Bitcoin Forum

Last week I stumbled upon a blog with an article titled "cryptography could become illegal in the future". I did only read the introduction because I thought it was probably a click bait.

Today after reading "Spies still butthurt they can't get at encrypted comms data Five Eyes to tech: We have ways of making you comply"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/31/five_eyes_2018_meeting_encryption_terrorist_content/


I started to think that they're crazy enough to really want to ban cryptography. (I like the "terrorist and criminal activities" excuse, you can use it for a lot of things)

I found that there is a regulation in my country about cryptography, looking to know how others countries consider the cryptography, to my surprise I found it's an industry regulated in a lot of countries, some even ban it...

In the name of the cybersecurity and using the fear, do you think cryptography could be an industry with regulations more strictly tightened

Unfortunately, it is more serious than it looks. For the first time the government cannot look freely into the letters, the telegraph, tap the phones... It is scaring the sh*t out of them. Is as simple as claiming that encryption has to be prohibited to prevent... terrorism, paedophilia, illegal drugs and all the sudden you have a perfect case to put the public opinion in favour of the big brother model of society.

Internet commerce, online banking and much more can't work without encryption.
Giving keys to spies would create HUGE moral hazard. Even for those spies who are only mildly criminal by now, not involved in anything gross.
It's like introducing IP whitelisting in a very corrupt country.
In Russia we have a requirement that the only kind of encryption allowed is one visible to FSB.
It is not enforced, obviously, and cannot be.

Ermmm... but doesn't the sensible part of public as little as suspects that terrorism, paedophilia, illegal drugs are Big Brother's most lucrative business?
What kind of stupid "public" do you speak of?

So do they think if they make something illegal the terrorists are going to stop using it?  ::). The irony is it's the overbearing state intrusion of ordinary citizens that forces the regular Joe to have to start thinking about things like encryption. If it wasn't for states such as the UK and US trying to spy on everyone the average person wouldn't even need to be doing this.

The protecting 'against terrorism or bad guys' shtick is usually the excuse they use. It'll be the same thing they try to go after bitcoin for.

B-b-b-b-ut terrorist and drug dealers use it!

https://riseuptimes.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/internet-speech.jpg

It would make no sense at all to ban cryptography since it already permeates a large section of modern applications, not limited to cryptocurrency, for example, you need cryptography to login to your account, blockchain is only a portion of it.

war material...

Two words false flag.  They can make anything illegal with this tactic and the larger populace will eat it up.  Each time the governments need to make a unpopular rule they just need to ram some planes into buildings (need to kill off those pesky Arabs) or kill some school children (to ban evil assault rifles).  The list goes on and on.  It's not the government you need to worry about.  They are mostly ineffective on their own.  Its the billion people who actually listen to their shit and OBEY.   Next time a major terrorist event happens really take the time to study it.  Don't listen to the news.  Do the research yourself.  You will be shocked.  

I figure there will be some pedophile ring (this is their go to tactic as they are mostly child molesters themselves - see pizza gate) that is using cryptography to hide their trafficking.  Then anyone who does not like the new rule and calls it out for what it is will be labeled a hater and someone who loves for children to be raped.  Once it goes over the news they will have their millions and millions of mouthpieces who think they are informed because they watch the BBC, foxnews, msnbc etc.  

This is going to happen. Kind of. This is how it will go down, pay attention people...


As you have seen they have been cracking down on exchanges one after another in an attempt to create bottlenecks. They will implement all the same KYC and AML regulations in the exchanges and make them under the same controls as banks, and effectively and legally liable in fiat.

Eventually the focus will turn to the protocols themselves, and some coin teams will cooperate, and some won't. The ones that cooperate will be given full access to the banking system, including nice streams of fiat money to pump it up and incentivize people to go to them and leave the others. Note they don't need to really buy the coin to do this, this can be done with various manipulations such as messing with margin calls with short trading to simply holding fractional reserves of the exchange's purported full amount among other things.

Next they will start criminalizing protocols that don't essentially force KYC and AML regulation enforcement. There will be the "good" coins, and the terrorist, Iranian, hacker, Russian, money laundering, global warming, North Korean, drug dealer coins. They will tack on whatever labels they can, and people, ignorant of the systems as they are, will suck down the lies and ask for more.

Cryptocurrency has been disruptive, but it also fills many of the stated goals of the monetary elite and the internationalists. Primarily the desire to get rid of cash economies, and the desire to implement a digital world currency. Cryptocurrency is quite the conditioning mechanism for getting people comfortable with digital money, and building the next generation of rubes. The technology is capable of freeing humanity, but be ready for its subversion, because it always comes to one degree or another.

May I ask you for a proof of paedophilia being a main source of income for the governments in general?

So in your world the US Government encouraged the killing of children in  school. May I hear your theory about... let´s say this one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting)

I think everything is relative, has a good side and also a bad side, but for cryptography, I think there is no need to be afraid to develop because it is a technology that must continue to be developed, of course with effort to minimize the negative side of cryptography

It's ok when the level of encryption is not a military level

While that may be true at a certain level I have high hopes that cryptocurrencies will survive with the help of anonymous exchanges on the dark net. This in itself is very dangerous but it will be the only option if your predictions come true.

