Traffic From Syria Disappears From Internet | Hacker News Reader

Traffic From Syria Disappears From Internet

labs.umbrella.com

170 pointsjoshstrange136 comments

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Here's the Google Transparency Report page that features ongoing developments involving this disruption:

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/disruptions...

(This page is distinct from the time series graph linked in another comment.)

Google's Transparency report showing the same thing: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/explorer/?r...

found via: https://twitter.com/therealfitz/status/331867408102993921

I hope no one here thought .sy was a cool suffix for a domain name.

Well, one could build an atheist web site at http://here.sy :-)

I wonder if Etsy considered using et.sy rather than Etsy.me for their short URLs...

I don't think this incident would effect domain name resolution for .sy domains.

The nameservers for .sy domains are:

  sy.			172800	IN	NS	sy.cctld.authdns.ripe.net.
  sy.			172800	IN	NS	ns1.tld.sy.
  sy.			172800	IN	NS	ns2.tld.sy.
  sy.			172800	IN	NS	pch.anycast.tld.sy.

sy.cctld.authdns.ripe.net is still accessible so domains will still resolve.

art.sy was mentioned here a few months ago.

What disturbs me is how many people in other countries (like the USA) feel that this type of thing could never happen here. However, it seems that even in the US the internet could be controlled by the government/army if they so desired and various proposed 'internet control' legislation packages seem to push us one step closer toward that possibility.

While it could possibly happen, it would be very difficult, even if the US government (and general power in the US) was much more powerful and organized than it currently is. The US is big, and the borders between the US and Canada and Mexico are also big; there's a lot of room to set up some discreet wires or even microwave transmitters and receivers some distance from the borders. Latency would be crap at first but would get better over time. It would be harder to get a packet from the US to a European country if all trans-ocean cables were cut, but not impossible, and at that point we're probably well into WW3. The US population is also well educated as a whole (still with many offline centers of gaining technical knowledge--i.e. books) and many citizens would have strong motivations to get the internet back, there are many large concentrations of highly technical nerds who wouldn't be afraid to start wiring up their own internet (I'd love to see a wireless mesh network take over), there are lots of computers and routers and cat5 in circulation and other useful equipment as well. Many people also have printers, flash drives, and cars, it would not be hard to communicate across cities and states with a sneakernet. For a total internet blackout cutting US citizens off from other citizens (intra country) and from the world, the amount of individual and corporate cooperation with the government which the people would hate (for taking away their access to cat videos among other things) and powerful businesses would hate (for hurting their profits) is astounding.

There is civil war. And cables will always be delicious target for any party. No bank transfers for the fleeing elite or being able to deal with external affairs, total blackout for the defender (military and police have their own systems usually so the ruling party is not that affected)

The situation in Syria is dangerous. A failed state in that location ... Arab Peninsula in the 2013 is the Balkans in 1913 ...

And this is what bitcoiners and similar don't understand. It's not like your internet connection will remain happy and stable while the rest of the world goes to hell around us. Telecomms will be a first-class target, and most systems have some pretty central points of failure that would make juicy (and easy) targets.

In such a situation, if you've chosen to use an electronic cryptocurrency dependent on things like robust network and electrical infrastructure to function as your primary value store, you're going to have a bad time.

This doesn't even contemplate the additional issue for bitcoin and its derivatives: the blockchain depends on a consistent, global view of network transactions, and apocalyptic-type network segmentation will cause severe forking in the blockchain, further diminishing the utility and therefore the value of the [already worthless] cryptocoins.

What would you suggest people put their money in then? Gold? Guns?

The problems you describe are problems for just about every currency right now. How much of your money do you have in cash, and how much is in the bank? Do you think you will still be able to use the bank in a situation like the one you describe?

Gold and guns would both be much better decisions that Bitcoin in a raging civil war. So would food, and transport to safe haven. Bitcoin would be insane. Even if you had extra money, that's what Swiss bank accounts are for.

edit: to be clear, the utilities of these items is relative, think a DAG. gold > bitcoin. food > gold. transport to safe haven > food,guns. Maybe. Medicine > gold, also. Not trying to say anything special about gold, I mostly agree that it has very little use to justify its value.

I don't get this obsession with gold. Yes it's shiny and has historically represented value and wealth, but people apply it as the unit of currency society will fall back on in times of crisis, like a civil war. If there's fighting and chaos all around and infrastructure is cut off, clean water, food, medicine, and weapons are pretty much all that will hold any value.

During a war, perhaps. But once things settle down I think gold will be the go to unit of currency.

In a functional society no one wants to pay for their goods with food or water.

Right but then wouldn't you just go back to standard currency?

No, because things can be sufficiently stable that people are no longer in contest over the fundamentals like food and water, but not sufficiently to have a widely-standardized currency.

Gold is useful because everyone, everywhere recognizes its value independent of any other entity. This happens simply as a function of gold's rarity and manipulability; if you're looking for a natural resource to stand in as a currency, gold meets the requirements better than other materials. This is so, and will remain so despite any human ongoings.

In absolute life-or-death situations, yes. But as soon as we move even a tiny bit past that point, history shows we seek universally recognized, convenient mediums of exchange. And for every culture that has access to them, precious metals have fulfilled this role since year dot.

Gold is special because of its universal value, and it is especially useful in refugee scenarios where your war-ravaged currency has lost value, but your asylum country still has a stable economy. Gold is easily concealed, transported, and exchanged. My father's family converted much of their assets to gold when fleeing to the US from Vietnam at the end of the war.

