Bitcoin Forum

Pretty disgusting piece of drivel by BBC to be honest, on the upside we needed some bad news for the price to go back up... so fuck you and thank you! lol

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29283124

The BBC is a seriously biased organization. Nobody should view it as anything other than a propaganda machine.

http://biasedbbc.org

A site called biased BBC is probably going to have a bias of their own, but I can't put a finger on what it would be...

If you guys thought that the BBC was bad with Bitcoin you should have seen them 'reporting' on the Scottish referendum, expect more propaganda like this when Dark Wallet actually releases, there is also Storj coming which will definitely attract the attention of the government.

if BTC is proven to fund terrorist, this may be the end of it.

Cryptocurrencies will never die while I still breathe.

The drug war funds terrorism more than Bitcoin ever could.

You're bears? Surely Bitcoin will fund everything or nothing.

Yes, it's gonna be some battle, with bitcoiners themselves being painted with these labels.

Right now, 20/09/2014, the governments are the terrorists, and bitcoiners want freedom from that.

well BTC will always be worth at least 10$... because ill buy all @ that price lol  <3

IMO this bad new just saved Bitcoin lol

Thanks for the link.  I was wondering why Amir disappeared from my Twitter feed.  Don't get too worked up when you see idiotic pieces of reporting like this.  I like watching it for the comedic effect of a reporter that thinks financial privacy is a controversial idea. 

Sad to see them choose to ignore all of the positive effects that something like DarkWallet could have, and instead only highlight and emphasize the possible negative effects. Interesting to see how they did not include Amir's quote of- "No, I don't like Isis." in the article.  ::)

BBC are known for these kinda stunts, this was tame for the most part though.  Not sure why the guys let them in.

Things like Dark Wallet will likely never pick up because of these potential connections. I think it was destined to fail before this article was written because it essentially caters to people who are doing illegal things. I think the same about darkcoin as wel

Terrorists use US dollars to buy guns, should be ban US dollars? Terrorists use the internet to communicate, ban the internet too. You cannot scrutinise everything that may be useful to them and ignore the benefits these tools can bring to other people.

Amir Taaki is a shia name. The same people that ISIS are trying to kill!

the BBC arent totally blameless.   Anarchists like Amir and Cody say things deliberately to maximise sensationalist headlines.  cody's probably the worst.. he goes out of his way to make the press paint him as the devil incarnate.  he wants 'cody's name in lights.   maximum publicity, and the more cartoon character maniacally evil he sounds, the more press he will get.   unfortunately for bitcoin, its bad press and paints bitcoin as the tool of criminals and terrorists.  whats good for cody and amir isnt good for the rest of us who want bitcoin to be taken seriously and widely adopted, which just wont happen if 'the people' think its just a tool for criminals and terrorists to launder money.

and doing your interviews from a 'squat' doesnt help your credibility either (for those who dont know, a squat is a 'stolen' building occupied by people who dont own it).  the uk has some archaic laws that give squatters certain rights that arent really appropriate in the modern age.  protest, sure.. but taking over someone else's building and calling it your own and not allowing the owners back in, and then pretending thats somehow a good thing, just isnt seen as the right thing to do.  bravo.  anti capitalists who are somehow backing the ultimate capitalist currency.  bit of an anathema.   ok, it was far worse when they were 'squattng' into families' homes when they went on holiday and came back to find someone else had broken in and changed the locks.. but luckily thats now illegal - only recently (after hundreds of years of being a legal loophole!)... but there's still a loophole allowing squatters to take over empty commercial buildings.  most likely this loophole will eventually get closed down, as that too cant possibly be seen as right.  you cant just walk into someone else's empty property - change the locks, and suddenly its yours.  makes a mockery of property ownership rights.   and it doesnt make it somehow 'just' and 'fair' because its owned by a company and not a person.  companies are still owned by shareholders.  shareholders are still people.  squatting is still stealing.  even if the ultimate owner is a corporation and not a person.

They conveniently failed to bring up the fact that terrorists also use technology like cell phones and automobiles, not to mention fiat cash.

The price is not cheap yet at all, fees for small transactions are ridiculously expensive,

Getting bored of people saying BTC can do illegal things... as opposed tooooo.... your non illegal USD?

SORRY BRUH CANT BUY THAT GUN... USD POLICY

"we are creating the technology that is going to guarantee individual liberty from governments"

what about if it funded a vigilante anti isis group, or raised funds to get people out or raised ransom funds?

all just examples of course but shows that you can frame the debate in many ways.

