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Bold, revert, discuss

Hi Richard. Apologies for any confusion about your recent Bitcoin edits, but the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is normal here. I've started a thread on the talk page about it, so I suggest that's the place to continue the discussion. Thanks for your edit! Fleetham (talk) 03:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Proposed "Overview" section for Bitcoin entry

@Fleetham: wrote on 4/3/2014, in the Bitcoin talk section:

Hi, and thanks for your recent edit. You added a large amount of material to the very start of the article. A WP:BOLD move indeed. Congrats! As adding such a large amount of uncited material is unusual, I'd like to discuss the changes here. There's a couple of concerns... The edit lacks sources, and may be WP:Original research. And while your content additions are appreciated, I'm also not sure the best place for a detailed discussion of double spending is at the top of the page. Let's continue to discuss the changes referring to the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle if needed. Fleetham (talk) 04:01, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote:

@Fleetham: Thanks, Fleetham. I've moved my proposed entry to User:Richardbondi could we & others please discuss it there?

I'm proposing this as the second section of the Bitcoin article; I've pasted the first of eight paragraphs below so interested readers can decide if they want to click through and discuss the rest.

Re Fleetham's comments

I have not been able to find a comparably comprehensible explanation of its functioning anywhere, even on Wikipedia. My intention by being Bold was to get my account edited by others who understand how Bitcoin works.
My source is an online article I have written, which in turn cites the original Bitcoin white paper; could someone suggest where in my Wikipedia entry I could best add it as a reference?
I thought the second main heading of the Bitcoin article was the appropriate place to put my Overview because: (1) people presumably come to the article to find out first _what_ Bitcoin is and then second immediately _how_ it works; (2) the current entry does indeed follow this format, but IHMO the current explanation of how Bitcoin works is too difficult to follow without the kind of Overview that I am proposing.

Proposed "Overview" section for Bitcoin

Overview

Just as a ledger can be used to record transfers of conventional money like dollars from payers to payees, all Bitcoin transfers are recorded in a ledger, called the "blockchain". However, whereas a conventional ledger records the transfer of actual dollar bills or promisory notes that exist apart from it, in the case of Bitcoin, only the blockchain exists: there are no actual coins or bills or other entities. It simply records the transfer of numbers from a payer to a payee, and those numbers are called "Bitcoins". What has made it viable as a currency is the system that makes it virtually impossible to create fraudulent entries in the blockchain ledger; most notably, entries cannot be fraudulently added or modified or deleted. What is remarkable is that this is accomplished without any central authority or server. Bitcoin servers form a network by simply connecting to each other over the Internet, and broadcasting any blockchain ledger additions they make to each other.

There are two main ways the blockchain ledger can be corrupted to commit fraud: by adding to it, or by modifying it. Bitcoin prevents both as follows.

The Addition Attack and digital signatures

Payers and payees are identified in the blockchain by their public cryptographic keys: most Bitcoin transfers are from one public key to a different public key. In principle, an attacker Eve could steal money from Alice and Bob by simply adding transactions to the blockchain ledger like "Alice pays Eve 100 Bitcoins", "Bob pays Eve 100 Bitcoins", and so on, using of course these people's public keys instead of their names. The Bitcoin protocol prevents this kind of theft by requiring every transfer to be signed with the payer's private key; only signed transfers can be added to the blockchain ledger.

The Modification Attack and mining

The other principle way to steal Bitcoins would be to modify blockchain ledger entries. Eve could buy something from Alice, like a sofa, by adding a signed entry to the blockchain ledger equivalent to "Eve pays Alice 100 Bitcoins"; later, after receiving the sofa, Eve could modify that blockchain ledger entry to read "Eve pays Alice 1 Bitcoin", or even delete the entry. Digital signatures cannot prevent against this attack: Eve can simply sign her entry again after modifying it!