I recall reading a series of blog posts written by someone who survived a south american economic collapse. (I forget what the URL was.) His perspective was that there is a VERY thin veneer on civilization, after which weapons, a fortified home, large cars, and absolute paranoia seem to be the best bet. Some highlights:

- small gold rings are good currency: you can easily divide it, and you can carry small amounts on your person. For some reason, people valued that more than paper money. - a black market for guns (and ammo) will spring up; cheap POS guns will have ludicrous prices, so if you plan to have one, it's wise to have them before The Collapse - Don't open your door for anyone. - Be armed. Seriously. - Be prepared to seriously consider whether to drive _through_ a pedestrian, rather than risk that his friends will kidnap you as soon as you stop. - Neighborhood friendships are extremely valuable.

.. that's all I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure someone else can link the originals. Basically, though, it's comparatively easy to stockpile small pieces of gold jewelry ahead of time, and people will tend to accept it in trade. (Water/food/bullets/guns are of course even more valuable, but those aren't as transportable.)

Rather than cutting your ring into small pieces, check out this credit card sized gold bar which you can tear off into 1 gram pieces.

http://www.combibar.com/products/50g-combibar-gold/

http://www.ferfal.com/

Exactly. I wonder how many here manage to pry their eyes open.

Gold is a value store. It's valuable because it can be traded for other stuff. It's the same as money - a stack of $100 bills is useless except to buy other stuff.

The things you listed are valuable because they have direct utilitarian value for drinking, eating, defense, etc. Gold is valuable because it can be traded for things with utilitarian value.

Exactly. Gold is a universal currency, you can use it for barter pretty much anywhere on the planet.

Gold coins (British Sovereigns) were supposedly part of the emergency survival kit given to US and British fighter pilots during the first Iraq war.

Here is one explanation, but perhaps not the one you were looking for: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemis...

I dislike gold as an investment vehicle, but it is a sensible investment during a localized civil war that does not impact the global economy.

During a civil war, the local economy will be destabilized. This means that local production will drop off, and most things you want you will have to import (this includes the service of fleeing the country). In addition, your local currency will have become destabilized (possibly permanently), so outsiders won't find it desirable. Gold has a market outside your country, so outsiders would be willing to accept it as currency.

Basically, what you want is a currency with a global value, because it won't be affected by local conditions. Gold satisfies this criterion, as does USD in many cases.

I think most of the debate upthread can be summarized thusly: This criterion depends on a separation between local economic conditions, and global ones. In the US there is not such a distinction. If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us. As such, there is no currency with the properties that people are looking for.

> If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us. As such, there is no currency with the properties that people are looking for.

Yes exactly. And I hear too many people in the US say they feel like we are on the verge of some kind of massive revolution or civil war, which seems preposterous to me. Your average person would rather just get by than get involved in a bloody, civil conflict. There is a growing economic divide in the US, as well as a somewhat large rate of unemployment (mostly made up of the young and self-entitled, and older folks who's skills have become fairly obsolete), but compare it to countries where there have been actual civil wars in recent times and we're nowhere near that level of destitution and disparity. You need to get into multi-generational inequity, corruption, and despair before enough people will put aside their own relative comfortable complacency to get involved in armed conflict.

So buying gold for the coming apocalypse is silly.

Our economies are finally about to collapse under the weight of their impossibility, and that's likely to cause some kind of upheaval. That's not about Ethnic Group A hating Ethnic Group B, even though something like that may well happen all around Europe, for example. Economic rebalancing/calamity will come first though.

> In the US there is not such a distinction. If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us.

You could also argue that if Europe collapses, it will take down the US too. It could go either way, or there may be some kind of localized collapse. All continents have their Powers That Be, and those of other continents might well be able to detach themselves from one continent going down. All that really matters is order, and the ability to keep things chugging along.

I will coin two phrases now:

1. Venomsnake's law - every discussion on Hacker's news degrades to bitcoins.

2. Goldilocks apocalypse - every goldbug, bitcoin miner and similar depends on the crash of civilization in just the right way that everything will be the same but his economic decisions will put him on top with the pure strength of speculation. Whatever assets you have the federal government will be able to confiscate if the need is dire enough. Whatever protection the law gives you can be reverted.

There is no safety. To be able to claim and hold to a property you rely on massive infrastructure. If the dollar and the federal government crashes - it will vaporize too.

To be fair, even gold (and as I'm loathe to put in the same category, bitcoin) speculators aren't really relying upon a full-out goldilocks apocalypse for their assets to appreciate, just a continuation of the current trend of currency devaluation of the U.S. dollar. I think you're right that if something really bad happened (read: worse than 2008 or 2001) then the men with guns would take your gold and your bitcoins (though honestly, they probably won't give a shit about the bitcoins) has they've done before and will do again.

Not if you're a subsistence farmer out in the boonies with a bunch of hidden, unregistered guns. :P

As for gold though, it takes a long-term view of the apocalypse. In the immediate aftermath, no one will care about gold. Guns, food, etc will all be at a premium. It might take a decade or so for people to care about gold, and even then enough of the population will probably be dead that gold can be had by looting for jewellery that no longer has an owner.

"put their money in?" are you seeking an instability-hedged value store or trying to maximize the utils for given items?

Water and fuel.

>The problems you describe are problems for just about every currency right now. How much of your money do you have in cash, and how much is in the bank? Do you think you will still be able to use the bank in a situation like the one you describe?

I believe cyprus had to find out the hard way as well sans civil war. They had internet, but no access to bank accounts (still very limited to this day). And I doubt the the 25%+ in spain and greece are much better off…

Call me a nut but at this point, people who have the means should put their money in things they can live off of sustainably or at least partially (PV's, rain water catch, DIY small greenhouse) because things are not getting any better globally and we seriously can't expect the printing press to get us out of this.

Oh yeah, DOW closed above 15000. quelle chance.