Agree. But at least they quoted this:

Another point to make is that terrorist groups have very little trouble getting funding anyway at the moment.

If, [insert your diety] forbid, any such group were to use the blockchain, then this transaction will exist and be up for scrutinisation for as long as the blockchain is. Im sure we will see specialist blockchain forensic companies springing up in the not too distant future (govts are already doing this).

For sure. Heavily funded and for some reason militarized by our tax dollars, of course.

Hi,
Not sure what you mean by "taken seriously" do you mean more guys in suits with frame glasses at really expensive conferences? I agree that some people give bold answers to the press and it could have to do with building their own media profile, but I cant say that was the real intention in this case.

I think it is good to have a discussion about squating, this squat in particular is owned by an education charity and basicly used as a tax write off (from what I understand) and in the context of the extremely rigged london real estate market , it has a different context. I think the whole "squating vs. property rights" discussion needs its own thread.

This is more about media spinnning things. We had a good discussion about it last night that you can watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4rYXIwD3OE
Including a prediciton that was written into the blockchain on site as the BBC was doing the interview.

Big terrorist groups already do their banking at banks throughout the Middle East.  How do you think ISIS stole like $500 million from that bank in Mosul?  It was a digital wire to one of their bank accounts in Dubai, Qatar or where ever it is located.

Taaki is already on record he doesn't care if children build bombs. His idealism is monopolar.  I also realize that anarchists sometimes say outrageous things purely for shock value. That level of idealism may lead to actions that exemplify such claims. He is also too intelligent to do anything that stupid.

In the video he said that he does not like ISIS. Clearly and directly.

Shady stuff BBC u done, not nice not nice indeed

Well said, ISIS is like new Al-Qaeda right now; OK they're doing bad things, they're butchers and must be destroyed. On the other side everyone can blame ISIS for everything that they want for their purposes, they're the new scapegoat. Now big money wants Bitcoin to dump and they're creating news like this, also they're using ISIS for new strategies in Middle East.

I believe the purpose behind Dark Wallet is to ensure that these efforts are fruitless in the future.

Yes, you're right. I completely messed up my point,

I find something fishy about this whole story. In the BBC TV story they showed Chris Ellis, who as far as I know has nothing to do with Dark Wallet. They had short interview clips with Amir Taaki and Peter Todd. I think both have done work that is connected to Dark Wallet, but are either of them the primary coder/developer of Dark Wallet now? I don't think they are. So why didn't the BBC journalists find out who are the main people working on Dark Wallet and interview them? Taaki is an interesting figure and maybe he wants to be the spokesman for the Dark Wallet project. Maybe both the BBC and the Dark Wallet project want Taaki to be the face of the project as well (though probably for opposite reasons).

Ironically, if terrorist groups try to use Dark Wallet in its current alpha stage, it will probably not end well for them. Maybe they should be encouraged to use it so that (1) terrorists lose their money and/or get whacked after being traced and (2) it can help identify flaws in the current implementation of Dark Wallet.

I don't understand what is so shocking about kids building bombs? All the male teenagers I knew had a lot of fun building gunpowder, dry ice, and muriatic acid bombs as well as all sorts of weapons like potato cannons. This is a healthy and normal part of childhood and a great way to learn about science.


You really need to do a little more research into property rights. Even hardcore anarcho capitalists have provisions from homesteading or squatting with abandoned land and property. Throughout many places in the world homesteading can be done in periods of 12-18 months according to state laws, the US is actually the oddball when it comes to property rights with ending the right to homesteading. To simply suggest that squatting or homesteading is stealing is ignoring all the nuances of the ethical details in the ability to own land in perpetuity on earth and the legitimacy of the original sale and whether any of the previous owners rightfully owned the land or acquired it through corruption, theft or violence.

The details of how quickly one should be able to homestead or under what circumstances squatting is permitted are up for discussion but  frankly if I stopped maintaining and abandoned my property for over a couple years I would have no problem with someone homesteading it.

Here is a little more background into the squatting done in London:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPjhPuJx3Lw

A lot of panty sniffers on crack.  :D

Not to be taken serious, in a world, where freedom of privacy are advocated as terrorism.

Are they following every person, who draw cash from a ATM, to see what they spending their cash on? So why must Bitcoin be different than cash?

