Bitcoin Forum

"One [could] not merely confiscate bitcoins", gloats a forum member regarding the Cypris bank crisis. Bitcoin is great, but it's not immune to 'powers that be' corruption.

Governments could legislate¹ a 'buy back'. Corporations could seize assets via heavy handed legal action. ISPs or agencies could subjugate the network via technical (ISP/Backbone) level filtering, man-in-the-middle attacks, denial of service.

What could be done to the bitcoin network to prevent - say a government, corporation - from network/developer/miner coercion? How resilient would Bitcoin be to any of these 'social engineering' scenarios?

At the technical level, consider ISP port filtering (ala Bitorrent) (I have not read the whitepaper as to how much thought was given to this). Bitcoin Network Monitor, Bitcoin address <=> IP monitor, ISP subpoena, etc. If BTC nodes end up requiring services similar to TOR to survive, what chance does legitimate BTC usage have? 

Offline, deposit only 'cold' wallets could protect against technical efforts. Pre-existing software security solutions might help when applied to BTC (i.e. randomize Bitcoin port, bundle Bitcoin-QT with TOR, one click cold wallets...)

Hoarding physical cash might prevent 'bank' level manipulation from effecting you, similar to cold bitcoin wallets. Think of physical fiat as a cold wallet, and electronic fiat as online wallets.

The benefits of 'running your own bank' might not seem significant if you can't connect to the network (i.e. you can't process transactions).

/TheEndIsNighRant

¹ 1933 Emergency Banking Act

As long as SOPA/CISPA stays out (and it's never going to stop coming up, it seems,) we have as much to worry about BTC being confiscated as TPB finally going offline.  But if this is just that much more incentive to lobby CISPA into existing law, get ready for a fun brawl.  The one chance we got at actual freedom, whether some realize it or not, remains in the Internet being entirely open.  Once government finds a way to censor (and they won't ever find a reliable way, just a good enough way for the typical uneducated,) we have a lot more trouble than Bitcoin being confiscated.  They could just end the system all together, along with several other certain services we currently enjoy.  I'd say civil unrest at that point will reach an all time high.

Coins are anonymous if your identity and your public key address are not connected. You just transfer them to a new address and it's going to be very hard to prove that you're also that new address. Plus, there are coin washing machines, coin mixing services, and shared hosted wallets, and even gambling games that send you back money that went through them. Sooner or later, zerocoin is going to be implemented.

All censoring or filtering have failed this far. Technical solutions are always few steps ahead.

Sure the developers can be coerced but this is the beauty of open source software. Anonymous developers will join in, maybe even Satoshi will return. And with open source everyone could check the commits they made.

If one considers that exchanges hold peoples deposits (in both Bitcoin and fiat), and those exchanges already being regulated (most of them indirectly, some of them directly), what is stopping the regulators giving those deposits a "haircut", this time a double whammy - in both Bitcoin and fiat?

Nothing, methinks.

The sweet illusion of infallibility!

It is entirely optional to hold bitcoins in exchanges.

sure, like it is entirely optional to hold fiat in a bank account

In banana republics may be yes, but not in the developed world. If you have a job or business, you have to have a bank account, because you cant be paid and cant pay for many thing without a bank account. This is not necessary with bitcoins.

a cracking password on block chain and a back up of all your priv keys should see you through most anything

I agree with you - one should not trust anyone with his Bitcoins and should at all time keep it in his/hers wallet.

But what I described is different - if one has his Bitcoin and/or fiat deposited at an exchange for the purpose of trading, then those funds are not protected, they are indeed exposed to any regulator to seize at will.

I am also thinking that the time is ripe for someone to conceptualise and start operating an alternative exchange, where the user's funds are never deposited but exchanged in real time - that will negate the risk of loosing deposits to the regulators quite handsomely, add dramatically to the strength of Bitcoin.

perhaps it is time to consider moving to a banana republic then - hell, what a brainwash this is - to believe that one cannot possibly live without a bank account.