Gold is a good high value density financial medium. Regardless of the objective value, it always has been and always will be in demand. It's best for carrying value from one side of an economic crisis to the other, and taking advantage of some good deals that crop up in the meantime. If anything the high value density makes it hard for anything but large transactions.

Guns? Well, ammo really. Guns are plentiful in the USA and are extremely durable. Ammo is more suitable to currency type usage, being handy during the crisis, comes in small units comparable to coins, and the value of each is around a dollar making it convenient for smaller commonplace transactions.

Guns, Cigarettes, and Everclear should all be fairly value dense in that scenario. Gold should do well too - the value that people assign to it due to life-long indoctrination plus its immutability as a valuable substance through history should help it do much better in those scenarios than fiat currencies whose backers have obviously disintegrated.

Food, water, and fuel would obviously be valuable too, but they're harder to carry a lot of.

>What would you suggest people put their money in then? Gold? Guns?

How about: potable water, non-perishable food, gasoline, batteries, tools (including weapons), and other commodities that will be scarce and have intrinsic value during a crisis?

1) We're heading closer and closer to a world where none of this bullshit(pardon my Frank) can happen.

2) You think REGULAR currencies have much more value than cryptocurrencies during these types of crises?

3) If Syria hypothetically still has a working "intranet" but not a working "internet", then Bitcoin will continue working just fine for them while they're not connected to the rest of us. After the Syrians re-connect, their branch will be withered, but not dead. Re-merging will be automatic when the Internet returns.

Re-merging does not work like that. All Syrian transactions will effectively be reversed. That's assuming that they managed to mine anything, with such a small fraction of the usual computing power available.

The difficulty level adjusts to the mining power. And only transactions that were double-spent will be reversed, since nodes will re-broadcast transactions from the short chain onto the long chain, and those that weren't double spent will be accepted.

>The difficulty level adjusts to the mining power.

But difficulty adjustments occur every 2016 blocks, not instantly. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#How_often_does_the_dif...

There's another important class of transactions that are reversed: mining outputs. In order to accept a payment from someone while isolated from the network, you have to carefully check that all the coins they're sending you were generated before the split, or else those coins will evaporate at some point in the future.

Assuming that we can just reconnect the segments after a brief downtime, like we do now if a backhoe accidentally hits the line into your apartment complex or something. Such a situation is not necessarily so simply resolved in wartime, when opposing factions have a serious interest in depriving telecomms from one another.

If we dropped you into the middle of Syria right now, would you rather have: 1. $10,000 in USD currency 2. $10,000 USD equiv in gold 3. $10,000 USD equiv in bitcoin

I'm pretty sure the only practical answer is (1). That pretty much answers your question (2).

Interesting. But if 1. Was not available would you rather have 2. Or 3.?

Obviously 2. Bitcoin is pretty useless if you don't have a dependable electrical grid or internet. I'd rather have $10,000 in USD, EUR or GLD than $1M in Bitcoin in a war zone where I had no other funds. Heck, I'd rather have gasoline or coffee than bitcoin.

> the blockchain depends on a consistent, global view of network transactions

Actually the chief effect of the continual hashing is robustness against netsplits. By defining the longer-hashed chain as prevailing, global reconciliation is actually possible. All protocol-following parties agree - double spends on the smaller side lose out.

In a case where the entire country is cut from the internet double spending will be insignificant - the coins cannot transfer out of the country, so it will be minor.

Transfer the private keys ahead of time, to a program which waits for a significant split and then automatically spends to a new address.

Which means that one can't really trust generic spends in the cut-off area.

Yes, clearly, it's better in all cases to use paper fiat currency dependent on things like a robust, modern, well-defended, and rationally-operated government infrastructure to function as your primary value store.

You can memorize the keys to a bitcoin account and carry your wealth with you in your head until you get to a place with an internet connection. Better that than diamonds in tubes of toothpaste.

Go on :) Lets see how long it will take, and how many times you will be able to reproduce it without error.

