> It also assumes you have such a trusted compiler. This has always been the tough part.

When Thompson wrote the original paper, it was tough. In the meantime, many more compiler options have arisen, and the complexity (measured in size of injected, specialized code) of Thompson's "attack" is O(n^2) where n is the total number of compilers to be compromised. When you combine this fact with the now-documented aversion of the NSA to having its methods uncovered, one quickly comes to the conclusion that it's not very likely that DCC is unproductive because all (or even most) combinations of compilers have been trojaned.

Actually, it's just more likely to affect the US economy (as foreigners run away from using resources under the thumb of the NSA), causing its entire population to be less safe against all those real dangers, like cancer, heart disease, traffic accidents, depression, undernourishment, domestic crime, not having sufficient retirement benefits, etc.

Frankly, I don't trust the intelligence community (and especially not Michael Hayden), to be able to evaluate the real risks and dangers to the US. For example, they didn't listen to Snowden when he complained that the NSA was vulnerable to what later ended up being his own attack, and we see that either this is going to be really bad for the US economy, or if, somehow, you are correct, it's going to cause "the terrorists to win" --- either way, one would think that the people whose opinion you're believing would have figured this out, no?

Well, maybe you should reconsider, then, believing them? Tell me, can you provide some examples of evidence which would cause you to stop believing what you've been posting about Snowden and the intelligence community?

Gawd, how I wish Slashdot would go back to using SRAM...

I posted something similar, but wish I could have retracted it... since the bet, as stated, is in USD. AFAIK, the contracts part of bitcoin can only manipulate bitcoin.

Ooops. Just not in USD... ouch.. .need coffee....

> Since it would be almost impossible to take the parent up on this offer, what would you call it?

No, once the "contracts" part of bitcoin reaches adoption, it should be trivial... I think.

> It's stunningly good for microtransactions.

My understanding of the situation is that in the long term (because of the cap on the total amount of bitcoin), there is a limit to how small bitcoin microtransactions can be (and still be practical), because transaction fees for mining blocks will need to replace the current incentive to mine (which is the production of new bitcoin).

Am I wrong?

He said "I MIGHT [emphasis mine] want you to die a painful death..."

I see the elegance of producing a terrific strawman troll by merely omitting one word, but really, this doesn't qualify for Insightful mods, puh-leeze!

Or (for those who think there shouldn't be the death penalty) triage.

Based on a tweet by one of Zerocoin's developers, they have decided to launch it as an independent currency, therefore requiring that one or more Bitcoin / Zerocoin exchanges will spring up to enable increased Bitcoin anonymity.

> Since mixing services have fundamental problems of a non-technical nature, it just won't work.

OK, interesting. What are these problems? Isn't Tor just a "mixing service", yet the documents from the NSA which have been revealed up to now claim that even that bastion of binary processing power is capable of de-anonymizing only a small fraction of the Tor network's throughput?

Zerocoin should be launched soon. It uses zero-knowledge proofs to add in a lot of anonymity that bitcoin lacks.

> It's worth nothing that the broadcaster

I think you meant "It's worth noting", no?

And while I have the chance, thanks for all of your innovations, and best of luck in your endeavors (including in court). The original mp3.com site rocked; I can only speak for myself, but it was totally eye-opening for me to understand how many good, unknown, indie musicians there are, and to partially glimpse (what I believe is) the future direction of music.

Last time I checked, it's possible to write spaghetti code in any language. Of course, there are some languages in which it is impossible to write anything _but_ spaghetti code, but he wasn't talking about them.

The answer to your question

If google are allowed to do it, why can't I? I only want to make one copy of each book from the library.

is addressed in the decision. On page 21, Judge Chin addresses the first of the four traditional criteria for fair use, whether the unauthorized copy is used in a transformative manner:

Google Books does not supersede or supplant books because it is not a tool to be used to read books.
Instead, it "adds value to the original" and allows for "the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings." Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. L. Rev. at 1111. Hence, the use is transformative.

So there's your answer. You're (probably) 100% OK if you make those copies of those library books, as long as you don't use them as you would use a library book (your use should also be such that others would be prevent from using them as such, also --- oh, and IANAL, and TINLA (this is not legal advice)).

Of course, the fact that you would be 100% in the right wouldn't help you pay lawyers licensed for Federal courts. If the facts of your case corresponded closely to those of this one, you might be able to squeeze by representing yourself "pro se", and hope for quick summary judgment, but I think that would be dangerous, since the other side would probably start the whole thing by arguing about everything which distinguished your case from this one.