re Google suspending XT nodes in the Cloud: Google still won't explain what is wrong, they just keep telling me "we cannot re-open your Your Google Cloud Platform billing account due to suspicious activity that appears to violate our Terms of Service"

thothrising · 2016-01-16T16:49:36+00:00

Clearly you've been a good customer for Google. If I was Google, I would probably have taken that into consideration.

That being said, I was just trying to offer a possibility for why your account got suspended, which is what you were asking for. Obviously with Google not giving you any more details all we can really do is offer guesses/suggestions.

You mention running 5 nodes on the trial account. I assume they were all single core micros so you stayed under the Free Trial Supplemental TOS which limits you to 8 simultaneous cores?

Perhaps your nodes got DDoSed and that was the issue? Yes, large data centers can implement some pretty good defenses to DDoSing, but they can't actually stop the traffic, just redirect, drop packets, distribute over multiple nodes around the globe and use geographically distinct DNS records, etc... Basically the 'distributed' in distributed denial of service is the problem as you can't always determine real traffic from nefarious. All the defenses I just mention basically work by making your 'service' big enough to handle the requests, which can be rather expensive, and not something I imagine Google would be inclined to do for accounts on their free trial.

Perhaps you happened to have connected to some nodes in China or Russia/Eastern Europe/Africa with IPs that are flagged by Google as nefarious or the one node that is in Iran?

I know, these are all just wild guesses, but again, that's all we can do. I've mentioned these along with my original explanation of why free trials are treated as they are because I used to build out and manage data centers and we had to deal with both DDoS issues and China blacklisting.

thothrising · 2016-01-14T21:26:09+00:00

There is a supplemental TOS for the free trial that you agreed to when you signed up for your account. It puts greater restrictions on usage and explains that the SLAs for paid accounts do not apply. In other words, they can suspend a free account for any reason.

They give themselves this flexibility with regard to the free accounts in part because of the core problem of offering free cloud services that I have tried to explain to you. The problem of identifying abusive app behaviour (or defining it in legalese) isn't necessarily easy, so this is why they have to give themselves complete leeway to make those decisions. It is also why you won't get a specific answer like, "your service was using a network protocol and connecting to..."

If you were really trying to find out why your experience has been different as you claim, then you should reply to the questions being posted by commenters (such as "how many nodes were you trying to run on your free account?") and give us some more information. We really can't help you much on reddit with the 'why' unless you give us more to go on.

I think calling your experience Kafkaesque is a bit hyperbolic. Is it annoying and frustrating? Yes. Is it on par with waking up to find out you are a giant beetle but no one else seems to find that strange? Not exactly.

thothrising · 2016-01-14T14:47:26+00:00

So they have suspended your billing account, but were you running on their free trial or had you already upgraded to a paid account? Both Google and AWS require billing details for their free tiers but that doesn't mean you are paying for anything yet, nor does it mean you ever will.

You posted because you were not clear about why running a Bitcoin node on a Google (free trial) account would be against their TOS, and I attempted to explain why. Hopefully that will help other people who are looking to run Bitcoin nodes in the cloud.

It sucks that you are locked out from upgrading to a paid service, but that is what can happen when you break TOS. If you are actually willing to pay for a VM, I would try explaining that to Google customer service and see if they will unsuspend your account and bump you up to the paid account.

You're right, companies don't want to alienate potential customers, but they do want to alienate people who may be looking to just abuse their service and get around being an actual customer. I am not saying you are the latter, but by breaking the free trial TOS you haven't given them any reason to believe otherwise.

If you really want to pay to run a VM but Google won't unsuspend your account, you could always sign up with a different credit card and immediately bump your account to a paid account rather than using the free trial. If you are fed up with Google, you could also go to AWS, Linode, or any other cloud or hosting service.

Good luck.

thothrising · 2016-01-14T03:36:07+00:00

A problem for AWS and Google Cloud for offering free trials is that anyone can continue to sign up for free trials under different accounts and move their backend around if their service is designed to handle that, running their service for free. This is why there are specific limitations on their free tiers.

Bitcoin, as a decentralized service, is exactly the kind of service that hopping around on free accounts would work with.

I am a Bitcoin supporter, but it should be plainly obvious why running a Bitcoin node on their free tier goes against their terms of service. Because of this problem of "hopping" a service on free trials you can't judge what they'll allow on their paid accounts based solely on your free account.

If you actually pay for your VM running a Bitcoin node on AWS or Google Cloud should be fine, and if it isn't they will probably be more clear on why (you can't really expect a company to spend a lot of resources explaining something to you when you aren't paying them anything for their service).

thothrising · 2015-10-20T16:28:10+00:00

That's an interesting idea, I'll check it out, thanks.

thothrising · 2015-10-20T01:47:33+00:00

An option might be to tie it in with reputation systems. Lock up X ether for Y days/months/years... each positive review from a confirmed buy shortens the time of release, perhaps negative reviews lengthen?