qWoXWwQQQyVF69SkJfGgG/x9ehR8NQmXwDvLxMbh2iALkGe0nd+NiFgvtXseoHn0 mEfjKXDbMMY7wyU8Xv1yNQGYw/V+pnfG/qiw8dirIF5jQOQprS/5YWt2Ts803pzu Y8V+FhMHoKtKozHKemH6THRQ0QbasdlO21+uwk7HGtKZh60NSEre+90I9GNEE8lO Vjq1r5YwdHpe7VZAyAYdJOJCS2wKKh7yJowOBLReyF7nR+hKw4ZAXibmg0/WM6tF tcccKbNPZZDYt9han1SsiCFew/6dUNoa5Qt+Q9wiDrZ9YLqRduULMQcOZhgPqN96 E5C1+TpaWj6w8JSXU016Nd6QWocGMYt/BvvzLwbcyMEAs5LWECsMkWBtjPI4pELJ Ft4MqCEROR5Q0QgcVu4W2ePEUMz2/C7WPziCebvMvHQgvwMpCVw/10dtZrvYsp0m ofOA0HJIsw92yqPd1ZDLzTnvCt4PuBIzWeyx7bWryWfO1fZQFw8IFENoZ7xlDuba yIu1eCceri2dEHAIzlwkMtkWWaXSNN9x9w4pA2MacDHdvyCmeIPmm71TAXskITZz cse3fZb50xhstQaH5IFPw+auSW2Q1KykT/KS8+wjjwclYjnqFshjpmHEdjiRIH5r zvZwvlRQwFw5ssRxuQPWSr216MZN/SUrhGjFV6L4drsoKaPfsCwBSvC0hu+IUYuj GJNNuzxcCYeTjYyELhVXVsDIs7z8m44ZxJ0FTtjQ7dHl4FoTRIb9SceB86ylrNTp Da0MYqHb3UBq0GxGMtTLmTqfel1S7MhaI7LDha9y6F4v/TGwTtfKrcV1EEPRtL2P RaRLnuRrOC4QOqMCryPlBG4P5nusqiN225xuF5fuJCG5pJBGZWML63L2ThlsrvZ7 FZUyza7Zz5wT7FrFPlVGV+mY7p2faZ4BKtwhOIHHCJbUz/22S8jmIQdqedfhkiGb Tz/nYpN6VfJYl/aXAn/Kz1mO0ejLgPkKOcEfamA8mvu8nK0u+weSHkx08ckhuV6n ecNMOdkFWjbz2zpsaAITcz0kuG6Z5A97gMpjCXqinNIuKNlrZHKoWZzBJSlrdRX+ OCyhroVFKS2iL+V/XIqCRmnTIh4D1cCYlo/Q1VdIjsNBcoBB/uUtgNu21X+Mh3Ob wrTnCzjUBZm5Ozo9ZWbvsS5oe23KnWvsdMpwBvddFUJzafPviIm/vQJKzRS2mVvg RpOzlwwl5nfi6Q/dWO45b35O6lvRuwOPnx+v9A29pWm30CWce4XKGxoIsuCCVFfn CHhjRhqjYXAuHJTbUjAOK+1mBB+DhNMmOnkUiGR2DLZJ48lb3+a+JadALZjKdDhU Tdys2E1d8qjBTKkyHY3MV7cILyW623qLrFTtOA4DnXJzZF7zDz/pufFECDOibEkI 8IZRFViimAQHRH4rAmToihh7cQwkY3u7tKd6wl5GxP/R4deY566/8xxMzNz2/wrS PA74sh2yuuRcv9+qeKitpjY1z0B9sYPLzgBpDfCptKoaSdYRXiPXINgKCyaq84p1 o51S6xvGBbbVhe/wYnUfHgOtAWLX50etfBQ7zGe7Yy9NjCpBg/OcFPWgRMxL86un

how about S6c56bnXQiBjk9mqSYE7ykVQ7NzrRy

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mini_private_key_format

How secure is this stuff?

It is very secure as long as those ~30 characters are chosen randomly.

Also you need to learn about http://brainwallet.org/ to store bitcoins in your head by merely memorizing a human-friendly passphrase!

It can't be TOO human-friendly, or it will be guessable because of having a low Kolmogorov (descriptive) complexity, and then you defeat the whole point...

i can't reply directly to your post, but if you were to try guessing, well, there are ~ 52^30 possibilities. this is a big number :) our sun will be long dead before you can derive the private key

Ensuring security and ensuring I could never possibly memorize it...

Tattoo perhaps? Laser-printing onto contact lens? Any other ideas?

Subcutaneous RFID would be much less obtrusive and more feasible, assuming you could find a reader. And however you store it on your body, you should also encrypt it with a passphrase that you can memorize.

Maybe subcutaneous micro-sd card, with some sort of medical-grade coating? It would be a serious bitch to get out (any doctor or veterinarian could probably help you there) but once you did you wouldn't have any trouble reading it.

There are wallets that let you do that. Eg:

"Electrum [...] allows you to recover your wallet from a secret phrase." [1]

[1] http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

In stressful situations I've know people to give names other than their own (Maiden name when married for 30ish years), forget their birthdate and a host of other missteps. War is (I imagine), stressful. I wouldn't be setting up systems that that required a lot of thought if I was off to some sort of high stress environment.

The high stress environment is getting out of the country. The environment where you get an internet connection again and are in a stable enough situation to recover your wealth at your leisure is not stressful.

"And this is what bitcoiners and similar don't understand."

Replace "bitcoiners" with "crypto-anarchists" and your argument is more plausible. I like bitcoin, but I have never considered it the answer to a civil war type situation. In those situations, wealth is equivalent to utility (food, gas, water, and yes, guns).

"if you've chosen to use an electronic cryptocurrency dependent on things like robust network and electrical infrastructure to function as your primary value store, you're going to have a bad time."

Apparently you are unaware of the tools to build offline transactions. Or of the ability to store bitcoins in your head (brain wallet).

Want to send bitcoins to someone without Internet? Just communicate to him/her the brain wallet passphrase (http://brainwallet.org). Or sign an offline transaction on your computer, and send him the raw TX (~300 bytes) printed on paper.

That's the beauty of Bitcoin! The sender still has options to transmit bitcoins despite being offline. Sure these mechanisms are clunky; communicating a brain wallet passphrase gives access to the whole amount associated to the private key, but I imagine in such dire situations (civil war, no internet) you are more concerned with abilities to for example send money to your son in another country, and you would trust him with the brain wallet. Also, nothing prevents you from splitting different amounts of bitcoins in different brain wallets (eg. 3 wallets containing 10, 50, and 250 BTC).

Also, a country under civil war typically destroys the value of their government currency via huge inflation. This is actually a perfect example to demonstrate why Bitcoin is superior to inflated fiat money!

I'm going to go with, no. Having easily stockpiled and manipulated hard currency (fiat or no) makes waaay more sense to me than some combination of words or what have you in my brain wallet.

I don't think there's been any real demonstration of the use of bitcoins for non-connected transactions--theory does not a practical application make.

Better off trading bottle caps or ring tabs.

Yes there are people building real world offline transactions. See the whole API: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Raw_Transactions Typically they use this API for offline cold storage wallets.

Any offline transaction which is spec'ed with JSON-RPC doesn't pass my apocalypse test.

I'm sorry dude, but if the bombs are flying and buildings burning, just admit it: Bitcoin is not a suitable currency.

