Month: October 2013

Raspberry Pi Bitcoin Miner

As those of you reading know, I’m a big fan of Bitcoin and a big fan of the Raspberry Pi. It was only a matter of time until I decided to follow in the footsteps of many and setup a Raspberry Pi Bitcoin miner. In an unrelated Amazon search I noticed that the ASCIMiner Block Erupters had come down in price (they sell for $29.98 on Amazon’s main page but cheaper units can be had from other Amazon vendors) so I decided to order a couple.

Mind you, nobody is going to get rich off of a Block Erupter. My desire was to experiment with them. I’ve often wondered how much a somewhat decent miner could be built for. Combining cheap Block Erupters with cheap Raspberry Pis seemed like an excellent want to build an affordable miner (with the acknowledgement that the setup was unlikely to pay for itself). I followed the setup guide on Adafruit and was mining Bitcoin in minutes. What follows are some issues I ran into.

First, my Raspberry Pi wasn’t able to provide reliable power to both modules. This wasn’t unexpected. While the Pi could run one Erupter without any issue the second one would periodically die from loss of power. The mining application I used, cgminer, continuously notified me of hardware errors. Fortunataly, I have a second Raspberry Pi that runs my Tor relay so I unplugged the second Erupter from the first Pi, plugged it into the second Pi, and got it up and running without any trouble. The obvious solution to this problem is to purchase a powered USB hub.

Second, Block Erupters run hot. I learned this lesson when I went to unplug my second Erupter from my first Pi. If you’ve been running an Erupter make sure you give it time to cool down before touching it (or be impatient, like me, and grab some gloves). You will also want to invest in a small fan to keep your Erupters cool. This USB powered fan has been recommended by several people and costs all of $8.00.

Third, as I feel this needs to be pointed out, setting up a mining rig isn’t the most efficient way to acquire Bitcoin. Sites like Coinbase are better sources. The amount of Bitcoin you can mine with an Erupter isn’t going to pay for the hardware for quite some time (even before calculating in the cost of electricity, fans, powered hubs, etc.). I’m perusing this project for fun and to fulfill my curiosity. When I need to acquire Bitcoin in usable quantities I tend to buy from sellers.

Dey turk err jurbs!

There are fewer things more idiotic than claiming advances in technology will cause unemployment. But, alas, many people are stupid enough to parrot that talking point of the economic ignorance:

In the industrial revolution — and revolutions since — there was an invigoration of jobs. For instance, assembly lines for cars led to a vast infrastructure that could support mass production giving rise to everything from car dealers to road building and utility expansion into new suburban areas.

But the digital revolution is not following the same path, said Daryl Plummer, a Gartner analyst at the research firm’s Symposium ITxpo here. “What we’re seeing is a decline in the overall number of people required to do a job,” he said.

Plummer points to a company like Kodak, which once employed 130,000, versus Instagram’s 13. Gartner sees social unrest movements, similar to Occupy Wall Street, emerging again by 2014.

Through the miracle of technological advancement we now require fewer people to do most jobs. Many stages of automobile manufacturing are performed by robots. Infinite copies of documents can no be created with the click of a mouse. Letters can be transmitted instantly from one computer to the next. Auto workers, print shop employees, and postal workers are losing their jobs!

I’m sorry, I forgot to mention the number of people not employed as web developers, chip designers, chip manufacturers, infrastructure designers, infrastructure builders, flash memory designers, flash memory manufacturers, network designers, online marketers, database administrators, database programmers, system administrators, cloud infrastructure designers, cloud infrastructure implementers, data center constructors, etc., etc.

Technological advancements don’t eliminate jobs, they shift the playing field. Some skills become unnecessary while others become necessary. Sure, the invention of the light bulb put many candle makers out of work but it also created a need for light bulb manufacturers, electrical infrastructure builders, and a whole slew of other skills. Did I mention that the invention of the light bulb is what allowed our society to effectively remain active after the sun went down? As a resident of Minnesota I greatly appreciate that during the winter months when there isn’t enough sunlight to get anything of importance done.