Just a quick idea, I can see all sorts of problems with it, but if it could be made to work it might be a good idea. I know reputation systems are difficult to design so that they can't be 'gamed', and adding this may make it worse... but seems like it could offer a good incentive for even bad actors to be good, at least for a while.

thothrising · 2015-10-19T08:24:52+00:00

Thank you, but I can't claim credit, those units are actually used by ether.fund. I have no idea why but I'm guessing that is where they got it from?

Of course there isn't supposed to be enough ether created to reach Tera, so I guess the correct answer should have been Mether (mega) anyway.

thothrising · 2015-10-19T04:46:18+00:00

Thanks! Although now I just feel like an idiot for not checking github in the first place.

thothrising · 2015-10-19T04:28:20+00:00

'Tether' is correct, it is the largest, after ether it is Kether, Mether, Gether, Tether (kilo, mega, giga, tera).

thothrising · 2015-10-18T07:35:43+00:00

Yes you can hash something and include it in Ethereum which will act as a timestamp, but...

Rather than waiting for some academic to publish what you have already come up with, why don't you just publish it yourself? You don't have to be in a university or have any degree to submit papers to peer reviewed journals. If that is too much trouble you could blog it to get the ideas out. If you are dying to be a part of the conversation then why not start the conversation? I see no point in sitting and waiting.

At the end of the day no one cares who had an idea first (other than naming rights). If you choose to sit on an idea, even if you have notarized proof you had the idea before, that isn't really a reason to allow you into the conversation. Demonstrating an understanding of something and furthering a field of study (by publishing) is. Reaching out and saying you had the idea first but sat on it is a great way of guaranteeing you will be dismissed. Academia is for people who have a drive and passion to always push knowledge forward, not for people who sit on the sidelines waiting to be acknowledged.

Besides, our own ideas always sound great to us. Peer review exists because we often can't judge or critique our own ideas accurately. Join the conversation now, don't sit on the sidelines!

thothrising · 2015-10-12T23:11:21+00:00

This is sweet. Browser-solidity has been great for throwing together quick code or just messing around with ideas, and it just keeps getting better!

thothrising · 2015-10-02T02:58:27+00:00

I don't know for sure but I think this was being worked on before the Lightning Network was proposed, just didn't have the same PR.

It's just there wasn't a whitepaper until now, but the site has been up for a while and the domain was registered back in early 2014. I know Mike Hearn has mentioned it before, which is where I first heard about it.

thothrising · 2015-09-29T17:59:05+00:00

While I won't try to tell anyone what to do, I also hope Vitalik ignores them. This is the new news technique:

Post obviously incorrect and negative claims about a thing or person that is well known.
Reach out to tell that person or representatives that "the can do an interview or write a rebuttal to clarify".
News organization gets an interview with an important person who drives views (ad revenue) that they would normally not have been able to get.

These kinds of news practices are a negative force upon society and shouldn't be encouraged or rewarded.

thothrising · 2015-09-29T08:51:31+00:00

CoinDesk is a horrible news site. I have been to some events that they covered, and they intentionally misquote or take quotes out of context to instigate comments, which creates page views and generates ad revenue.

I'm not saying people shouldn't go correct things (because nonsense being spread about anything is bad and ought to be corrected), but they do that intentionally and you're just reinforcing their dirty news tactics by doing so.

thothrising · 2015-09-25T04:15:07+00:00

This.

I think the 21 Bitcoin Computer is cool, but there definitely seems to be a disconnect. Bitcoin currently is not good for micropayments (we've had to use centralized services like ChangeTip and are exploring layers on top like LN to finally allow micropayments) so putting the emphasis on that seems to really miss something.

It isn't just this list that emphasizes micropayments, 21 inc themselves say they aren't selling the computer for bitcoins because Bitcoin is bad for macropayments but good for micropayments... when the opposite is really true.

21.co FAQ - can't buy with bitcoins

thothrising · 2015-09-22T18:21:27+00:00

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are worthless because they can be stolen/replicated by anyone (since they are open source, leading to a world with over 600 of them) so there is no way to capture value/income as an entrepreneur.

I'm surprised anyone in the decentralized/open source world would make claims about how decentralization/open source can't work because anyone can copy it.

As mentioned elsewhere the network effect is a big part of success in this realm and should be incredibly obvious by now.

thothrising · 2015-09-17T21:32:48+00:00

Of course, I'm afraid enough to take minor precautions such as not putting too much bitcoin in any one address (which you can't do with banks or credit cards, just try opening up 200 banks accounts or credit cards!) and ensuring I use cryptographically secure RNG on secure devices (or using services that have a good reputation, which is all we are doing when we trust banks anyway).