Back in 90s USA banned export of certain encryption algorithms. I don't remember which ones were subject to this ban, maybe these that NSA had backdoored  ;D

If they ban cryptography people will switch to steganography and if they ban this too... Well, people will try to find ways around, of course bad guys won't be worried by these bans, because for them it will be better to be fined for using cryptography than to go to jail for child pornography etc.

With news such as this, ACTA2 etc. I think there is bright future for mesh networks and other p2p, decentralised technologies.
If you can stay anonymous you don't really need to encrypt your messages, you can use some code words that will make your message won't look suspicious.

I agree with you that many of these activities are scaring not just the governments but general people also but even so I do not think they will do any thing about it yet due to the scale required to regulate or tap into it.

Anything related to crime is governments' red flag. If you can't prevent crime, don't look for stupid solutions. One day, they may even want to ban Internet and anything related.

Have you heard about ACTA2?
You surely remember big protests against ACTA, it did work and they backed off, but as we can see only for some time.
I don't think anyone knows what ACTA2 impact will be exactly, but some are really thinking it may be the end of the Internet as we know.
I've been discussing this with my family yesterday and I'm thinking about buying something like Mikrotik router (1W of power) and joining/ building mesh network.

i might agree with your point.

there Is BUT ! tbh, exchange might have big problem with hack and regulation etc. Any decentralized things or any personal wallet. wont affected.

Ban cryptography
Ban Telegram because of its crypto
Ban Haskell programming
Ban privacy
Ban transparency
Ban SecureRandom() function
Ban cryptocurrencies
.
.
.
Next, they're coming after your shirts & underwears, they'll ban it all up if it pleases them! And yeah, let them allow Google/Twitter/Facebook/Banking apps to have an access to your contacts, location, camera, and even your fingerprints, NICE! ::)

Actually, it became legal in France to use cryptographic tools from 2005. Some forms (that were cracked by our agencies) were previously allowed.
But they authorized the use of higher standards of encryption (if not all?) from that moment.

legal but regulated.

In my opinion, it will not happen, our current currency also used in some illegal transaction, like selling drugs, buying weapons etc. It's the same with cryptocurrency.. It might be use in good or bad.

We all know what the rulers want. Total control. But now they can not ban crypto. If it were possible, do not hesitate, they would do it. A crypto will always remain in a gray zone, outside states and politics. I think we should rejoice at such an opportunity. And the fact that they will talk there on TV is not for us.

It is because they want to control everything because they have the interest on it and usually it is the interest of money. Making cryptography illegal is clear a threat to cryptocurrency. They were doing this for them to take advantage. As we all know that some issues and problems regarding with cryptocurrency could be resolved even on its own. The government could also be at help for some issues like ANONYMITY and it could clearly be regulated in accordance with how it will be going to use.

Cryptocurrency has more advantage because of its block chain application and this should be the government should look upon. The block chain technology could even be applied in the government system for transparency. This will going to solve some issues with corruption. Thus, transactions will be made public through block chain if they let this technology to be implemented in their system. But, they seeing this innovation as nothing special.

Indeed, many countries have banned cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency mining, usually stating something along those lines, which although holding some truth, plain old cash is likely the most commonly used form of liquidity among terrorists and criminals. Another common (at least cited) fear is that of monetary instability, tax evasion, moving money out of the country, etc. On top of that, some countries (including some in the previously mentioned category) have talked about introducing (or already have introduced) centralized crypto tokens (some countries like Venezuela are now requiring the token to be used for certain government services). That being said, some countries are quite open and friendly to 'traditional' (if we can say that about technology so young) cryptocurrencies (at least now they are). Regulations seem quite justifiable in many cases, not only for the mentions reasons (whatever credence they may hold), but also for the fact that (the majority of) cryptocurrency ICOs have been frequent sources of scams, failed projects, and lost investment money (in addition to the fact that crypto can easily be lost if you're not careful with your storage); While crypto exchanges have been frequently hacked, and millions stolen, again, investment money gone - and to who-knows-who? To answer your last question, yes it certainly seems that it could.

Hope that's helpful,
The Cyberius team.

Everyone with the knowledge on cryptography can make a new language. That's why the cryptography could be harmful for the government and potentially beneficial to terrorist, if they do actually know how to cryptograph.

You are considering cryptocurrency. To ban cryptography because "some terrorists" may use it. Let me remember you that cryptography exists since the Egyptian Empire. It's in human nature, "we all have secrets"....
Cryptography exists long before digital currencies and it isn't only about cryptocurrency world.

On the first day you've been entered in the web, your privacy is now vulnerable, because using internet is like leaving your house door and windows without a lock and everyone can enter on it.

Whew! But I seriously doubt the effectiveness of such ban if at all it comes to that. I mean the influence is larger now, Bitcoin is 10 years old.Lot of multinationals and others are keying into the technology, I don't see it happening. And if they do, there will always ve some other ways.