Any one of us may be rendered irrelevant by technological advances. That doesn’t mean we’re no longer employable, it means we need to learn new skills. Just because you’re too lazy to learn a new skill doesn’t mean the entire species should be held back. If you’re bitching about technology taking your job then it’s time for you to get off of your lazy ass and learn something new. The rest of us aren’t going to stop improving peoples’ lives just because you’re too lazy to pick up a new skill. And, who knows, some day we may reach a point where everything is automated, and therefore super cheap. If that happens we can all enjoy a carefree life where we are free to follow whatever pursuits we want. Wouldn’t it be terrible if nobody had to work because everything we need became so cheap to manufacture that it could be given away for free?

Information is Power

I’ve been avoiding dwelling on the Affordable Car Act (ACA) too much. The last has passed and the state has never been too keen on repealing something it put into place. I would prefer to spend my time thinking of ways to bypass the ACA such as building “underground” mutual aid organizations. But the ACA is the hot topic right now and it pays to point out my issues with that legislation as justification for finding a way to bypass it. It seems Maryland’s health insurance exchange (the ACA mandates that each individual state implement a health insurance “marketplace”) contains some interesting language in its privacy policy:

The policy contains many standard statements about information automatically collected regarding Internet browsers and IP addresses, temporary “cookies” used by the site, and website accessibility. However, at least two conditions may give some users pause before proceeding.

The first is regarding personal information submitted with an application for those users who follow through on the sign up process all the way to the end. The policy states that all information to help in applying for coverage and even for making a payment will be kept strictly confidential and only be used to carry out the function of the marketplace. There is, however, an exception: “[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”

This exception could turn out to be a lot of fun for law enforcement. What’s to stop law enforcement agents from digging through your medical history in order to find some dirt on you? Did you do drugs in the past that lead to medical issues? Have you overcome your addiction? Too bad, because your attendance at a detox center may be enough proof to land you in jail (or at least nail you with a nasty fine). While the scenario I just laid out is entirely hypothetical I believe it is a likely one based on how the war on drugs not patented by major pharmaceutical companies has been conducted so far.

Information is power. One of the most worrisome consequences of the ACA is the amount of healthcare data that will be made readily available to the federal government. With how pervasive it has been with surveillance as of late we can’t assume that it has any egalitarian reason to gather healthcare information as well as copies of our communications.

An Interesting Healthcare Paradox

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been sold to the American public as everything from free healthcare to universal coverage. As the law starts getting coming into affect we’re learning some very interesting tidbits about the bill that we had to pass in order to find out what’s in it. For example, your credit score gets checked so insurance companies can decided whether or not they want to take you on as a customer:

ORLANDO, Fla. – Many people signing up for health care in Florida through the Affordable Care Act have been shocked when they have to give proof of their credit score before they finish the process.

Anne Packham, one of many people licensed by the state to help people navigate the government’s website, said on Tuesday that the credit check occurs so providers can make an educated decision about who to insure.

“If someone is defaulting on all of their bills they may not want to have them as part of their health plan,” said Packham, the lead Navigator in Florida.

You can’t be denied for a preexisting condition but you can be denied for having a poor credit score. In all fairness, everything in our society seems to be tied to your credit score. If you have a poor credit score you’re effectively labeled subhuman.

But this story raises an interesting question. If you’re legally required to purchase health insurance and every health insurance provider denies you (either outright or charging premiums that they know you can’t afford) what happens? Will you be fined, err, taxed, err, fined for failing to carry health insurance even if you have no control over that failure? Could insurance companies deny you coverage for a preexisting condition if they claim their reason for rejection was your credit score?

Welcome to the mandatory healthcare system. It will only get worse from here.

Protecting the Monopoly

It’s time, once again, for Christopher Burg explains news articles without all the sugar coating. Today’s news article discusses the new $100 bill released by the Federal Reserve. The bill includes several new security features:

It includes a blue 3D security ribbon and a bell and inkwell logo that authorities say are particularly difficult to replicate.

These combine with traditional security features, such as a portrait watermark and an embedded security thread that glows pink under ultraviolet light.

The 2010 design was delayed because of “unexpected production challenges”.

