Tethering Bitcoin to WSJT for Network Resilience

We do expect you to read the thread. There's two posts above telling you exactly what to view, hint it's not 5 hours of Bitcoin bs, it's a half hour, relevant to this topic.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion, QRZ comments are just like Slashdot.

 

The info presented in the relevant video segment, embedded links, or elsewhere, implies a one-way JT mode like WSPR could be part of a workable solution for transaction validations, albeit a last resort low bit rate compared to other ideas like broadcast DTV or satellite relay.

Using the ham bands to test the feasibility of such a system is a fundamental basis and purpose for the FCC Amateur Radio Service. See Subpart A 97.1 (B) (b) "Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art."

Commercialization would require its own HF spectrum allocation and regulations. But that is of concern too. A radio application with Bitcoin is just one of many potential idea's for using HF that may spring from the IoT era.

Separate from military OTHR or broadband data comm use, low BW commercial IoT demand like this could be another even larger potential threat for, at best, unwanted HF intruders, QRM, or at worst, another gov't sponsored spectrum grab auction.

 

This has no business in amateur radio.

 

What has no business? This thread/discussion? WSPR? Bitcoin?

Nobody is proposing utilizing amateur radio frequencies, as far as I can tell, it about the protocol/technique.

 

I just scanned through the presentation. They mentioned "Whisper" (possibly referring to WSPR @ 5.9Hz per stn). This is a JT sub-mode in the WSJT v10.x, WSJT-X Suite, and also found in the stand-alone WSPR-X program...He alludes to WSPR again at 1hr,35 mins with the snr graph. The propagation and radio-antenna block diagrams were a bit incomplete. "We're going to be using low power at 5 Kilowatts or less". The speaker at 1hr,38 mins talks about mfsk, bpsk, and PSKmail (I'm thinking something like Winlink 2K/RMS Express). They tested transmissions on the 70cm band. I found the radio sections of the presentation disjointed. So bitcoin transactions over radio, did I understand this right?

 

If it was helping pay for license exams it might be ok.

 

Hi Eric, yeah you got it, some real howlers in there.

70cm plus gaussian noise does not simulate anything about an HF channel. And a bunch of others...

Perhaps most charitably, the authors are naive about HF, but kudos for creative ideas and exploring them.

 

The sense of humor is great! But it's important to note and emphasize, again, they are not reporting success on using weak signal HF modes yet, just their plans to experiment with it.

FWIW here is a link to the slides that were shown during the video. A lot easier to flip through them.

https://scalingbitcoin.org/stanford...unications-for-Bitcoin-Network-Resilience.pdf

The LAST FOUR pages are probably the most relevant to their plans for HF weak signal experimentation. Note they expect to use 4 watts on 80 or 40 meters with a "10m dipole" (per leg), ie a 40m half-wave inverted vee, 6m AGL center feed point with balun and underlying NVIS reflector wires. (good luck tuning that on 3.7 Mhz!)

Note on the last slide "Future Work" the proposed goals and Custom Messaging Protocol. I think that may mean modifying WSPR or other JT open source code for their own purposes.

I for one will be glad if it proves to be more useful then just exchanging sig rpts and grid squares.

"Volunteers needed!" - they could surely use some empirically-oriented HF ham vets ...

 

my understanding is Bitcoin is a money hiding service for criminals. Isis, wannacry, silkroad,,,,,etc. Profit takes priority over stopping crime I guess.

 

I don't care what they do as long as we have absolutely nothing to do with it, they don't use our software and they stay off our bands. Bitcoin is a huge minefield that we want no part of.

 

Your understanding is wrong.

 

I know that now. Did some google. It seems it is not as "anonymous" as advertised. Which is not surprising.

 

Seriously dude?

Enjoy your dying hobby boys.

 

Thanks for adding something worthwhile.

 

I know you said you did some research on Google. The whole criminal aspect of Bitcoin is a common criticism I hear a lot. Maybe a good analogy would be similar to cash. Cash is used for a lot of criminal activity as well. And its probably even more anonymous than Bitcoin. But criminal activity is just a very small percentage of what cash and Bitcoin are used for. The rest of it is totally legitimate transactions.

I've been involved with using and integrating Bitcoin with other systems for several years now, and as an alternative to using credit cards, it definitely has some advantages (like no central authority, better security, if used correctly, lower transaction fees).