Bitcoin book review episode 3: DIGITAL GOLD (BTC) - Hal Finney - illegal encryption export - cryogenics - Erik Voorhees

[nandibear]

This is the 3rd episode of the Bitcoin Book Review. For readers here at the Bitcoin.com forum who may have missed episode 1 or 2 you may access them with the following links -

Episode 1 links:

Nandibear.com - January 25, 2016 - New video review for Martin Fido's Sherlock: The facts and fiction behind the world's most famous detective

forum.bitcoin.com - February 8, 2016 - Free book - and introducing the Bitcoin Book Review

youtube - January 25, 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ7qFkq3WWQ

Episode 2 links:

Nandibear.com - October 9, 2016 - Bitcoin book review episode 2 - Decentralized Applications: Harnessing Bitcoins Blockchain Technology by Siraj Raval

forum.bitcoin.com - October 9, 2016 - Free books! Bitcoin book review - episode 2 - Decentralized Applications: Harnessing Bitcoins Blockchain by Siraj Raval

youtube - October 9, 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FX8cgDecKA

.....

The title of today's book for Episode 3 is Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and the Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money

Back in April of this year (2016) I bought this book at a Barnes & Noble located right outside of Jackson, Mississippi.

My initial plan was to do another book review on video. Since then I've read several other books, shot a video book review for an entirely different book, been busy with my neanderthal job as well as online projects (including Bitcoin-related ones).

I've done some other book reviews in a previous life (i.e., before Bitcoin). Reading the books was an uncomplicated and relatively swift process. However, putting together an informative and thought-provoking review (with notes) seemed to require a significant amount of time and energy.

In any event, I've recently decided on a new pilot program in which rather than reading the entire Digital Gold bitcoin book and then publishing a thorough review on video that I'd try something new and hopefully somewhat engaging and captivating: publish a written review (or something like a review / notes) of each chapter while I work my way through the book!

I've completed my reading of the book's introduction and first chapter. Before I start I'd like to provide a little more information regarding the book -

The book's Nandibear.com Passport # - 2016001252

Author: Nathaniel Popper

Published: May 2015 by Harper (HarperCollins)

Book consists of: 398 pages, 28 chapters and is divided into a Part 1 (p. 1), Part 2 (p. 123) and Part 3 (p. 231).

There's also a: Technical Appendix which begins of p. 357, an Acknowledgments which begins on p. 363, a Sources which begins on p. 367 and an Index which begins on p. 387.

Some of what I've learned in the Intro and Chapter 1 will be posted today in subsequent comments directly below

Anyone here is welcome to join in and share their thoughts regarding the book or ask questions about the book or about anything.

[nandibear]

Federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into PGP, Phil Zimmerman and Hal Finney... From page 10 - Idealistic projects like PGP generally had a small audience. But the potential import of the technology became apparent when federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into PGP and Zimmerman. The [US] government categorized encryption technology, such as PGP, as weapons-grade munitions, and this designation made it illegal to export. While the case was eventually dropped, Hal [Finney] had to lie low with his own involvement in PGP for years an could never take credit for some of his important contributions to the project.

(emphasis mine)



back up a little -

Hal Finney. Started learning about this evidently brilliant and exceptionally gifted man on page 1. Apparently at some point in 2008 he received an email from Satoshi Nakamoto. Page 4 - But this particular email came from an unfamiliar name - Satoshi Nakamoto - and it described what was referred to as an e-cash with the catch name Bitcoin.

Apparently Hal Finney had experimented with digital money for a very long time before ever receiving the email from Satoshi Nakamoto. He'd always been skeptical as to whether or not digital money could ever really and truly work.

Finney was impressed with Nakamoto's claims that Bitcoin could be owned and traded without a central authority or personal identification.

It appears that Finney had spent most of his professional life developing programs (including encryption) to elude the watchful eyes of the government.

According to the book it was Finney who helped convince Nakamoto to write some real code for Bitcoin. Moreover, the book indicates that it was January 10, 2009 when Finney downloaded that very same code from the Bitcoin website. Page 5 talks about the .exe file and what the program looked like and that it would crash during use.

On page 7 it is indicated the Hal Finney calculated that each Bitcoin (if Bitcoin becomes successful and the dominant payment system throughout the world) should become worth approximately $10 million dollars.

Finney had joined some of the earliest online communities (long before Bitcoin was around) such as Cypherpunks and Extropians.

Public-key cryptography is discussed on page 9 along with directly related work at Stanford and MIT in the 1970s and 1980s.

On page 10 we learn that in 1991 Finney was introduced to the potential of public-key cryptography by a pathbreaking cryptographer named David Chaum
PGP - Pretty Good Privacy (we're still in Chapter 1) and criminal investigation On page 10 we learn that Hal Finney was working with Phil Zimmerman on a messaging program called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). PGP allowed users to send encrypted messages using public-key encryption.