Sure If you are trading, carrying counter-party risk is basically cost of doing business.

If the powers that be wanted to stop bitcoin they would just buy a lot of hardware and do a simple 51% attack and be done with it.

It's more complicated than that.

I am reminded of FDR's executive order 6102 of 4/5/1933 which, by the stroke of a pen, made the mere possession of gold a federal crime, and offered rewards to anyone who betrayed anyone else. Sure, a handful of brave people tried to hide their gold, but the practice became as marginalized and shunned as, say, drugs or porn today.

I hate to say it, but if possession of a bitcoin privkey became a federal felony, with informant rewards, I can think of a couple of relatives who would rat me out in a heartbeat.

Yeah, but you don't have to dig a hole in your back yard to hide your bitcoins.

Australian gold confiscation (http://goldchat.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/history-of-gold-controls-in-australia.html) with discussion (http://goldchat.blogspot.com.au/2008/11/australian-gold-confiscation.html), focus on enforceability.

Try brainwallet.

"Yes, good sir, I do own some bitcoins, but only 3 BTCs, here is my private key. What, 500? Who told you so? Some of my relatives? You can't just rely on some hear-says as evidences right?"

Or if your prosecutor is more of a "by the book" type: "Yes sir, I did store 500 bitcoins in an address(which is too long, who the fuck will remember that?) And I use this brainwallet setup to protect my private key, but unfortunately, I have totally forgotten about my passphrase, so perhaps these bitcoins are forever lost. And I think you can't prove otherwise." or just simply: "Sorry I lost my private key."

No, it didn't.  It was immediately thrown out when an attempt was made to prosecute someone under it.  People own gold certificates and gold coins purportedly outlawed by that executive order to this day and they are openly collected.

A law purporting to outlaw Bitcoin would ultimately fare no better.  A lot of noise and saber-rattling was made about PGP distribution and ITAR regulations to this day create incredible nuisance (and worse) for our businesses, and Phil Zimmerman was harassed for years for distributing it, but ultimately never prosecuted because he did nothing that was not protected by the Constitution.

I doubt you will ever see the United States declare Bitcoin itself illegal, although you might see attempts to harass it and regulate it to death in a variety of ways, likely to be as successful as attempts to stamp out strong crypto in general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom

Your turn?

Mere possession can be outlawed, but those laws can never be successfully enforced.

Example: firearms - there are laws all over the world regulating the possession of firearms, and those laws are utterly ineffective in their attempt of preventing the illegal firearm possession. Those laws are only effective if applied to the legal and dully registered firearm owners - which ironically are the only ones who comply with those laws.

Same with Bitcoin - if the governments outlaw the Bitcoin, the only Bitcoins that could be (easily) confiscated will be the ones deposited with legally compliant institutions - the ones stored in a private wallet could never be effectively confiscated.

Time to post the Bitcoin version of a "MOLON LAVE" poster, I suppose. :-)

The key is a shared secret/ the address is a multisig one, but unfortunately, the other people holding the keys are dead(give names of random people you know who recently died while in fact you hold all parts of the keys/secret) Sure, everyone knows if they can decide to convict you when they can't even prove you are not complying, there is nothing you can do. But still, bitcoin provides a maximal degree of protection and plausible deniability compared with other hoardable item.

Sorry I transferred all my coins to this address 1............
That address does not belong to me or my wallet, I will give you the password for full access to my wallet files so you can be sure
As you well know that means I no longer own the coins nor can I transfer them to anyone.

i.e. have someone else, in advance, in another country, you trust to use for this if this event ever occurred :)

Drugs and porn marginalized? I thought that was all of southern California!

As far as Private Keys, I don't think I would be able to even begin to explain to a relative what Bitcoin is much less a private key. Bitcoin would have to become waaaay more widely accepted and mainstream for anyone around me to know. Even my spouse wouldn't know what one is.

