[P2P-F] bitcoin critique summary

Fri May 20 20:35:17 CEST 2011

Another discussion about bitcoin, which is more about the technology:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8766.0

Original Article that forms the basis of that discussion:
http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~victor/bitcoin.html
Bitcoin is a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” that gained certain
acceptance as of early 2011. I review the system, mostly based on its
description in the original article and the project's wiki. To the
best of my understanding, the sentiment about this particular system
is mostly groundless. The key three features of the system, namely (1)
peer-to-peer architecture, (2) anonymousness, and (3) cryptographic
security are only met if their definitions are somewhat relaxed. The
key point of Bitcoin is eliminating double spending without resorting
to trusted third parties. An actual system, if only any popular, will
have de-facto third parties, but it is unclear, how reliably
double-spending is eliminated.

One of the responses:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8766.msg127005#msg127005
* No, Bitcoin is not perfectly democratic but it doesn't need to be.
In fact, that would be detrimental because casual users are more
vulnerable to being tricked into using a fraudulent client than expert
miners.
* No, Bitcoin is not perfectly anonymous but most users don't need
perfect anonymity.  The few ones that do can approach perfect
anonymity arbitrarily at a relatively low cost.
* No, Bitcoin is not perfectly secure but nothing in this world is. On
top of its technical security, Bitcoin is also secured by the social
aspect. Above all, Bitcoin is a social convention, not just a piece of
software.
* No, Bitcoin is not safe against every conceivable DoS attack but
neither is the internet itself.
Conclusion: Bitcoin is far from perfect but it still beats any money
that was ever invented, by far.