> but if the bombs are flying and buildings burning

And state issued currency that could be worthless after a civil war or invasion would be better? Technically you could argue that bitcoin, being not issued by a government or controlling entity and possibly still in use in less volatile parts of the world is more likely to retain its value, as would a cold-storage BTC wallet hidden until afterwards when the internet is back.

However if you are thinking along the lines of of gold, silver and gems, then yes, bitcoin can't compare .

>However if you are thinking along the lines of of gold, silver and gems, then yes, bitcoin can't compare .

I would add the dollar to that list as well.

And yet somehow you think that the existing currency/banking network (which is still a network, and still travels over either telephone lines or the Internet, mind you) would somehow be immune to the apocalypse. Dream on.

Your best bet then is probably gold.

No offense, but you sound like someone who doesn't really understand the technology.

A TX record is signed, which proves that only I wrote it. It does not immediately have to become part of the "consensus ledger" i.e. blockchain. All I have to do is not spend the same money twice, and I can keep local records. Once the net comes back up, everyone can enter in their TX records manually and let the network figure out the rest. Any attempts to spend the same money twice would be prevented unless you somehow managed to spend from the same wallet in both fractions of the bitcoin network, which seems like it would be hard to pull off.

Even with the printout in hand, how does the recipient actually make the coin "theirs"? Can't the sender thwart the transaction if they gain Internet access before the recipient is able to (by transferring the coin to a wallet that's ready to receive it right away)?

People can write bad checks or create fake money orders too. It holds as much value as the faith the recipient puts into it.

Which is why many places don't accept checks. In other words they don't consider it a valid currency.

Yea, bitcoin almost completely fails as a currency when the receiver doesn't have an internet connection.

Hell, some of us don't even accept the word checks! Let alone cheques which seem archaic to someone who doesn't ever use cash (last used about 6 months ago), regularly used... Never.

Many people still receive their pay in the form of a paper check. I personally pay my rent with a paper check, or at least have my bank send one out. Debit cards are certainly more popular and less risky than your personal check though.

Generally your employer isn't going anywhere, and if a paycheck bounces, you will see them the next day and raise the issue (also, they are legally bound to make good on that debt). I wouldn't take a one-time contract job and expect to get paid by check after handing over the work, any more than I would accept a check from a Craigslist user in exchange for an item (unless the check was allowed to clear prior to my side of the exchange occurring).

I would not say that a Bitcoin Check is the best way to facilitate immediate private party sales, but business to consumer sales/importation may be possible with a Bitcoin Check, as the supplier can clear the check before sending goods.

Additionally there could be satellite hotspots that could act as exchanges when landline or wireless networks are down. Bitcoin is probably not perfect, but could be useful for money transfer even in areas where the net isn't robust.

Yes.

With the printout of the raw TX, the recipient would just broadcast it on the p2p network (sendrawtransaction), that's how he would give himself the coins.

As to your other questions, it make no sense. In what situation would person A, offline in a state of civil war, absolutely need to send money to person B, and then would need to steal the coins back??

Your description seems to assume that A is offline and B is online. What happens when two bitcoin users are both offline for a prolonged period and A gains access first and moves his BTC to another wallet before B can submit the transaction? What mechanism beyond individual trust permits this to be an effective means of monetary transaction? Would you trust someone writing you a check in a war zone with no access to a bank to not later put in a stop payment on that check?

If the 2 parties are both offline, then yes the sender needs to be trusted to guarantee he won't attempt to steal the coin back.

This doesn't deal with the other thing I mentioned, which is that the blockchains will fork without a global view of the network. This means you could spend btc gained before the fork in one segment and spend them again in another segment, and that if you got new btc in one segment, it would be invalid in all the other segments.

Also, as another has pointed out, this is ridiculously implausible when compared with other currency options.

Many invest money in btc that could have been invested in a hard commodity with emergency currency value like gold or silver. Gold and silver will continue to exist in a normal, usable fashion regardless of the state of online connectivity.

I was almost with you until the end. Gold/silver suffer a similar problem, unless you actually physically possess the metal then the certificates are of little value unless they are redeemable via some trusted 3rd party. In a shit hits the fan scenario, no such trust is likely to be present.

Yes, I agree. Those who hold gold through passthroughs, depositories, or similar mechanisms are not likely to fare well. It's only applicable for metals owned directly.

Currency should never be used as a primary value store. You should minimally hold as much currency as you need to perform the transaction. The only purpose of currency is to facilitate trade.

That really depends on circumstances.

If conditions favor liquidity and portability, and your currency is stable, it's a rational choice as a value store.

Your _best_ value store is investments which grow in value. In a well-functioning economy, stocks, other investment vehicles, a business, agricultural or other productive land, etc.

Where this isn't the case, your most valuable assets are those which can protect you, support you, and/or get you to where you will be safe. If you've got value left over at this point, a convenient store that's readily convertible at your destination is best. If things aren't horribly bad, a fiat/hard currency (even bitcoin might work), gold, or other items of high but convertible value.

One argument in bitcoin's favor (and I'm not generally a fan) is that you can store immense quantities in very small physical space, or (assuming communications) transmit them elsewhere quickly. The main caveat is their utility (and value) once you're outside the trouble zone. Assuming there is an "outside the trouble zone".

And like that, a discussion about the Syrian internet blackout devolves into an argument about bitcoin and currency.

Bitcoin isn't to defend against the end of the world as we know it, its to defend against the end of your country as you know it.

This time when you end up at Ellis Island, you don't just have the shirt on your back.

I never saw anything to suggest that Bitcoin is built to withstand Syria-style collapse of society. (Not to say that we shouldn't try to design our networks to survive that if possible.) It looks more like a way to counterbalance gradual bullshitization of monetary systems of otherwise civilized societies.