Brilliant, +1, and 0.1 BTC to your address, should arrive within today. :)

Spread your bitcoins around to a few wallets, save all the wallet.dat files somewhere safe usb/email/cd/etc, delete the bitcoin program off your computer/laptop, say to representative "bitcoin? what bitcoin?".

Waiting until he goes, download bitcoin wallet again.

Or multiple wallets with the majority of your wealth, with a little 'spending money' stored on a 'banking wallet' (like mtgox, blockchain, etc), delete wallet programs off your own hardware, use the money on your 'banking wallet' (after stating, "wallet, what wallet?". Whenever you need more money, upload 1 of your .dat files and download software, move some bitcoin onto 1 of the many 'banking wallets' you have.

Use tor to hide your activity.

problem solved?

I believe that law, at least in the absence of any evidence of an actual crime, is in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights and would not survive a challenge at the ECHR.

Of course, I could be wrong.

The UK still has many retarded laws, that law, amongst many others, are simply not enforcable.

What's the government gonna do? Torture the person to get the private key? To steal their money.

We'll revolt much sooner than that day happens.

in a recent interview of Putin by German radio ARD, Putin laughed his ass off.

now all the Oligarchs can just stay in Russia and have their monies confiscated there, instead of in the West.


LOL

In some countries (Cyprus included) it is forbidden to do many things with fiat without using a bank.

Bitcoin confiscation? Really?
When btc will value 5000$, the governments will think different  :D

how about BTC sucks up all fiat money in da wurlde ???


then the planet is on the BTC STANDARD

Such laws are generally widely flouted.  As they should be.

The only thing fighting Bitcoin would get them is increased Bitcoin use from all the publicity, as there is nothing about Bitcoin not to like, unless you are a dirty bank with something to lose, like control of currency.

Just like BitTorrent, the attacks against it only pushed it further underground, for 10 years and millions of dollars later in lawsuits and their armies of copyright lawyers, P2P file sharing with the BitTorrent protocol is still alive and well as it always has been.

The government is too slow to do anything about it. By the time they manage to pass any anti-crypto-currency motions Bitcoin will be on the verge of crushing the Dollar and Euro, or so I hope anyway.

They can do nothing to attack the core of an open source platform, the only thing they could do is go after exchanges and end users, both of which are difficult to do. The only way Bitcoin ends is when everyone stops using it.

That aside, our governments and banks are worried about a much larger mess right now, Bitcoin is something so far I think they have been cautious to mention for fear of helping it spread more, even sparking outrage at their efforts to undermine it. Not their greatest worry, for now.

They can confiscate my wallet when they pry it out of my cold, dead computer, which they will need to step over my corpse to get to.

Indeed, if we all traded in our dollars and dollar assets, and fully restandardized the global monetary system on bitcoins are technically a far superior design to date.

Well they could never "confiscate" bitcoin. But if they did manage to destroy bitcoin while simultaneously offering the only alternative (think fiat) than that would be functionally equivalent, since the value that is currently represented by bitcoin would flee to their monetary system. So then we should be asking can they make it imposable for the bitcoin network to function?

It would require a law something like this "anyone who sends data over a computer network thats nature can not be easily discerned will be subject punishment at the hands of the state". This could theoretically work. The problem is that major institutions all over the world rely on encryption. They could theoretically then create encryption licenses and that might work.

But really if they became this extreme the emperors lack of clothing would be SO apparent that even to the most brainwashed state enforcers would begin to awaken. That doesnt mean they wont try it though if bitcoin begins to challenge their power structure. but if they do try it than it will be from a position of extreme desperation. If they do try something this extreme than it would be a clear indication that statism is in its final death throws.

TPTB aren't worried in the least.

How much disappears per hour via the magic printing press into Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc etc...

Buy it out, dump it in the garbage, put your feet up, and light a cigar.   Game over please insert quarter.