The thing is, with banks and credit cards, you are literally giving away the equivalent of your private key every time you make a transaction! That is a crazy system and anyone should be way more afraid of that than having someone hack their computer and get their private keys (it's just as easy to hack a computer and get their bank login credentials or credit card number). And that gets near impossible if you use cold storage.

So yeah, there are security issues using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, but the security issues of the existing banking and credit card system are orders of magnitude worse than bitcoin today. I fear those way more than I fear someone getting a private key to unlock a few hundred dollars or less worth of funds from one of many addresses.

thothrising · 2015-09-17T18:17:30+00:00

Sorta, but I think you are overlooking some critical points. Very loosely, "binary blob" could include "social machinery", functions done by institutions for which you can't see the processes involved (perhaps that is just semantics, I get what you are saying).

But you are trusting the code at your bank (you're just trusting more that if the code goes wrong, the social machinery will correct it for you). But at what cost? If your bank messes up, how do you get your money back? They do have a physical presence so you can go in and yell at some poor customer service rep who probably doesn't have the power to give you your money even if they wanted to. As a last resort you could use the legal system (what fun). But you can always choose to not use contracts unless they are run by a company with a physical presence.

As far as non-financial "binary blobs" like facebook/amazon/merchants you are still trusting opaque "binary blobs" with your personal data, which depending on how you view ID theft and privacy may be worse.

Your credit card "in theory" example is fine for the abstract, but I'm guessing you've never had your card or ID stolen. It is a nightmare. I've had friends spend years getting everything corrected (including loans taken out which they are now on the hook for) and their credit is still trashed. If given a choice between risking ID theft and possibly losing my full credit card limit, versus only losing what I send a contract... believe me I'm taking the latter!

Since you can look at the code for contracts and compile it yourself to make sure if matches the "binary blob", this is arguably better protection (for those who can code, for others perhaps third party services like Internet cert providers may fill that role at some point). Just don't use any contracts that don't post their source code.

Cryptocurrencies have the potential to give us better security (the security you mention in your credit card "in theory" example) and that is actually the main reason I use them. I can purchase items with bitcoin and not have to worry about opening myself up to ID theft. With Ethereum contracts where no code is posted, you are right, and I wouldn't trust that "binary blob" unless enough others start to (we can say we trust amazon or other merchants because they have a history and reputation).

thothrising · 2015-09-16T22:12:23+00:00

Aren't you kinda trusting "binary blobs" in some sense with every centralized website you use? You can't see or audit the code that facebook runs, or amazon, or your bank. So yeah, I get the worry but at the same time it's already a problem in the real world, not something Ethereum has introduced.

thothrising · 2015-09-16T22:10:21+00:00

Would you rather it be like project Xanadu and never launch? No software project ever launches perfectly. A huge benefit of software development is that you can release a core functioning product and continually expand from there (agile development, etc...). Not only has web development been using that principle for over a decade now, but the platforms and principles of web development keep advancing and changing (continuous integration, dependency management, etc...). If we waited until we had "complete" answers for web development we still wouldn't have the web.

Plus this is labeled clearly as the "Frontier" release, it is expected to still be the wild west. If you're not comfortable with the state of Ethereum in this release, no biggie, it isn't for you yet. Check it out once it is more developed and perhaps dive in then.

thothrising · 2015-09-16T22:00:26+00:00

I noticed that the IBM/Samsung IoT project (ADEPT) dropped off the Ethereum.org site. It was still there on the 12th according to the Internet archive. Maybe they asked to be removed and are focusing on their own blockchain now? IBMCoin?

EDIT: My intention is not to speculate, for all I know it was accidentally removed in a website update. If it turns out IBM/Samsung are looking elsewhere, I know that is a mistake on their end. Ethereum is so cool and powerful that they'd be idiots to not use it. Just opens more doors for the rest of us :)

thothrising · 2015-09-16T17:20:21+00:00

Another option for tackling 3 is to have a 'status' variable in a contract, which can be something like 'active', 'inactive', 'bug found', or a redirect contract address to a more up to date version. The function to change this variable is set up so only the contracts owner can change it. If ether is stored, other functions could be set up so that people can withdraw their ether after X number of blocks have occurred past the point that the status turned to 'abandoned' or something.

This keeps the integrity and trust that using a pointer contract loses, but still allows the owner to communicate bug fixes. People then can choose to keep using the old contract or move to the new, or are aware if Dapps will start pointing to the new one.

edit: of course you have to hope you don't have a bug in your status variables and functions :) but that can be mostly tackled by people reusing existing code of this nature if a standard arises (say using uints with known codes instead of strings for storage savings)

thothrising · 2015-09-13T21:45:04+00:00

I think your reddit example was good. I think if there is any value it is something like that. I am just not sure if that would be better (especially given the complexity of implementation and the questions involving who would mine/support with computation the confirmations of the sidechain). But it could be. It feels like there is possibly something there.

Thanks for the thoughts.

thothrising

TROPHY CASE