To prevent against modification attacks, the Bitcoin protocol requires entries be added to the blockchain not one at a time, but in groups or "blocks". Furthermore, each block must be accompanied by a hash of three things: the hash of the previous block, the block itself, and a number called a "nonce". A hash of only the first two items will, like any cryptographic hash, always have a fixed number of bits (eg 256 for SHA-256). The nonce is a number which, when included, yields a hash with a specified number of zero bits. Because cryptographic hashes are essentially random, in the sense that their output cannot be predicted from their inputs, there is only one known way to find the nonce: to try out integers one after the other, e.g. 1, then 2, then 3, and so on. This process is called mining. The larger the number of leading zeros, the longer on average it will take to find a requisite nonce. The Bitcoin protocol adjusts the number of leading zeros so that the average time to find a nonce is about ten minutes. As computer hardware gets faster over the years, the Bitcoin protocol will simply require more leading zero bits.

This prevents modification attacks in part because an attacker has to recalculate all the hashes of the blocks after the modified one. In the example above, if Eve wants to change "100 Bitcoins" to "1 Bitcon", she will not only have to recompute the hash of the block that transaction is in, but of all the blocks that come after it; she will have to recreate the chain of blocks. She can do this, but it will take her time; about ten minutes on average per block. However, during that time, the network will continue to add blocks, and it will do so much faster than Eve alone can mine. Eve would have to recalculate all the blocks before the network could add a new one, or at least to catch up with and overtake the network miners. To do this, she would have to have much more computing power than all of the existing Bitcoin miners combined. This would be very expensive and, if the Bitcoin network is large enough, infeasible; furthermore, because of two additional features of the Bitcoin protocol, it would make more financial sense for Eve to devote those resources to normal Bitcoin mining instead.

Incentives to mine

Miners have two incentives to mine. First of all, as a reward for finding a nonce, they are allowed to allot themselves a certain number of Bitcoins "out of thin air". Second, every payer can include an optional "transaction fee", which can be thought of as a kind of tip before a service is rendered rather than after. A miner who finds a nonce can transfer all the transaction fees in that block to herself. Payers have an incentive to include transaction fees because their transactions will likely be added to the blockchain sooner: miners prefer to include such transactions in their blocks.

In the Bitcoin protocol, the number of Bitcoins that can be manufactured "out of thin air" decreases steadily over time, and will eventually be zero. After that time, miners' only incentive will be transaction fees.

Overview

Just as a ledger can be used to record transfers of conventional money like dollars from payers to payees, all Bitcoin transfers are recorded in a ledger, called the "blockchain". However, whereas a conventional ledger records the transfer of actual dollar bills or promisory notes that exist apart from it, in the case of Bitcoin, only the blockchain exists: there are no actual coins or bills or other entities. It simply records the transfer of numbers from a payer to a payee, and those numbers are called "Bitcoins". What has made it viable as a currency is the system that makes it virtually impossible to create fraudulent entries in the blockchain ledger; most notably, entries cannot be fraudulently added or modified or deleted. What is remarkable is that this is accomplished without any central authority or server. Bitcoin servers form a network by simply connecting to each other over the Internet, and broadcasting any blockchain ledger additions they make to each other.

There are two main ways the blockchain ledger can be corrupted to commit fraud: by adding to it, or by modifying it. Bitcoin prevents both as follows.

The Addition Attack and digital signatures

Payers and payees are identified in the blockchain by their public cryptographic keys: most Bitcoin transfers are from one public key to a different public key. In principle, an attacker Eve could steal money from Alice and Bob by simply adding transactions to the blockchain ledger like "Alice pays Eve 100 Bitcoins", "Bob pays Eve 100 Bitcoins", and so on, using of course these people's public keys instead of their names. The Bitcoin protocol prevents this kind of theft by requiring every transfer to be signed with the payer's private key; only signed transfers can be added to the blockchain ledger.

The Modification Attack and mining

The other principle way to steal Bitcoins would be to modify blockchain ledger entries. Eve could buy something from Alice, like a sofa, by adding a signed entry to the blockchain ledger equivalent to "Eve pays Alice 100 Bitcoins"; later, after receiving the sofa, Eve could modify that blockchain ledger entry to read "Eve pays Alice 1 Bitcoin", or even delete the entry. Digital signatures cannot prevent against this attack: Eve can simply sign her entry again after modifying it!