Because it unmasks the totalitarian banking system? Truth will come out eventually.

thanks, interesting video and im sure the people in the video really believe what theyre saying... but their ultimate argument is that nasty capitalists own an expensive prime building that they dont deserve to own, and we're poor students and entrepreneurs and we cant afford to live in a prime central london property, therefore our need is greater than theirs and we've taken over their building.

they ignore the fact that (a) the nasty capitalists probably are in business to buy and sell property, and therefore they need it vacant in order to improve it and sell it... and (b) if poor students and entrepreneurs really cared about having somewhere to live, then it really neednt be in prime central london.  it could easily be anywhere else.  somewhere more affordable.  the internet has no boundaries.  students and entrepreneurs dont need to live in prime central london to go about their business.  this is mostly about the haves and have nots, and the have nots are trying to occuping buildings owned by the haves and justifying it in some way.   and the justifications are shallow because if they really wanted to live somewhere relevant, they would be living somewhere either closer to the schools, or closer to the work, or closer to the centres of innovation (the east end of london is currently the best place to be an entrepreneur, AND its far cheaper to live there than prime central london).  And if thats too expensive, then why live in London!?... theres plenty of other great cities in England that are far cheaper to call home (or in another country... most other countries are cheaper than UK!).   The world is virtual and the internet is ubiquitous.. you really dont need to squat in someone else's expensive prime real estate out of 'need'.  youre only doing it simply because someone rich owns that building, and you want to deprive them of it.  This is pure anti capitalism, and nothing else.

While I don't necessarily agree with their methods, as I agree with you that it makes anarchists look like welfare recipients. You have to understand from their perspective  they aren't necessarily anti-capitalists but anti-fascists and have good justification for believing so.

Their motivations are many from just being cheap (they value ethics more than money), to actively pointing out the corruption within these charities simply serving as corrupt investments to avoid tax laws, and to actively attacking the corporatocracy that exists by resisting vacating.

These anarchists don't have to live in squalor and could live in a posh apartment but choose not to for a reason. If you think they are simply looking for a free place to stay because they are homeless and cannot afford better than you are surely mistaken.

These people are talented coders who could easily get hired by any software company or directly get angel/venture capital and start up their own companies but choose not to. Some are anti-capitalist, yes , but when you have a long discussion with these individuals you will see that they aren't necessarily opposed to capitalism but crony-capitalism or fascism.  

Personally, vacant, unused and unmaintained buildings should be open to squatters after a certain periods of time. This being said , I don't think this was necessarily the case here and in a capitalist economy this behavior should be considered unacceptable.....but do we really have a free market capitalist economy?

Hi,
We didnt talk about squating in the video. The main discussion is about technology and the media.

Maybe it would be better for them to live in east london, or in iceland or estonia or somewhere else. Like I said, I think squating is a whole different topic, and it is not simply "anti capitalism and noting else" or wanting to deprive people of things. There is the fundimental problem of property rights that you bring up. What about squating buildings owned by the city, the police or other "public" works? Is that the same? In the context of the fraud and collsuion going on in the real estate market and within so called "charities" it is a lot different then just squating a home when someone is on vacation.


I agree, and I think that all have in common that they are against what is called "capitalism" today.

THIS!!! +10000

I would say this is not necessarily a bad thing to have people being able to see your transactions. You do give up some level of privacy in exchange for additional security of the blockchain.

Actually all they do is identify and document the various outrages perpetrated by the BBC on a daily basis. If you actually read the website, it is filled with intelligent analysis of BBC output.

At the very least, the website provides quite a thorough catalogue of BBC crimes for future investigations and prosecutions should the opportunity arise.

Here is the full interview to prove how the BBC manipulates and frames the discussion in a negative light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43xLNYSmEWE

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w_KE62eHlNIqj-3_0fOPLV0nWuG1wrdx6cnv9_S2Uf0/edit#

Not commenting about how the BBC paints anyone, but has anyone read the document in question?

Bitcoin and the Charity of Violent Physical Struggle:
https://alkhilafaharidat.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/btcedit-21.pdf

If you are interested. No idea if it is authentic, but this is what the interview is about.

I could see investors dumping because of negative PR like this or at least more pressure to dump based on something like this and the price decrease.

Don't be delusional, moving money with BTC (and now Dark Wallet) is extremely easier than moving physical cash from A to B.

Oh please, the insinuation is that fiat has not done this for decades. No one said it was easier or not - obviously the technology is superior. That is a moot point

I think it is a valid point. Cash is heavy and bulky and is potentially not fungible if bills are marked, while bitcoin is difficult to trace (and darkwallet makes this much more difficult), and can be transferred around the world in seconds. Granted it is difficult for the ISIS to spend any bitcoin they receive, reducing advantages they would have for using bitcoin.

Money will always be moved via the path of least resistance that gives sufficient security

hmm interesting....did not know dark wallet and the US government were affiliated.

