From what I read about it, it seems that Bitcoins is a quite nice piece of work, with all the cryptography involved, wouldn't be easy to hack - by which I understand "close to impossible to hack" - without cracking general NP class -algorithms (ie, you have the same chance of cracking it, as the highest level cryptography currently available. Practically impossible, unless somebody did something really stupid, when devising the particular security methods. But as of today's understanding, it is practically non-hackable.
That's being said, it comes with the same caveat, as all the modern cryptography - it hasn't been
proven mathematically, that it is
impossible to hack NP-problems in polynomial time - sorry for jargon. What it means, it is
theoretically possible, that there exists a polynomial solution, to as-of-today non-polynomial problem(s). It has just not been found yet - and every mathematician on the planet, would probably sell his soul to the satan himself, to crack one, I suppose. Likewise, it hasn't been proven, that there
exists polynomial solution to NP-problem(s).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem
on a side note, it is funny to realize, that all our current cryptography, internet security, secure communication and what not, is all hinged on kind of "grey" area of math - we cannot be sure, that some evil professor hasn't actually cracked NP problems in his secret base, and is able to hack ALL of the high-security stuff going through the wires/ether. Or NSA, for that matter
.
I won't be asking DCFusor if NSA can pull this off, because I know he wouldn't be allowed to answer anyway, not without killing us all later
. For what I DO know, NSA requires built-in backdoors in high-security comm devices, for them to tap on, when needed. I don't know why they would require that, if they could crack the communication anyway (other than smokescreen, that they really CAN, and pretend they CANNOT?)
On the other hand, I have yet to see any (more or less) serious stuff that I could buy with bitcoins...
Lastly - and this is an ultimate challenge - everybody will be still a slave to gubbermint-aproved monetary system, at least partially - for as long, as they'll only accept tax payments in their "legal tender". There is no work around that one - you will have to do at least part of your busines in whatever local gubbbermint-approved money is, to pay for your taxes. Which is kind of impractical, to switch to something else, if you still HAVE TO use the "legal tendons" alongside.
BTW, do you guys know, that being a "legal tender" doesn't mean, that people have to accept that kind of money as a payment for anything? They can refuse being paid in dollars for their goods/services, and it is fully legal, they cannot be forced to accept dollars, as a part of the deal. What "legal tender" means, it is that dollars would be enforced by the court to settle the
debts. But you don't have to accept them for anything else than a debt repayments - not as a payment, that happens when the exchange of goods/services takes place (thus, there is no debt as such, until the deal is agreed upon). It has some funny implications, when you think about it for a while