The 3D security ribbon – which is woven into the note, not printed on it – features images of 100s that change into bells and move upwards or sideways depending on how you tilt the paper.

After discussing these new security features the article goes on to discuss counterfeiting, implying that these news security features are meant to prevent the production of counterfeit $100 bills. That implication is incorrect. What the news security features are meant to do is protect the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on counterfeiting $100 bills. You see, the Federal Reserve prints out money like it’s going out of style. It makes every other counterfeiter on the planet look like amateurs. Adding security features to $100 bills simple keeps the Federal Reserve ahead of the game and ensures that anybody wanting to compete with it faces larger barriers to entry.

Of course, if I was going to counterfeit money, I would simple focus on old bills. Why waste time counterfeiting new bills (other than fun) when you can just counterfeit old money and beat it up to look as old as the printed date implies?

FBI Having Troubles Seizing Dread Pirate Roberts’ Bitcoin Stash

This story demonstrates one of the features I most like about Bitcoin:

In order to transfer Bitcoins out of a “wallet”, the name for the digital file which contains the encrypted information necessary to spend the currency, users need to know that wallet’s password or “private key”.

According to Forbes’ Kashmir Hill, that hurdle is causing the FBI difficulty.

“The FBI has not been able to get to Ulbricht’s personal Bitcoin yet,” wrote Hill. An FBI spokesperson said to Hill that the “$80m worth” that Ulbricht had “was held separately and is encrypted”. At current exchange rates, that represents slightly more than 5% of all bitcoins in circulation.

It looks like Bitcoin is pretty secure against state seizure. Mind you, that doesn’t do Mr. Ulbricht much good as he’s currently being held in a cage. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) inability to take Ulbricht’s supposed $80 million worth of Bitcoin is good news for other people facing state theft.

Think about countries such as Greece and Spain that are seizing personal fortunes and freezing assets in bank accounts. If you want to conceal your personal wealth from the state money grabbers converting it to Bitcoin seems like a pretty good option. Here in the United States things are worse. Your wealth can be stolen under civil forfeiture laws if a police officer simply suspects that wealth is tied to a drug-related crime. Under civil forfeiture laws the burden of proving any wealth isn’t tied to a drug crime is on the accused. Bitcoin may be an effective defense against civil forfeiture laws and a dying state’s last ditch attempt to raise money by stealing directly from the bank accounts of citizens.

Admittedly, Bitcoin fluctuations can be pretty wild. But everything has its risks. You risk losing wealth if Bitcoin’s exchange rate drops but you risk losing wealth if you keep cash on hand or in a bank account. I recommend divesting wealth. While divestment doesn’t protect all of your wealth it stands a good chance of losing everything if the one protection strategy you’ve chosen fails.

The Beauty of Rebellion

Seeing outright rebellion in the United States is a beautiful thing. The recent government “shutdown” has cause headaches for many vacation goers. The government decided that the best way to punish us for its inability to get along was to shutdown anything that may be used by the average American. As it turns out, the legitimacy of this decision isn’t being recognized by some of those very Americans:

It turns out families on vacation are enjoying America’s national parks even without the government’s blessing. Families are throwing orange cones aside at Mount Rushmore, ignoring barricades at Zion National Park and taking grinning selfies next to signs in the Badlands announcing the National Park Service facility is closed. Twitter and Instagram give testament to determined dads driving straight over traffic cones or throwing them aside to clear the way for the family vacations they’ve been planning long before a government shutdown was announced. Be safe, you pioneers, and give a shout-out to the park rangers, who are one genre of government worker we know must be truly missing their offices this week.

It’s nice to see people giving the state a giant middle finger. There are no legitimate reasons for the state to shutdown these parks. Vacation goers tend to enjoy them without the few services provided by state employees. Looking at Mount Rushmore, for example, requires no work whatsoever on the state’s behalf. Shutting down the monument was nothing more than a spiteful swipe at the American people. I think members of both parties believe that if they beat us long enough we’ll demand the other party cut their shit out and approve a bill.

