Bitcoin Forum

 Horizon  .  BBC2  .  The dark web and Bitcoin are getting talked about on the BBC.

Almost certainly in a negative light... the BBC is so so wrong all the time on Bitcoin.

I'm not in, I'm missing it.

Dark Web? Sounds pretty negative once again. Back in the days every report on BTC was also talking about Silk Road and how Bitcoin is being used to buy illegal goods and how it is the perfect currency for the underworld. Sad to hear that this is still a going so strong.

any online link to show

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbctwo

live feed. just move the 'timer' back to 9pm (the start of the show 'horizon')

i am not in UK obviously

   Wow.   That's an advert for encryption and the TOR network.
    Bitcoin got about 10 mins. 5 mins positive and the other 5 mins was the obligatory SilkRoad,D.P.R,Drugs,Anonymous,bad,bad,bad soundbite's.
    For the BBC that was very unbiased.
   
   

hint: proxy,

 or wait until it appears on other sites if someone decides to record and upload it.

the tv show is called 'horizon' so look out for the episode with todays date. it may be available in the future

Really? Thanks for your summary. Huh, but that really does sound quite good indeed. People are trying to protect their privacy nowadays. And stuff like TOR or Bitcoin enable them to do exactly that if they use those mere tools correctly.

     That was very positive for the BBC.
     
     I don't think I heard Satoshi Nakamoto mentioned either.
     I'll need to watch it again later to see. ::)

deeper summary
21:00-21:15
talks about how government and corporations are snooping on everyones data
21:15-21:25
explains how a guy named david chaum invented darkweb
21:25-21:29
explains how syberson utilised chaums invention to create the 'tor' onion network for the navy
21:29-21:32
explains how 'tor' went public through a guy named applebaum
21:32-21:37
explains that 'tor' is used by different people, including julian essange(wikileaks)
21:37-21:39
talks about governments going after people who use tor to leak whistleblowing either in court or trying to crack the network
21:39-21:41
talking about silk road (multiple lies about silkroad doing millions a day yet it is revealed on this forum they done $21mill for the whole year of 2012)
21:41-21:45
bring in bitcoin (99% of bitcoin segment is positive about privacy and not centralized)
21:45-21:47
now mentioning dread pirate roberts capture, and silkroads demise being only temporary as SilkRoad2 opened up
21:47-21:48
talks about other criminal activity on darkweb credit card thieves and child porn
21:48-21:50
discussion on is anonymity good or bad
21:50-21:52
suggestions that tor has a bug to de-anonimise people and 'kaspersky' wants standardised world identification
21:52-21:54
ICANN making a cryptographically secure DNS service (sounds like namecoin technology)
21:54-end
back to talking about cryptography being important for privacy and that as more people want/need it, services will come up to make it easier to manage

(im narrating while watching and will update as it goes)

Peter Todd comes across really well.

That the concept of the blockchain is being expounded on a "serious" programme like Horizon (which has a long and respected history) can only be positive.

Yes, there were the usual links to the Silk Road - and the costs/benefits of anonymity were being chewed over. But this is all good - I myself was asking similar questions not too long ago  :D ::)

Makes me realise just how much we all are (here) early adopters.

So anyone has the program and is willing to upload or give link?

Seems I lost it and can't see it back :(

use a proxy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04grp09/horizon-20142015-4-inside-the-dark-web

I would like to say this is a good thing but I would probably be proved wrong. Usually when you get these kind of shows they tend to find more bad than good to talk about.

after watching it, i would say its a fair balance. mostly positive of what the world wants (privacy).. it didnt seem to be a political propaganda story about the bad side (well maybe a few minutes brief mentions of criminal possible uses) but still fairly balanced leaning towards the positive

I agree, I thought it was going to be quite biased, but it wasn't bad.

Highlights: Balanced arguments on mass surveillance, good amount of airtime discussing the benefits of online privacy. Some nice history of how the tor network came about and its uses in the real world, the benefits of encryption etc, they talked a lot about how our information could be used against us (which is good for the average joe to know).

Bitcoin itself was generally discussed in a positive light: P2P transactions with no 3rd party, explanation of blockchain technology, footage of bitcoin trading in "Wall Street" with guys shouting prices in the mid 400s (below the current price  8)).

