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Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

bitcoin.org

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Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#51

Post by webXL »

Joakal wrote: post #47
weavejester wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt Bitcoin will be made illegal. By itself, the Bitcoin network is just a mechanism for passing around signed messages and calculating hash values. It would be difficult to outlaw that without running into constitutional free speech issues. Where Bitcoin might run into trouble is the trading of bitcoins for dollars or commodities. Depending on how bitcoins are classified legally, there may be additional regulati…

It is likely to be illegal; banking without a licence, not revealing the ownership, etc. Look at E-Gold's fall: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/e-gold/

Isn't the "bank" on your hard drive?

E-Gold was a commercial enterprise with only 20 employees and no legal team. Very easy to take down. It will be hard for the feds to take down a P2P network, although very easy for them to police e-commerce sites that accept it.

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#53

Post by sirclueless »

shasta wrote: post #35
hugh3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a problem requiring a solution, it's merely an observation. If a bunch of over-logical geeks were to sit down and try to draft a new set of laws which were completely unambiguous and free of arbitrary cutoffs and nonequivalent treatment of equivalent situations then they'd never even get past questions like "Precisely how far from the end of my nose does your right to swing a fist end?"

Without arguing with your specific wording of "completely unambiguous and free of arbitrary cutoffs etc.", I think the implicit point you're making that a group of highly intelligent people couldn't sit down and come up with a significantly better new set of laws "from scratch" is wrong. I think they could, if that were their only aim, vastly improve laws and government with a noticeable improvement on average qualit…

I think the chances of finding a group of highly moral, highly impartial, highly intelligent to work together to set up a new system of laws "from scratch" with no other goals than to produce a better system of laws and improve the average quality of life is practically nil.

Although the US system is far from perfect, I think Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison did a pretty darn good job of all that.

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jarin wrote: post #26
hugh3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again we're running into the geeks-trying-to-understand-the-law problem -- they always expect the law to be as sensible and self-consistent as geometry. But the law has no patience with reducito ad absurdum, and judges and lawmakers are quite happy to declare that X is legal and Y is illegal even if in some sense Y is really analogous to X . As far as alternative currencies go, my understanding is that they're illega…

"Again we're running into the geeks-trying-to-understand-the-law problem -- they always expect the law to be as sensible and self-consistent as geometry." Well, there's only one solution then—we need to get more geeks in office. Edit: Real geeks, not the "I own an iPad" that passes for geekery in Washington.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#55

Post by Groxx »

Duh. It's a way of purchasing things outside of Apple's store. They can't get their 30%, so they won't allow it.

Edit: seriously, that's an incredibly solid reason why they wouldn't accept it. I considered making one briefly until I realized this. I'm not even remotely surprised this happened.

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#56

Post by palish »

jchrisa wrote: post #52
graupel wrote: post #20

Why not just build this as a web app instead of a native iPhone app?

you could store the data in localStorage, avoiding the remote data problem. Now if only there were a way to sync local storage across devices...

Local Storage is limited to 5MB. Bitcoin requires much more than that --- on the order of 500MB.

This is because it needs to verify the block chain history, in order to provide cryptographically secure transactions.

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#57

Post by Joakal »

webXL wrote: post #51
Joakal wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is likely to be illegal; banking without a licence, not revealing the ownership, etc. Look at E-Gold's fall: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/e-gold/

Isn't the "bank" on your hard drive? E-Gold was a commercial enterprise with only 20 employees and no legal team. Very easy to take down. It will be hard for the feds to take down a P2P network, although very easy for them to police e-commerce sites that accept it.

A P2P network means nothing to a country infamous for filesharer penalties up to trillions of dollars.

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#59

Post by Groxx »

palish wrote: post #56
jchrisa wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could store the data in localStorage, avoiding the remote data problem. Now if only there were a way to sync local storage across devices...

Local Storage is limited to 5MB. Bitcoin requires much more than that --- on the order of 500MB. This is because it needs to verify the block chain history, in order to provide cryptographically secure transactions.

Not at all. The Java bitcoin client doesn't store the entire block chain. http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/

You don't even need to know the current block to send transactions, if I remember right (haven't dived in deeply enough yet to be 100% certain). The block solver (miner) is the only one who needs to know the chain, as they choose what transactions to include, and your transaction may not even be included (ie, if fees are too low), but may in a later block.

Re: Bitcoin app rejected by Apple

#60

Post by olalonde »

thinkcomp wrote: post #2

This really should not be a surprise to anyone. If Bitcoin is not already illegal (and I have reason to believe it is due to most states' money transmitter laws), it's almost guaranteed that it will be soon.

Unless Ron Paul gets elected in 2012... He is in favor of abolishing the federal reserve and a champion of liberty.
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