To prevent against modification attacks, the Bitcoin protocol requires entries be added to the blockchain not one at a time, but in groups or "blocks". Furthermore, each block must be accompanied by a hash of three things: the hash of the previous block, the block itself, and a number called a "nonce". A hash of only the first two items will, like any cryptographic hash, always have a fixed number of bits (eg 256 for SHA-256). The nonce is a number which, when included, yields a hash with a specified number of zero bits. Because cryptographic hashes are essentially random, in the sense that their output cannot be predicted from their inputs, there is only one known way to find the nonce: to try out integers one after the other, e.g. 1, then 2, then 3, and so on. This process is called mining. The larger the number of leading zeros, the longer on average it will take to find a requisite nonce. The Bitcoin protocol adjusts the number of leading zeros so that the average time to find a nonce is about ten minutes. As computer hardware gets faster over the years, the Bitcoin protocol will simply require more leading zero bits.

This prevents modification attacks in part because an attacker has to recalculate all the hashes of the blocks after the modified one. In the example above, if Eve wants to change "100 Bitcoins" to "1 Bitcon", she will not only have to recompute the hash of the block that transaction is in, but of all the blocks that come after it; she will have to recreate the chain of blocks. She can do this, but it will take her time; about ten minutes on average per block. However, during that time, the network will continue to add blocks, and it will do so much faster than Eve alone can mine. Eve would have to recalculate all the blocks before the network could add a new one, or at least to catch up with and overtake the network miners. To do this, she would have to have much more computing power than all of the existing Bitcoin miners combined. This would be very expensive and, if the Bitcoin network is large enough, infeasible; furthermore, because of two additional features of the Bitcoin protocol, it would make more financial sense for Eve to devote those resources to normal Bitcoin mining instead.

Incentives to mine

Miners have two incentives to mine. First of all, as a reward for finding a nonce, they are allowed to allot themselves a certain number of Bitcoins "out of thin air". Second, every payer can include an optional "transaction fee", which can be thought of as a kind of tip before a service is rendered rather than after. A miner who finds a nonce can transfer all the transaction fees in that block to herself. Payers have an incentive to include transaction fees because their transactions will likely be added to the blockchain sooner: miners prefer to include such transactions in their blocks.

In the Bitcoin protocol, the number of Bitcoins that can be manufactured "out of thin air" decreases steadily over time, and will eventually be zero. After that time, miners' only incentive will be transaction fees.

Your submission at Articles for creation: Meiya Pico (July 30)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Dan arndt was:

This submission's references do not adequately show the subject's notability. Wikipedia requires significant coverage (not just mere mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject—see the guidelines on the notability of organizations and companies, the golden rule and learn about mistakes to avoid when addressing this issue. Please improve the submission's referencing (see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners and Help:Introduction to referencing/1), so that the information is verifiable, and there is clear evidence of why the subject is notable and worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. If additional reliable sources cannot be found for the subject, then it may not be suitable for Wikipedia at this time.

The comment the reviewer left was:

Fails WP:NCOMPANY

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

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Dan arndt (talk) 02:30, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Richardbondi! Having an article declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Dan arndt (talk) 02:30, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

About Meiya Pico

Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you tried to give Meiya Pico a different title by copying its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into another page with a different name. This is known as a "cut-and-paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is legally required for attribution. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.

In most cases, once your account is four days old and has ten edits, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page (the tab may be hidden in a dropdown menu for you). This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other pages that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Requests for history merge. Thank you. Warm Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 16:26, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of User:Richardbondi

A tag has been placed on User:Richardbondi requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section U5 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to consist of writings, information, discussions, and/or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals. Please note that Wikipedia is not a free web hosting service. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such pages may be deleted at any time.

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Draft:Meiya Pico

Hello, Richardbondi. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, Draft:Meiya Pico.

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:33, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]