You don't seem to understand the the police and ISPs are some of the least technologically skilled in the US populace. The police don't know what Bitcoin is and probably wouldn't understand the whitepaper to how it works. The police cannot deal with cryptography at all and ISPs aren't resourced enough to deal with it. So basically speaking, the only people who could stop Bitcoin are the secret service, the NSA, MI5/6, FSB, those kinds of people. Those kinds of people are more likely to make use of Bitcoin for their own operations than to kill it.

The result is Bitcoin isn't going to be shut down because all the brightest people and all the intellect masters are behind Bitcoin. The college professors, the engineer, the spy master, the computer hacker, the elite programmer, the cryptographer, they all are behind Bitcoin. So who exactly is left to be against Bitcoin?

The people who don't have any skill or knowledge of how Bitcoin works or what Bitcoin can do are the ones most likely to be against it. The people who don't believe in science and who think that evolution is a myth.

Bitcoin is money and the brightest hacker minds in the country if not in the entire world are backing it.


So the police who might be against it don't have any skill to stop it. Those who have the skill to stop it would be more likely to use it than to stop it due to their line of work.

FDR did this because the Nazis and their allies had control of the majority of the gold at the time. If you're gonna actually cite history please do so in context. It was World War 2 and FDR had no easy options, also the gold hoarders tried to launch a fascist coup attempt (Google the Business Plot) which triggered his response.

You're right about informants though. In this world you cannot fully trust anyone, not friends, not family, not parents or siblings or best friend or husband or wife. For some things you can only trust yourself to look out for you.

They will torture you and destroy your brain to destroy your coins.

The way they will take down Bitcoin is by linking it's users to CHILD PORNOGRAPHY. If you use Bitcoin, Tor, etc, then you're a pedophile with a pedophile kit. Why else would you need all that?

And if accused of being a pedophile it's near impossible to prove you aren't when Nancy Grace or whomever in the media crucifies you.

Additionally, as it was patently unconstitutional, the first court to try a case involving this law threw it out, albeit over a technicality.  While it was reissued, it effectively went away with the passage of the Gold Reserve Act.

This executive order was a clear blunder, but caused little to no actual effect in reality, except to the one guy actually prosecuted under it, who won his case.  Unfortunately for him, he actually lost his gold, but at least now, it is entirely legal to possess gold, gold certificates, or any similar objects.

While in theory, the government could do this again, in practice, I don't think it would be tolerated.

Not really true.

It's useful to consider the history of substitute currencies, historically.  There are several dozen studied cases where as one currency lost trust, others came to be used.  Often the death penalty was used to try to prevent the good money from coming in.

It never worked.

Good money always wins out in the end. 

Wunder what all that paper could be used for then....

That doesn't sound so bad...

well it was designed to do that we do have 100,000,000 subdivisions of 1 bitcoin so if you consider we have 21,000,000 available coins thats... 21 quadrillion dollars; suspiciously... thats the number is 100 times the value of all money in circulation... so that would be enough to handle all the transactions on the planet.

It could happen, the deflationary characteristics of bitcoin would allow it to grab all of that safely forcing all failing government to switch their currencies to Bitcoin since it appreciates in value as more people begin using it, there fore no one would ever need to switch their money to fiat again...  :o   Madness!!!! Satoshi! you are a Genius!!!

u can divide a bitcoin as often as u like

They are coming for my bitcoins! :o

How many do I have?  ???

Oh right, no one knows.  8)

The block chain says.... at least 0.13751.  ;)

Paper? You still have paper money?  Plastic (polypropylene polymer) bank notes have been here in Aus since 1988 :)

No, it was not WW2 in 1933.

WTF??? WTF??? WHF???

As for the Business Plot, what a joke.  About on the level of arresting a two bit anti-arab filmaker and blaming Bengazi on him.

Wait, didn't that just happen?

What ever makes Bitcoin more secure and private should be considered, tested and implemented asap. It helps make it more popular ultimate world currency

Will the time come when paper or plastic will not be accepted for bitcoin?

No.
Decentralisation is the point of bitcoin.