> There is civil war.

There is NO civil war in Syria.

There is a campaign of terrorism waged by NATO, specifically Turkey , Qatar, Isreal, UK, France to secure the transit for the South Pars/North Dome gas field.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/20128513344...

What's at stake? About $200 billion annual output between Iran & Qatar. That's about $360,000 per SECOND.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars_/_North_Dome_Gas-Con...

Global Research has the best analysis out there:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/search?q=syria

Why this comment is down-voted? He tells the truth.

Please look at this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi_al-Harati

He is the commander of the terrorists in Syria. These people are crazy islamists and all they believe is that they'll save Syria by killing people.

Please see the truth. The Al Jazeera analysis linked above is really good.

Because they said there was no civil war going on in Syria.

So what?!

My brother studies in Hatay, a city near Syria. This city used to be a safe, liberal city.

Until the fucking "civil war".

Now, it's filled by a kind of some radical islamists migrated from Syria because of the "civil war". Now women and children in Hatay are afraid of going out of their home because their streets are full of aggressive and criminal North Syrian extreme islamists.

Check those links. This war is definitely not for democracy.

The links don't help though. The main one is an Op-Ed piece. The other is from GlobalResearch which is borderline conspiracy drivel.

If you are looking for the truth, it's really not hard. Go to Youtube, search about the street reviews in Syria made by BBC, see how Syrian people expressed themself to rest of the world.

Just because some Syrians express a view on does not make it the view held unanimously by all Syrians, and thus 'the truth'. Different folk will be benefiting and supporting the existing regime while others will be protesting it, look at the States, or any nation and how easy it is to find differing viewpoints on almost anything.

I don't know what the truth about the situation in syria is, nor do i think i ever fully will no matter how many youtube videos/interviews i watch, however from what i have seen of the government's response to the protests makes me lean towards thinking that government is not deserving of the power it has.

FWIW, everyone knows that the Syrian government is an evil beast. However, Asaad and his father have mercilessly controlled the religious factions, holding together an otherwise fractured society, and made it possible for minorities to survive.

The power vacuum it leaves behind will be much worse for Syria than the regime. And that's not even counting the damage that all the external forces will be doing.

That is true, its a change for better or quite possibly worse.

Oh, come on.

Please take a look at how Egypt is now. The new government all you internet activists supported is now willing to destroy the pyramids because "there is only one god" according to their crazy fucking mind.

FSA is even, and much more worse. You'll see what the evil beast once they get the chance.

Even now, there are disgusting videos of them forcing christians to be muslim. All their motivation is jihad. That people don't believe in democracy. They are actually the evil beasts.

It's a conflict between the Syrian government forces and several militias of (mostly) Syrians. So it's a civil war.

Yeah, some of the militias aren't interested in democracy, and some are funded by external powers that have various interests in Syria. It's still a civil war.

It is definitely not.

As you can see the prove in my other comments, Free Syrian Army was established by a NATO sponsored Libyan terrorist. As you can see in their videos, these fucking terrorists don't even speak the Syrian dialect of Arabic.

We are talking about a global terrorist organization and huge manipulations made by NATO countries to legalize this terrorism.

Please go to do some research.

At what point does it go from terrorism to a civil war?

I'm not saying syria is or isn't one, but you got me thinking about how a civil war could very well be labeled terrorism and vice versa depending on the spin you wanted to put on it.

> several militias of (mostly) Syrians. So it's a civil war.

Incorrect: this is an external destablisation by NATO, Qatar et al. & a heroic defence by the Syrian people.

Who is training, funding & supporting the death squads in Syria? NATO, under the supervision of Robert Stephen Ford:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-salvador-option-for-syria-u...

Negroponte/Ford were resposible for running the death squads in central America in the 80's & Iraq in 2004 onwards.

If Mexico & Canada were sending snipers to the US & some libertarians joined in - would you call that a civil war?

I lived in Syria for 8 years. Some of the early members of the FSA were good friends of a cousin of mine. This war wasn't started by outside forces, no matter who got involved after te fact.

Sure, there's all sorts of crazies involved now, but there are also still plenty of Syrians involved. Which makes it a civil war.

Please get your facts straight. How about you also read these articles:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/10/2011102799...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/20126410503...

Before the terrorists you're referring to went into Syria, the regime was brutally terrorizing its own citizens. There are countless of videos that prove it. It's the very actions of the mafia-like Syrian regime that has lead the country to where it is today, unfortunately.

FACT: the overwhelming majority of Syrians support the current government & voted for them in independently observed free elections.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-...

> the regime was brutally terrorizing its own citizens. There are countless of videos that prove it.

Where are videos - have you verified them? Didn't think so.

Re: Houla - carried out by NATO backed terrorists, confirmed in a UN report.

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2012...

This is part of massacre marketing strategy by NATO, Qatar et al:

Writing in Bild, [2] longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of "deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government". He described this "massacre-marketing strategy" as being "among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict"

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG24Ak02.html

So you fully support killing civilians to aid a propaganda effort?

> FACT: the overwhelming majority of Syrians support the current government & voted for them in independently observed free elections.

Had you even lived in Syria, you'd realize how it's virtually impossible to get an accurate and true poll. There's absolutely no freedom of expression. Citizens don't trust each other. There's around 275 intelligence officers for each Syrian citizen. The country is littered with the picture of the ruling Assad mafia that's shoved down the throat of all citizens. The vast majority of Syrians are scared to death of government. I know this, since not only have I lived there, I have many relatives and friends who have been either imprisoned, tortured, or exiled for simply speaking out.

Obviously, the government does have some support, but it's vast majority of supporters are beneficiaries of the government or are dependent on the government for their source of income. Add to that the brainwashing and fear the government has instilled in its own citizens for over 40 years, and it's not surprising to see such reports.