Government Shutdown Part IX

I have been living in the absence of government for so long that I can barely remember what law and order looks like. Life has been made much easier by the rail gun and killbot I acquired. Having a killbot in my party has worked wonders. The few gang members that have approached have either fled in terror or were gunned down in seconds. I’ve had no more encounters with killbots. Checking the log files on my killbot my suspicious were proven correct: most of the killbots headed west. Only a few stringers were sent in other directions to scout. From my understanding it appears as though several teams of killbots have been unleashed in the Twin Cities area. Teams unleashed on the extremities are most likely herding people into the center, where the killbots will eventually converge to finish their purge. Once the purge is completed the area will be free for corporate takeover.

My journey took me to the Twins Stadium, which is situations on the main bike trail into the Warehouse District. What I saw there made my blood freeze. The stadium has been turned into a real-life Thunderdome. Competitors are thrown into the arena and only the survivor is allowed to leave. Gangs roam Minneapolis looking for people to kidnap and toss into the arena. Thanks to my killbot none of them have tried to make me part of their reindeer games. The only collection van I saw went up in smoke as my killbot sent a rail gun slug through it. Who knew that rail gun slugs came in incendiary form?

The streets in the warehouse district are an orgy of death. Bodies are littered everywhere. The stench is almost unbearable. One of the biggest threats comes not from gangs but from crumbling infrastructures. Everywhere you go there are downed power lines, stop lights, and street lights. Buildings have begun to crumble, making travel in the proximity of the tall warehouses dangerous. The killbot stays close to me, likely attempting to take the brunt of any falling debris. I made my way east, down Washington Avenue. There doesn’t appear to be any safe side streets to travel so I’m keeping with the main arteries to increase my speed, and give my killbot plenty of room to spot and eliminate potential threats. As I made my way to the Hennepin Hilton I could see that the Hennepin Avenue and Central Avenue bridges collapsed. No doubt this occurred after safety inspections were stopped by the shuttered government. We learned our lesson about the need for government oversight of bridges when the 35W bridge did a belly flop into the Mississippi. In the distance I could see that the Stone Arch bridge was still standing, which may be important if I have to make an escape across the river.

As I traveled up 4th Avenue I expected to see less chaos. The police would have barricaded the area and defended everybody who made it to their little island of law and order, right? Not so much. My worst fear was realized as I approached the Hennepin County Government Center. The Hennepin Country Sheriff looked like a bombed out building from World War II. Smoking shells of police cruisers blocked off 4th Avenue at 4th Street. Bodies of police officers and gang members littered the proximity of the barricade. It seemed that the badges had prevented the officers from becoming raging lunatics but the number of civilians was too great for them.

I took fire as I pushed based the barricade. Really bad snipers had taken up roosts in the Government Center Parking Garage. They must have had ammunition to spare because they were trying the strategy of missing fast enough to kill. As bullets ricocheted around me, the killbot identified the really bad snipers’ positions and unleashed a hail of machine gun fire. Shortly afterward the sniper fire ceased. If there were any survivors they decided to run and hide.

No longer distracted by gun fire I took note of the surrounding area. The Government Plaza was riddled with impaled bodies. For a moment I thought Vlad the Impaler had risen from the dead and taken residence in the Government Center. Many of the impaled were members of Minneapolis and Hennepin County’s finest. Signs were strung around the plaza that read “Die pigs!”, “Fuck the police!”, and other derogatory remarks aimed at our public servants. The virtuous were swarmed by the vile. I considered entering the police station but decided the threat of unknown assailants was too great. The Hennepin Hilton, likewise, posed too great a threat to enter. On the outside it appeared to be mostly intact but on the inside things were likely bad. Without the government to keep the prisoners in line they likely revolted, killed all the police, and escaped into Minneapolis. A few probably stayed inside the prison, claiming it as their kingdom in this land of the damned. I could see fire being exchanged from the upper floors of a couple of skyscrapers. Now that the NFA was no longer being enforce the gangs have acquired rocket launchers. Rockets fly between the tower and exploded glass, metal, and bodies outward.