From the article:


So this is how they play it:  demonize darkwallet and its developers and users or any similar software that pops up.  So long as they can keep it a niche thing, then bitcoin remains trackable and therefore controllable.    Anyone found to be using anonymous tech is automaticallly "bad".   Eventually use itself may be a crime.  ( 2 legs bad, four legs good )

The obvious way to prevent this from happening is to bake strong privacy into the bitcoin protocol itself, so that users are are engaging in anonymous transactions by default.  When everyone is doing it, no one is a target.

The longer we wait and pretend that pseudo-anonymity is sufficient, the more we as a community are playing into the hands of those who would track and control us.

It is time that we wake up and make real anonymity top priority.

If Bitcoin devs won't embrace financial privacy, then we'd better start supporting altcoins that do.

Seems like a good thread to advertise:
tinfoil hats: 1 BTC
Copper mesh hats: 2 BTC
zinc-manganese alloy in a bilayered hexagonal array hats: 4 BTC

Any takers? Get real.

seems like tinfoil underwear should provide more bang for the buck, what with everyone carrying around cell-phones these days.

Of course none of these would be effective against longitudinal (tesla) waves that can penetrate a faraday cage, but that doesn't matter since the bulk of the scientific community has been ignoring them for the past 100 years anyway, so there are few local sources.  Nor are they known to be harmful to one's nuts or brain.

just another perspective from a potential employee of MinTruth ...

“HedgelessHorseman: On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Al-Qaida had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Al-Qaida terrorists who were to be killed in drone strikes on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Al-Qaida. Oceania was at war with ISIS. Al-Qaida was an ally. There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that ISIS and not Al-Qaida was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with ISIS! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed. The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorder while the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, I think you’ve dropped your brief-case.’ He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunity to look inside it. The instant that the demonstration was over he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly twenty-three hours. The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuing from the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, were hardly necessary. Oceania was at war with ISIS: Oceania had always been at war with ISIS. “

Needs to go to school and learn about paragraphs.

LOL, its akin to saying "We should forbid better shoes, and regulate them because people might use them to run from the police".
Blatant authoritarian agenda pandering.  Moving on.

Last time I watch BBC Click.

@DarkWallet - how do I send you guys some pizza?

Its developers of dark wallet fault. I remember when they didn't want name change of their wallet while community demanded it.
Now they have what they deserve.

You really think the name has anything to do with it? They could have named it "Save the children" wallet and the same journalistic slant
would have been made... we are talking about principled Anarchists here, who are openly attacking the status quo.

If you listen to the whole interview the main objection is that there isn't a backdoor placed within the Dark Wallet to give to the authorities for them
to Identify ISIS or any "criminals" whether it be Snowden, Assange or your friendly pot dealer. The Irony is that it was US and other nation states that originally funded and trained ISIS just like many other Terrorists groups. The Interviewer keeps pressing for concerns about hypothetical uses of the dark wallet instead of addressing the reason and source of this terrorist group.

You need to understand that even if we assume governments are not corrupt and have the best of intentions this doesn't address either their incompetence
or the existing laws that are unethical. Additionally, any backdoor written into the code is a huge security risk as ISIS, other dictators, and random hackers
can than exploit it for their personal benefit.

No, we are reclaiming the word "Dark" to reclaim our sovereignty. Dark wallet isn't "radical" or "fringe" as it merely allows us to do what we have been able to do for hundreds of years and participate in the global economy without being tracked.

We aren't going to reform the world by playing games with words and through dishonesty. These are the games of Karl Rove and other Corrupt politicians.

I would say a more accurate analogy is something that costs extra because it is designed to help people to run from the police. This is one feature of dark wallet. You will generally have to pay higher TX fees, and slower confirmation times, however it makes it much more difficult for law enforcement to trace money, to the extent that someone using it would not even be able to show where their money went

+1984.   Well said!

Guilty M'laud. My mining app cares nothing for paragraphs, even those in '1984'. I
delete paragraphs from my archived material unless I have a good reason to do otherwise. 

The real question, Mr Pot, is the correct shade of dark for the kettle, and whether
MinTruth is merely reporting the facts though biased eyes, or preparing propaganda?

I would submit that, absent any evidence that ISIS has used Dark Wallet to launder
money, what we have read is propaganda. In the interests of truth and transparency,
the article could have pointed out that Dark Wallet merely provides Bitcoin with some
of the attributes of fiat currency, and that the accusations made could as easily be
directed at the Bank of England, or the Federal Reserve Bank.