their geothermal is just the low hanging fruit. They have great hydroelectric potential there as well. Their main shortage is likely to be trained and experienced data centre staff.

Makes obvious sense to locate data centres where electricity is available, so long as reliable multiply redundant data communications can be arranged. I'd hate to be remotely running a hosted server there and find some trawler had severed the main undersea cable while a backup was down for maintenance.

Shale gas frees Europe from addiction to Putin's Pipe

PyLETS
Flame

Not just solar

Solar energy also drives wind energy through convection in the atmosphere. Collecting wind energy in suitable locations already compares favourably in cost to fossil fuels with CCS, or if C02 externalities (e.g. through increasing climate damage actuarial insurance calculations) are factored in. Solar is also coming down in price quicker than wind, but still has some way to catch up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#UK_2010_estimates

The main article is also wrong and irresponsible (I upvoted your post) in the sense it ignores research indicating existing hydro dam potential for stored energy resources are suitable for balancing variable wind generation output up to 40% wind penetration of UK electricity supply.

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/wind/content/conclusions.html

CERN 'gags' physicists in cosmic ray climate experiment

PyLETS
Holmes

Extra, extra read all about it

Doesn't matter if a story lacks evidence and Occam's Razor points to a more logical explanation, older scientists warning younger scientists to be careful about what they say to journalists is obvious fodder for a science conspiracy theory which will always sell better than unbiased science reporting. Person who pays the piper and all that.

Coming from the world's third oldest profession, recently embarrassed by revelations of story gathering criminality on an industrial scale, need we be surprised ?

Is Anon ready for the social network?

PyLETS
Boffin

@Jake: Hardin was partly wrong

As someone who started a very active topic-based email list in the early 1990ies and also had to compromise what I'd thought were my principles by censoring it to keep spammers out enough for those it was meant for to be able to keep using it, I shared you pain - and moved on. I realised on moving on that the Net isn't an unrestricted public space. It's a large and connected set of private spaces with restricted invitations by _owners_ of these private spaces, because either I had to act as owner of mine or it would have been trashed by spam vandals and left as a spam sewer to be opened up occasionally by anyone thinking it might still have its original stated purpose, which was the consequence of the same dynamic upon much if not most of Usenet. But even sewers have owners, even if the owners choose not to clean them up, and when many or most of the group owners became absentees it became inevitable that most ISPs chose to give up on providing continued Usenet service to their customers.

Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" never described any real commons, but was about a hypothetical unmanaged commons which could be torn apart in claimed manner by free riders. But there continue to exist some genuine commons, areas of land managed by given sets of farmers, and if you look into how they actually manage these, you'll find clear sets of rules about which farmer can use the shared resource and to what extent in respect of grazing rights in order to ensure sustainable use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Criticism

Database high priest mud-wrestles Facebook

PyLETS
WTF?

Facebook don't do ACID

Only a fool would put data they can't afford to lose on Facebook. Considering that FB are making arbiitrary censorship decisions if someone quotes a song lyric there regardless of fair use, it seems a bit daft to use FB for much more than idle chat with people close to you and which you don't mind that much if what you put there leaks beyond your intended context. I'm sure Stonebraker's comments would be highly relevant to large scale financial applications of the kind I can imagine, but they don't seem that relevant to Facebook.

Hunt splashes £56.9m broadband cash on Wales

PyLETS
Go

Cost of rural broadband pretty cheap

compared to the benefits. The amount of this pot is peanuts and should go to exchange areas with the worst speeds where providing an acceptable service will always have to be at a loss, because there are not enough people living there. The costs if you don't are kids and people fully out of touch, unemployable and who will need much greater state subsidies as a consequence. It's cheaper in the long run for taxpayers like myself who live in well provided big cities (Coventry in my case) to pay a few pennies extra to keep rural folk living in not-spots from getting too isolated.

Aussie carbon tax in actually-makes-sense shocker

PyLETS
Headmaster

@Ivan 4: Have you ever read Keynes' books ?

If you had, it's extremely unlikely you'd be blaming him for the financial crisis. If you'd read Keynes very carefully you probably wouldn't be blaming him for the problems resulting from governments spending their way out of this deflationary banking crisis either, because he was arguing in 1936 _against_ continued monetary expansion at a similar point in the cycle to now. (Hint: he was the only knowledgeable person arguing _for_ public-financed monetary expansion following the deflationary 1929 stock market crash). If he did ever write anything similar to what you are alleging about tax policy please quote from which of his writings you are referring to. I'm concerned because having read his books I don't recall him saying anything about tax policy in relation to upon whom taxes should fall, and I think under the circumstances I would have noticed if he had written anything about this.

If you haven't read Keynes' books, as seems very likely, then why should anyone care what you imagine him to be responsible for ?

Cleaning up the Bitcoin act

PyLETS
Boffin

I use an alternative currency and it aint Bitcoin

Money earned 18 years ago on the LETSystem I use is spendable today with a few dozen participants, typically second hand goods, domestic and garden services, lifts, jam, bread, garden plants, allotment produce, help looking after pets while on holiday etc. Those who want to 'sock it to the man' and cut the banks out of the loop should go figure what it takes to be able to issue and trade on IOUs based on reputation for fair dealing with friends and neighbours.

As far as tax is concerned, most of what we do is irregular social favours so isn't taxable; if I make my income as a teacher and sell a second hand bike or mend one in exchange for apples that isn't taxable. If I make a regular income as a bicycle dealer it is, and we advise regular traders to declare LETS on their tax returns on the same basis they would declare cash. When and if enough people want and do this, we could get the small proportion of what we trade exempted through minor tax law change if we can ensure local charities benefit enough in exchange, there's no particular reason why we shouldn't, and that really would 'sock it to the man' by enabling micro-economies to flourish without any state interference greater than an annual accounting audit to prove charitable and community benefits sufficient to gain tax exemption.

Bitcoins are good for crooks, swindlers and gamblers. The only good thing I can say about Bitcoin is that my spam volumes have gone down while the botnet herders reorient their capacity to mint Bitcoins. The apologists for Bitcoin all claim this job is done using custom GPU units in parrallel but they would, wouldn't they ? The idea that paid-for hardware and electricity is competitive for this purpose compared to stolen capacity is obvious tosh. We'll know that the Bitcoin Ponzi has collapsed when spam volumes start going up again.

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