Continuing forward was a bad idea. I doubted the killbot could stand up to rocket fire and without it I would likely perish as well. To the west was the Twins Stadium, a horror I had no interest in seeing again. East would take me to the Metrodome, which was likely running more gladiatorial-style fights. South appeared to be the only direct that wouldn’t bring immediate death. I could cross the Stone Arch bridge and face whatever horrors have befallen Nordeast Minneapolis.

Government Shutdown Part VIII

I apologize for not getting updating my journal earlier. One casualty of the government shutdown I hadn’t expected was the wireless spectrum. Without the FCC to protect our wireless spectrum every jackass with the ability to emit wireless signals has been jamming FCC licensed users. Even HAM radio is unusable without the oversight traditionally offered by the government. I was fortunate to find a place with a physical Ethernet connection so I could update all of you outside of the United States on our current crisis.

My last journal entry ended when I found a place to race in an abandoned home near Cedar Lake. The night passed uneventfully, except for the sounds of screaming that are ever present in this lawless world. It appears that the gangs in this area have been wiped out by the killbots. The killbots seem to work on an exterminate and leave pattern. They enter an area, kill everybody in that area, and move onto the next area. From what I can tell the majority of killbots are moving west. If I had hunkered down instead of escape I would have eventually been killed when the killbots swept my area.

I awakened at sunrise to continue my journey into Minneapolis. Breakfast consisted of a few nonperishable items that I scrounged from the home. It wasn’t delicious but it extended the food supply I was already carrying. Believing the killbots had moved on I decided to return to the derailed train. My goal was to disassemble the two destroyed killbots in the hopes of finding some kind of exploitable weakness. Fortune shined upon me. While both of the killbots were disabled, one still had a functioning computer I was able to jack into (take that “survivalists” who never recommend placing a laptop into a bug out bag). After analyzing the software I was able to determine that the defense contracts wrote the code in a hurry. There were a lot of sloppy mistakes and several unreadable Perl (but I repeat myself) scripts running several important functions. Most importantly I was able to find the code that identified killbots to one another. Inside the killbot was a small transmitter that served as an IFF (identification friendly or foe for those of you who don’t operate in fields of operation). I was able to salvage the IFF and wire it to one of my spare flashlight batteries. With this IFF in pocket I should identify as a friendly to any roaming killbots. Sadly, the IFF in the other killbot was damaged in the exchange of fire so I had no viable backup. However, I did obtain something of greatly value from the second killbot, a portable rail gun. In their hurry to get the killbots online before the government started operating again, the defense contractors mounted weapons made for humans on their killing machines. All one needs to do is hit the release mechanism. The killbot also had a good quantity of ammo for the rail gun so I was in business.

Carrying a .308 and a rail gun would prove impossible so I tied my reliable companion to the rack on my bike. There was no way of knowing how reliable the hastily made rail gun would be so I didn’t want to best my life on it. On the other hand, the .308 was worthless against killbots so I wanted the firepower the rail gun gave me.

Carrying my bike over train wreckage I continued by journey north. After clearing the field of wreckage I was able to continue biking down the trail. As expected, without the government to keep the trail in tiptop condition, the ride was rough. Within minutes I extended to the meadow. The meadow gave me good line of sight of the surrounding area. To the east I could see the Minneapolis skyline. Like everything else the grand skyscrapers of the city were ablaze. I began to doubt that any government survived in the city but had no other plan of action so I continued my journey. Even though the highways were in such disrepair they hadn’t collapsed yet. Not having to traverse collapsed highways sped my journey up considerably.

As I passed under 94 my heart stopped at the sight of another killbot. Unslinging the rail gun as I hit the dirt I was astonished that the thing hadn’t opened fire by the time I was up on my knee and aiming the rail gun at the walking monstrosity. It was looking right at me so I knew I saw me. It appeared as though the IFF I salvaged out of the fallen killbot worked. Getting ballsy, I walked up to the killbot. It made no effort to attack me. Deciding to leave well enough alone I got back on my bike and began heading towards Target Field. That’s when the fucking killbot started following me. When I moved it moved, when I stopped it stopped. Remembering that these things work in teams I assumed that the previously independent killbot was trying to join up with me. The ramifications of this were dire. What if failure to communicate with it lead to it killing my ass? It would almost certainly gun down anybody else who crossed my path. I had to disable it before continuing. It didn’t try to stop me from plugging my laptop into its computer. That’s when the idea dawned on me, why disable the killbot when I could reprogram it? Having a companion would make my life easier. The killbot obviously possessed skills I lacked, which is always important when building a party in an RPG. My intelligence trait was far in excess of its but its strength, perception, and speed were in excess of mine. Together we may be able to survive the lawless United States.