> Where are videos - have you verified them?

Yes, many of those videos have been verified.

> So you fully support killing civilians to aid a propaganda effort?

What a ridiculous question. You very well know my position about advocating for the rights and freedom of civilians. But, that question demonstrates many of the classic logical fallacies in your entire argument.

The Syrian government has been terrorizing its own citizens before your claimed propaganda efforts were in the picture. Sure, there are players that are now taking advantage of the situation, but that doesn't invalidate the claim that the main responsible party in the destruction of the country is the Syrian regime, which has allowed other parties to take advantage.

Gotcha!

You are clearly not who you claim to be. You're either a liar or a shill. You created your profile a day ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dsaber

I note that you are unable to engage in any of the critical issues.

> Had you even lived in Syria

You've never lived in Syria - you're a fake.

Contact me directly & I'll get one of my Syrian friends to have a chat with you.

What were the main electoral issues for the 2012 elections?

> Yes, many of those videos have been verified.

You have failed to provide any evidence of this. You dont seem to understand the difference between assertion & fact.

Facts & evidence please - not assertion.

> There's around 275 intelligence officers for each Syrian citizen

275 * 20.82 million citizens = 5500 million intelligence officers? You're an idiot.

> You very well know my position about advocating for the rights and freedom of civilians.

NO, we don't know your position.

> , that question demonstrates many of the classic logical fallacies in your entire argument.

Such as?

Yeah, didn't think so. If you even knew what a logical fallacy was you would have stated it.

> What a ridiculous question.

You don't seem to understand a rhetorical question. So I'll put it more clearly for you:

You are supporting killing civilians to aid a propaganda effort.

Again, we note that you do not acknowledge the fact that: - NATO backed death squads were responsible for the Houla massacre; - western media tried to blame the Syrian government; - western media ignored the UN report exonerating the Syrian government;

> your claimed propaganda efforts

There's nothing claimed - the propaganda effort is a FACT.

Also the death & destruction on the ground is not claimed, it's a fact.

> the main responsible party in the destruction of the country is the Syrian regime

Yet again, incorrect.

Snipers from Dagestan armed with US produced M40A3 rifles started shooting civilians in 2011.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27955.htm

http://www.ozyism.com/2011/12/us-sniper-squad-caught-on-vide...

There are over 300 European mercenaries languishing in Syrian jails:

http://www.ozyism.com/2012/06/40-german-arms-smugglers-arres...

There are over 20000 Foreign Mercenaries in Syria:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-uncleared-war-nearly-2...

http://www.kurdnas.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&v...

A United Nations Independent Commission, has confirmed that: - contractors hired by the Pentagon were training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons; - terrorists possess sarin nerve gas, which they are using against the civilian population

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=United+Nations+Independent...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-contractors-have-train...

Furthermore, Qatar has been implicated in a plot to procure chemical weapons from a UK security company for use by the death squads, hoping to blame the government.

http://www.infowars.com/hack-reveals-washington-approved-pla...

All of which you seem quite happy with.

It is obvious you have no empathy for the suffering of the Syrian people & fully support the killing of civilians by NATO death squads.

> You've never lived in Syria - you're a fake.

Not only have I lived in Syria, I was also born there. It's precisely because I previously lived in Syria that I care deeply about the issue and care for the country. It's precisely because I still have relatives there (who most are now refugees in Turkey) that I care about this issue. I clearly can't help you if you want to think I'm lying.

I'll take on your offer and contact you directly. You haven't left your contact info though. Do provide it and we'll get in touch.

> 275 * 20.82 million citizens = 5500 million intelligence officers? You're an idiot.

Sure, I'm an idiot. Given how smarter you are and how much you know about Syria, you should have corrected my statement and indicated that I mistakenly reversed the ratio. My originally intended statement of 1 intelligence officer to every 275 citizen still holds.

> All of which you seem quite happy with.

It's interesting that most of your sources are ones that match the exact message of the Syrian regime, about the entire world conspiring against them. Your sources also happen to be the same ones that speak about other conspiracy theories, like 9/11 being an inside job, the Boston marathon bombing being staged, etc.

> It is obvious you have no empathy for the suffering of the Syrian people & fully support the killing of civilians by NATO death squads.

Who said I like NATO being involved? Given how much you're singling out NATO, are you ok with the Syrian regime involving Iran and Hizboullah with the conflict and stirring sectarian strife?

Using your logic, I can say the same thing about you. You have no empathy for the suffering of the people there, given how much you support the current Syrian regime, which is ranked among the most repressive regimes on earth.

However, I'm not going to use your flawed logic here. I'm pretty sure you care for the Syrian people and the hundreds that are dying every single day. You just happen to believe the Syrian regime and the conspiracy theories. This is what the Syrian regime is good at: misinformation. Unfortunately, being on the Syrian regime's side is a dark future for Syria. It led the country no where for over 40 years; what makes you think it will suddenly change now?

As for me, I'm on the side of the people advocating for peace, freedom, dignity, and liberty. The Syrian regime does not have the best interest of the country in mind. It's run like a mafia, ruled by one family for over 40 years. At the same time, I'm also against foreign intervention. Unfortunately, the conflict right now is at a point where a lot of evil people are going to take advantage of, including governments, extremists, and others. Those sides need to be stopped as well. But who gave them the opportunity to get involved? That's right, the Syrian regime and its actions.

> About $200 billion annual output between Iran & Qatar. That's about $360,000 per SECOND

That's $360,000 per MINUTE (not second).

200*10^9/365/24/60/60 = 6342

Wow.

That's an interesting read, if nothing else.