Bad: Technical stuff wasn't explained particularly well, Silk Road made out to be a platform for mass bulk drug dealing (anyone with any sense knows the big boys use fiat  ::)), obligatory dramatic music when drugs/Silk Road was mentioned (yet no dramatic music while discussing terrorism/showing leaked military footage of war crimes). Kaspersky waffling on about some universal online ID, hard to understand and sounded like a terrible idea.

Recurring annoying shots of people's faces momentarily lit up, then hidden (standard BBC documentary filler to keep dumb people engaged)

i also watched it and the balance was fair in my opinion. if anything, their stance was pro-privacy and bitcoin. i think i had a few issues with some of the things they said, but they probably said it just to condense a very complex subject.

i'm thinking that any time the media talks about bitcoin, people here tend to believe it will be mischaracterized... since there is quite a bit of misinformation, like "the bitcoin corporation issues shares called bitcoins"

Dark web shouldn't be introduced...wrong way of showing the use of BTC.

watch the episode. it wasn't about BTC specifically, it was about the dark web.. which BTC is a part of. not everything is bitcoin-centric.

I feel like bitcoin came out of it ok tbh. The BBC is often a right pain but overall they seem to be Pro BTC.

The bit at the end about market demanding more anonymity = greater security for us was interesting. 

The baby boomer domination is coming to an end.... get ready for the rise crypto currencies, legalized/decriminalized drugs, housing market restructured, online employment surging and more.

i don't watch the BBC much, so i don't get why people dislike them. they seem to be as good as you could expect. CNN, on the other hand, asks shit like "who or what is this 4chan?"

They are probably slightly "better" vs some of the large American news broadcasters from what i have seen but we have our own style of bullshit over here.  Cant rely on mainstream media no matter where you are.

Dark web shit was what made me not invest back in the day. Fucking idiots.

Thanks for this I didnt Know it was on ,I will watch As i love Anything to do with bitcoins.

Only felt like a superficial glossing over of the important details, didn't have a great deal of depth to it.  Maybe they're trying to keep it simple for the non-tech-savvy people out there.  Hardly any coverage at all on Bitcoin, barely scratching the surface there.  But I suppose that's to be expected for now until the learning curve gets a little less steep.  Probably took their researchers a while just to produce what limited info they did.

This was actually quite an informative, neutral and impartial documentary for the BBC.


Eugene Kaspersky's views on internet anonymity and Tor are quite frankly astonishing. He basically stated that anonymity was a bad thing and that its not related to online safety, privacy or security.

~ Everyone should be made aware that the Kaspersky company is currently running Tor nodes! Obviously they are not running them to help with Tor users online annonymity, but most likely for their own commercial gain / insight (at best).

See: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=331077.msg8363660#msg8363660

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Regular people don't want to study economics in order to be able to pay for their coffee. It's the same when it comes to mobile phones. Tech savvy people always complain that people don't 'get' technology. But what they're missing is, that they themselves don't 'get' people.

Its a legit point, people need a reason to get into/use bitcoin, right now it seems to be a nice fit for youngsters to build wealth while they have limited skills & life experience.  Also political activists, tech enthusiasts and tech wizards.  On boom periods speculators of all ages can ride the train.

The guys are just missing the point. They are dinosaurs. Any publicity is good tho.

yeah i agree, this is to educate the common viewer.. not someone who is an enthusiast. i think they mentioned that bitcoin is "completely anonymous" or something to that effect, which is not true but if that's one of my biggest gripes, then the episode wasn't all that bad.

indeed its not suppose to be too techy, it is made to inform the laymen

..to everyone claiming that they didnt mention much of bitcoin.. sorry but the TV show is titled and described as being about the darkweb so dont treat it like a bitcoin program that wasted too much time on the darkweb, treat it like a darkweb program that mentioned bitcoin.

just be happy that they gave bitcoin a fair balanced view

one could argue that i was bias in favor of bitcoin. the way the episode was formatted was basically: governments around the world are snooping into your shit, but there's hope. and bitcoin is one of the reasons for that.

Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjNkbLBEqg

Edit: Just finished watching. The show is more on the social implications of encryption, examined against both the need for individual privacy, and the overlords' desire to know everything about everybody. Bitcoin plays a role. I thought it was well done.

They are indeed, they try and glamorize bitcoin though.... 42:34  in this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjNkbLBEqg

ITV also do pro BTC reports.