Evidently Zimmerman was (an perhaps still is) and antinuclear activist and wanted to give fellow dissidents a safe, private and secure way to communicate with each other.

[nandibear]

Alcor Life Extension Foundation (still in Chapter 1)

On page 7 the book indicates that as a student Hal Finney, who graduated from Cal Tech (California Institute of Technology), read science fiction novels written by Larry Niven. Niven wrote about the the possibility of cryogenically freezing humans and later bringing them back to life.

Finney later located a real life cryopreservation facility near Los Angeles, California called Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Finney paid to have his and his family's bodies cyrogenically frozen. NOTE: The procedure begins at time of natural death (i.e., you can't do this while you are still alive)

Moreover, though not specifically mentioned on this page or chapter, Hal Finney was indeed cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation at their newer facility in Phoenix, Arizona on August 28th, 2014.

You may also read about Hal Finney being cryopreserved in this Wired magazine article - Bitcoin's Earliest Adopter Is Cryonically Freezing His Body to See the Future, by Andy Greenberg (08.28.2014).

[nandibear]

It was my intention to review this book while reading it (chapter for chapter).

However, after reading the Introduction of the book and some of its Part One I put it aside and got back to a file that I had created to save information regarding the possibly real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Btw, I'm not implying that I think it's Hal Finney. (However, who knows.. it could be.)

I add to the file when I find bits of information which I consider to be evidence.

I plan to publish the findings sometime while it's still 2017. When, I don't know. Maybe next week, Thanksgiving or Christmas I don't know.

I any event, anyone interested in reading about it (even if for nothing more than a good laugh ) I will post something here at the forum.

It's a name which hasn't, as far as I know, been suggested in the past.

[rogerver]

Thanks for posting all this. I really enjoyed reading the book too.

[nandibear]

Interesting quote from sociologist Nigel Dodd on page 16 (featured above):

... a good money is "able to convert qualitative differences between things into quantitative differences that enable them to be exchanged."

You may read more about Nigel Dodd here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/ ... /dodd.aspx

Also note that he is the author of books such as, though not limited to, The Sociology of Money and The Social Life of Money.

[nandibear]

cross-posting:

bitcoin-discussion/did-alan-greenspan-f ... 54743.html

Title: Did Alan Greenspan - former chairman of the Federal Reserve - predict Bitcoin way back in a 1996 speech?

(deals with page 17 of the book)

[nandibear]

Noteworthy passages on page 27:

It appears that Hal Finney was worried about carbon dioxide emissions caused by Bitcoin mining:

"As his computer kept working at full capacity, trying to generate new coins, he began to worry about the carbon dioxide emissions caused by all the computers racing to mint coins."

Also apparently Hal was also worried that Bitcoin addresses might not be anonymous:

"He also had begun to fear that with a public ledger of all transactions - even if everyone was represented by a confusing-looking address - Bitcoin might not be as anonymous as he initially thought."

Tragically we also learn that about that same time Hal was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease:

"And then something much worse happened. Hal's speech began slurring. He became increasingly sluggish during his marathon training. Soon, all his free moments were spent visiting doctors, trying to identify the mysterious ailment. Eventually it was diagnosed as Lou Gehrig's disease, the degenerative condition that would gradually cause all his muscles to wither away inside his body. By the time he learned this, Hal was out of the Bitcoin game. he wouldn't return until his condition was much worse and Bitcoin was much better."

[nandibear]

Pages 29 thru 39 (all of Chapter 3):

One of the most noteworthy chapters of the book.

The entire chapter consists of information related to one of Bitcoin's earliest (and perhaps most forgotten) Bitcoin developers.

(Satoshi Nakamoto > Hal Finney > Martti Malmi)

Please meet Martti Malmi:

May 2009 -

Page 29:

"I have a good touch on Java and C languages from school courses (I'm studying CS), but not so very much development experience yet," read the note, signed by Martti Malmi.[/size]

That (above) was an email that Martti sent to Satoshi.

"This was clearly not the voice of a grizzled veteran of the Cypherpunk movement like Hal [Finney]. But Martti displayed something more important at this point: eagerness."

Before that Martti had written about Bitcoin on a site called anti-state.org


Page 34:

It also appears Martti was also Bitcoin.org's first (or at least after it was initially created by Satoshi) web developer.

"Satoshi liked the document so much that Martti was quickly given full credentials for the Bitcoin website, allowing him to make any improvements he wanted. Satoshi particularly encouraged Martti to help make the site look more professional and get users up to speed."


More about Martti:

Page 34:

"When Martti found Bitcoin in the spring of 2009, he was in his second year at Helsinki University of Technology. If Hal Finney was the opposite of the normal tech geek, then Martti lived up to the type..