Erm, that's an op-ed piece. Can someone explain why a proposed pipeline through Syria would be threatening enough to Turkey that it would rally many other states behind it in astroturfing the 2+ year conflict? The decades of oppression under the Assad family had nothing to do with it?

Also, seriously? Global Research is a source?

You need one more read of the article in El Jazeera. And see my other comments. I'm from Turkey, follow the this shit actively and my brother studies in Hatay, near the Syria border. There is plenty of crazy bullshit in this war. And you can easily make sure this fake "civil war" was established by a global organization to break the gas monopoly of Russia and Iran by some research in Wikipedia.

Do Russia and Iran have a monopoly on gas in Europe or something? Because they sure don't on the US. Less than 10% of our oil comes from Iran and Russia combined.

You do realize that NATO is a separate entity from the UK, Israel, France, etc. right?

Unless you can show actual NATO forces what you've said is the equivalent of saying that the UN is waging a terrorism campaign because some of its member states happened to allegedly be involved.

And while I agree the Al Jazeera link is thought-provoking, that's all I could see in there. Thought-exercises about who benefits from what in the whole series of conflicts. If anything the writer seemed to go along with the idea that the uprising commenced due to the Arab Spring and now it's a question of what actors external to Syria might do.

The only discussion I saw regarding NATO was whether or not NATO would have cause to go all-out after Assad... without any discussion of what "going all-out" might mean (since presumably it doesn't involve the military).

There's also no real discussion of how Israel would benefit from any of these pipeline schemes. For all the animosity Israel and Syria might have had for each other, the current situation has to be considered worse from their point of view than a stable Syrian nation where all the weapons were staying in secure Syrian bunkers.

UK Ambulances are hanging out near the Syria-Turkey border every fucking day. See my other comments if you are curios how I know this.

Or, here is a quick hint for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi_al-Harati

Al Jazeera link is not thought-provoking, it's what the truth is.

And what exactly does UK having ambulances in Turkey actually prove? It could just as easily be a bunch of do-gooders getting bored of eating soy and protesting against GMOs trying to help out the Syrian refugees they know would be there.

In the meantime the evil WASPs plotting secret plans to funnel petrodollars to their bank accounts would be using completely non-descript vehicles because they're not f'in stupid.

The link you've posted about Mahdi has absolutely nothing surreal except for the idea that the CIA might have paid him.... to help overthrow Gaddafi. That's the dictator that NATO actually was dropping bombs on, so why should it have been surprising that the CIA was helping push that along, exactly?

I didn't write "in Turkey", I wrote "in the border".

Well, let's suppose what you said is all true. That doesn't preclude the fact the regime is playing this game as well and in fact is utilizing it to its advantage. The fact of the matter is, Syria has been under the control of a mafia-like government for over 40 years, and ruled by one family. It's one of the most repressive regimes on earth.

You're also forgetting that the revolution started peacefully. People protested simply for freedom and liberty, which all human beings aspire for. It was the suppressive and violent actions of the government, which immediately resorted to killing its own citizens, that has lead the conflict to eventually turn violent and to where it is now.

No matter what the global interests are, it's the very actions of the suppressive regime that's worsening the situation and leading to the country's destruction. None of this would exist and we wouldn't be talking about it today, had the mafia-like government initially conceded to the will of the people and worked on transitioning the country to a fully democratic government. But notice the "mafia-like" adjective? A mafia-like government obviously does not have the best interest of the country in mind, so they're not going to adopt the will of the people and threaten their iron-grip rule. They're going to suppress every dissent with maximum force. That's exactly what has been happening for over 40 years.

Events did not play out as straight forward as you describe them. If your only source is the 6 o'clock news then yes that really is what you believe. But if you had followed the conflict closely and relied on a variety of independent sources you would have a much different picture.

Who said I wasn't following the events closely? Not only have I followed them closely, I also have many relatives there who have been severely affected by the situation and witnessed first-hand what the regime has done. Some have been imprisoned and tortured for simply speaking out.

Rather than pointing at ambiguous 6 o'clock news and blindly judging what I know, please state some facts that refute my statements.

I have not been following the conflict closely. (Note I'm not the grandparent poster.) What picture should I have?

If your news source is "alduniya" or "almanar" or any other pro-regime outlet then you have no right to talk about anyone having distorted pictures of what's going on.

If you actually have a valid point then present it. What did exactly happen?

What does the South Pars field have to do with Syria? South Pars gas ships through the Persian Gulf.

Calling it a civil war does not mean we support the islamist rebels, you have to understand that. The label "civil war" is not a value judgement, it's a description of what is actually going on.

Syria is a dictatorship, and it's under assault from (mostly) fanatical religious people. One does not always have to choose sides. It isn't always good vs evil. We need to be very clear that the ruling regime has a lot of blood on its hands. But I also understand the visceral hatred reserved for the muslim extremists who are on the other side of this war.

I imagine the rebels will win the civil war eventually, supported by the West all the way of course, but it won't be a victory for democracy or freedom or anything like that. Syria has a long and awful history, like most of the countries that surround it. Good guys do not exist in this region, at least not in a statistically meaningful number.

If the NATO was really involved then this war would've been over months ago.

The regime is still alive because no outside force is really doing anything.

> The regime is still alive because no outside force is really doing anything.

Do you even read the news?

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/05/killing-syria...

You clearly haven't got a clue about the events of the past 2 years.

That's not doing anything ..

The NATO can take the regime down in a week.

I note that not one comment below addresses the substantive issues arising from this article:

Who had the means, motive & opportunity to disrupt the Syrian internet traffic?

Most likely one of the NATO intelligence agencies.

I love these graphs with no scale on the y-axis.

See:

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/faq/#do_the...

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/faq/#how_do...

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