I lead the killbot off of the beaten path. Part of me wanted to disable it while I reprogrammed it to avoid it automatically firing on any person passing through. On the other hand, I wanted the thing online in case any gang members decided to roll through. Too damn bad for anybody else coming down the trail. It took me the rest of the day and most of the night to reprogram the killbot. Inside the code I found a function called escortMode. As it turns out, the killbot could be commanded to protect a designated target. I decided to designate myself as the designated protected person. To complete the designation the killbot needed to scan me. Several minutes passed as it scanned my outline, infrared profile, face, hair color, eye color, skin color, and fingerprints. How far would its protection go? Would it fire on a killbot that was trying to kill me? I had no way of knowing but the IFF in my pocket would almost certainly prevent any killbots from attacking me.

By the time I finished everything up it was pitch black out. All of the smoke from the burning buildings obscured the moon and stars. I imagine it is how the sky always looked before the EPA stepped in and regulated the amount of pollutants that could be emitted into the atmosphere. I found a small cubby-hole to rest in. With the killbot watching over me and the IFF in my pocket I wasn’t too concerned about any roving gang members or other killbots icing me in my sleep.

I awoke again at sunrise. The killbot was still standing there scanning the area for any potential threats. After a breakfast consisting of dehydrated ham I finished up a little programming on the killbot. Killbots have Wi-Fi cards in them. I assume they use them to scan for Wi-Fi signals, which is usually a good indication that humans are around. With a little work I was able to use it to connect to my phone. Even with the unregulated mess that was the wireless spectrum, I was able to get a connection to the killbot’s Wi-Fi interface so long as I was within a few feat. Opening an SSH connection (the default user name and password were both “root”, I changed them quickly) I was able to rely commands to the killbot.

With my new metal companion I continued moving into Minneapolis.

Private Solutions to State Failures

“Without the government who will [fill in the blank]?” It’s a question anti-statists face frequently. People seem to lack the imagination necessary to come up with any ideas of who would build roads, teach children, or protect people in the absence of government (and I want to know who is building roads, teaching children, and protecting people in the presence of government). As we find more governments collapsing we are getting an opportunity to see who can provide the services that were formerly monopolized by the governments. One many has developed a potential alternative to the state’s first responder services:

What if you could report emergencies anywhere, have faster response times, and strengthen local communities, all without spending thousands of dollars or involving bureaucrats?

We are seeing sluggish emergency response times in many big cities around the United States, and in parts of Detroit and Chicago you’d be lucky if someone came at all, even hours later. This is the problem with having a one-size-fits-all monopoly on emergency services. Sure, the system works pretty well, but when it has problems it can be a matter of life and death. And those problems don’t cause any firm to lose profits when they drop the ball. Tax money still fills the agency’s coffers, rewarding incompetence. (In economics we call this a soft budget constraint.)

Cody Drummond at Peacekeeper is rethinking defense and emergency response with a new app he is developing. His focus? Bring it local and use something you already carry to alert those around you to a problem. In those critical first moments during a crisis, you can alert those closest to you and get the help you need faster.

This system has the potential of replacing lengthy police response times (if they respond at all) with quick response from members of your community. It could also save lives if medical emergencies can be attended to quickly by any medical personnel in your community, as opposed to waiting for an ambulance to arrive from a far away hospital. What makes solutions like this even more appealing is that they don’t stop working just because the government has shutdown. One of the biggest problems with allowing governments to monopolize services is that those services cease being available in the event of a budget cut or shutdown.

Will Mr. Drummond’s solution work? Only time will tell. But we know that state controlled police don’t work (unless you want your dog euthanized) so an alternative must be found. Even if Mr. Drummond’s solution doesn’t work out I will tip my hat to him for trying.