More about Bitcoin.org and Martti:

Page 35:

"Within a few weeks of his initial exchanges with Satoshi, Martti had totally revamped the Bitcoin website. In place of Satoshi's original version, which presented complicated descriptions of code, Martti led off with a brief, crisp, description of the big ideas, aimed at drawing in anyone with similar ideology interests."

More about Martti:

"After releasing the new website, Martti turned to the software's actual underlying code. He did not know C++, the programming language that Satoshi had written Bitcoin in, so Martti began teaching himself."


TO BE CONTINUED in a new post.

[nandibear]

cross-posting:

bitcoin-discussion/the-first-bitcoin-ex ... 57368.html

Title: The first Bitcoin exchange site & how Bitcoin value was determined - New Liberty Standard - 5050 Bitcoins for 5 Dollars


(deals with pages 37 thru 39 of the book)

[nandibear]

Pages 41 thru 43:

Year: 2010

We learn of a software architect named Laszlo Hanecz. Apparently he was born in Hungary (Europe) but was living in the suburbs of Jacksonville, Florida (USA).

It appears that he began buying Bitcoin in 2010 from the New Liberty Standard bitcoin exchange and, according to the book, "...building software so that the Bitcoin code could run on a Macintosh."



According to the book it was also Laszlo who first started GPU mining (as opposed to CPU mining):

"Laszlo quickly figured out how to route the mining process through his computer's GPU... Once Laszlo got his GPU card hooked in he began winning one or two blocks an hour, and occasionally more. On May 17 [2010] he won twenty-eight blocks: these wins gave him fourteen hundred new coins that day."

According to the book Satoshi was "clearly torn" and wrote an email to Laszlo:

"I don't mean to sound like a socialist... I don't care if wealth is concentrated, but for now, we get more growth by giving money to 100% of the people than giving it to 20%."

According to the book Satoshi then asked Laszlo to go easy with the "high-powered hashing."

Page 43:

"Indeed, as he mined coins, he [Laszlo] was eager to show how Bitcoin could be used in the real world. He posted in the forum asking if anyone would bake of buy him as pizza, delivered to his home in Jacksonville, Florida."

What I'm aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for Bitcoins where I don't have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a 'breakfast platter' at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you are happy!

According to the book Laszlo had approximately 70,000 Bitcoins at the time and offered 10,000 Bitcoin for a pizza.

Evidently on May 22 [2010], or about 5 days after Laszlo's post, someone in California responded and offered to call in the order for a pizza to a Papa John's Pizza in, or around, Jacksonville, Florida.

Apparently shortly thereafter two pizzas (with fully loaded toppings) were delivered to the front door of Laszlo's house in the suburbs of Jacksonville.



Page 44:

According to the book it appears that Laszlo subsequently found several other takers for his offer of 10,000 Bitcoins for pizza. The book indicates that he and his daughter at nothing but pizza for a few weeks!

[nandibear]

Page 46:

To start participating in the Bitcoin project, Gavin [Andresen] quickly began e-mailing with Satoshi to suggest his own improvements to the code and, in short order, became the first person other than Satoshi or Martti [Malmi] to officially make a change to the Bitcoin code.

[ChambersPula]

Read this book about a month ago. Was a decent read. Gives some decent background on Bitcoin. Both the origins and current applications. Was pretty surface level though. I enjoyed it because it gave me a great understanding. Good luck with your review.

[nandibear]

According to pages 47 thru 48 of Nathaniel Popper's book Digital Gold back in 2010 the developers of Bitcoin were looking for press coverage.

Names of developers included, though were not limited to, Martti Malmi, Laszlo Hanyecz and Satohsi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin, version 0.3, was being prepared for release and apparently a website called Slashdot.org (a site that evidently had millions of tech-savvy readers) was going to post an article about Bitcoin.

Someone suggested that the Bitcoin article should include language indicating that Bitcoin is, "outside the reach of any government."

Satoshi responded that, "I am definitely not making any such taunt or assertion." Apparent Martti made some additional suggestions as well and the wording which ended up being used in the Slashdot article included, "The community is hopeful the currency will remain outside the reach of any government."

When published the article consisted of a paragraph which stated:
"How's this for a disruptive technology? Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, network-based digital currency with no central bank, and no transaction fees. Using a proof-of-work concept, nodes burn CPU cycles searching for bundles of coins, broadcasting their findings to the network. Analysis of energy usage indicates that the market value of Bitcoins is already above the value of the energy needed to generate them, indicating healthy demand. The community is hopeful the currency will remain outside the reach of any government." (emphasis mine)

[nandibear]

Page 49:

Month/Year: July, 2010

Gavin Andresen's Bitcoin faucet gave away 5000 Bitcoins!