Bitcoin Forum

On a recent survey about Bitcoin I found a person who admitted that it's his job to destroy Bitcoin within a team of people, probably to protect the current financial system:

"It's my job to assist in the destruction of the Bitcoin network. Currently we are researching various methods that will be used to attack the network in the near future. Previous attacks have resulted in price drops, but we will not be content until Bitcoin has been driven completely underground to a very small amount of fanatics with no chance of taking off into the main stream financial world."

"I want the network destroyed. It's not personal, this is just a requirement of the project for which I have been assigned to."

What would you like to see in the future of bitcoin in general?
Answer: "More bank account closures on the exchanges"

see more of his answers:
http://www.kwiksurveys.com/results-overview.php?mode=5&survey_ID=OHKDGN_329545e7&session_ID=CKJIGJM_e611c8d

Recently nearly all bank accounts of exchanges in Europe (SEPA-zone) were closed within one week. So this fits with what he says.
Also he admits that one goal is to drive the price down, which is also happening now.

LOL!!!

Good!


And that's where the feet shooting begins. By limiting the system to the fanatic and well educated (on the system) few, without coming up with a better alternative to the already broken system that got the masses to be going through huge ordeals, what this does in the end is show a viable alternative, a light at the end of the tunnel if you will, to the people that are forced to use a system they don't trust or want.

Microsoft was all about 'embrace and extend' which is actually the only way I see bitcoin be at danger right now. By simply dismissing it or trying to show all that is wrong with it will simply make the system stronger and more reliable... for when the time is right :)

He's not doing a very good job if he's letting us know in advance...

The more people trying to break bitcoin the better. Anyone who thinks that challenging and hacking protocols is a bad idea, go Wiki "Linux".

Plausible deniability.

Because nobody would ever troll conspiracy theorists...

And why are the stats reading as if he's the only one who's taken the survey?

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Or a corporate shill.
https://plus.google.com/101083456815352083930/posts/eqxkZLJmXYw

You can do the entire survey here:
http://www.kwiksurveys.com/?u=BitcoinSurvey

Nice, looks like we have finally got some QA people working on uncovering all the remaining vulnerabilities of the protocol and ecosystem. Surely, bank accounts in the Euro zone were a huge vulnerability as they were exposing us to the scrutiny of government control freaks. Thank you for raising the issue! Let's perform all of the real world banking in tax havens instead of the SEPA zone. That way Bitcoin and tax havens will grow together in a healthy symbiose.

Please tell me you are not really that gullible.

Sssssshhhhhh.  The Masons might hear you.

If you really wanted to destroy confidence in Bitcoin you'd find obscure legislation which allows the user deposits on the exchanges to be seized (there's bound to be some existing piece of legislation which could be tortured to allow this).  It's easy for anyone to claim that they working on attacking Bitcoin through stuff which has already happened.  Let's see how good they are at predicting what will happen next.

The selling pattern is not that of someone who wants to make money, but of someone who purposefully wants the price of Bitcoin to go down.

Someone who had a lot of Bitcoin that they would want to maximize their profits from would sell at times when people have money in their Dwolla/MtGox accounts that could put money into BTC to buy up their coins.

Instead they do huge sells on Sunday night/Monday morning when people have gone all weekend without having their accounts re-upped with cash.

Someone wanting maximum return would also sell in small quantities in order to avoid panic selling before they can get the maximum amount from their sales.

The person who currently has a $50,000 wall at $2.10 is the person driving the price down.

You cant drive price down without driving it up first. The idea is ludicrous "lets buy a million bitcoin so we can sell them later and crash the exchange rate ". Yeah that works  ::)

No. It's a double bluff.

While I individually still believe Bitcoin is yet too small to be taken seriously by the establishment, I do suspect that in the future the stronger Bitcoin becomes, the more will they attempt to discredit and fight it, with all means necessary.

Let's not forget that today's power structures depend on the financial system the way it is today, and that wars have been waged to gain control over a nation's money in order to secure or expand the status quo.

Probably, but they will use the tools they know best and that have worked so well for them in the past; you know, the tools we elect. Thats the obvious way to undermine bitcoin.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 Mahatma Gandhi

Unfortunately, Gandhi seems to have been wrong with the "winning" part on all too many instances of the past, otherwise we'd already see a much better world today.

Guys,

 What about this:

 'Devastating' protocol flaw could paralyze Bitcoin system:
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/15/bitcoin_flaw/ ?

Best,
Thiago

If it's true, I would take it as nothing more than a compliment.

Bring it on, if bitcoin isn't resistant to all kinds of attacks then there's no point in it existing, and we can all go back to using scam money.

some ppl just can't help attracting attention to themselves.  i would take this guy seriously.  this has always been my contention.

but they could use 5:1 leverage on Bitcoinica.  i've always been against short selling BTC at such a young stage.  too vulnerable.

Honestly - i think what they propose is that you should get a reward for letting your client app running?
Reasoning is that if you don't get a reward for it why should you? And if your not online with your client
app the network is weak ...... 

To me this is anything but 'devastating' - more like a 'consultant' type buisnessperson said: We make it
more efficient so buy my solution or it is devastating for you.

Discussed extensively here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51712.0

It doesnt matter. Its easy enough to achieve short time price spikes or drops (particularly after you spiked it) if you throw enough money at it, but no amount of money is going to keep the price down. The only thing  that can keep the price down is lack of demand. You cant buy lack of demand ;).

Bitcoinica is generally a wonderful thing. I've doubted its wealth creation before but assuming Bitcoin ever becomes the popular currency it deserves to be, Bitcoinica is going to keep the price nice and stable with a lovely pool of doubters. Quite a tool and Zhou has my reverence.

Nothing like a healthy dose of FUD

Bitcoinica usually something wonderful. I doubted, wealth creation before (http://www.secretsofcreatingwealth.com/), but assume an increasingly popular coin seems Bitcoin, Bitcoinica will keep the price nice and stable, with a lovely pool of skeptics. A tool Zhou and my deepest condolences. Pharmacy online (http://Pharmacy online) buy new drugs cheap (http://buy new drugs cheap)

Fear makes the world go round. It keeps you from losing your virginity and killing the kids down the street. It's what allows the few to control the many.

As for the men who sober themselves from its grasp, nothing can stop them. A lack of fear is what separates the men from the boys.  

Strong agree.

Look around, idiotic panic driving irrational decisions everywhere. Even inside Bitcoin now. "Speculators" screaming like babies or flaming like idiots just because there was a crash. These people are irrelevant, they won't move a thing anyways. Just pawns on the board.

Politicians and their string puppets are nothing but manifestations of all these fears and "easy" ideas. Come on, some troll with a mission to destroy Bitcoin? He succeeded in his mission to have his own thread here, I give him that.

Only a small portion of the Bitcoin pie is traded on the exchange. If a large chunk (say $500k) is used just for manipulation, it manipulates the whole currency worth over $10 million.

Who could possibly want to hurt Bitcoin?

http://elwartowski.com/funimages/image.gif

Haha…funny!  Someone is yanking your chain.  ;)

If the banking industry is really that worried about bitcoin, my advice is to cash out your 401k's your IRA's and buy gold, silver, bitcoins, toilet paper, land, guns and just about anything else you can get your hands on because the financial system is in far worse shape that anyone can imagine.  One small puff and the whole house of cards is likely to blow away.

If you are part of an organization whose mission it is to destroy bitcoin, my advice to you is to take the opportunity to skim a few bitcoins off the top for yourself.  You are in a unique position to be trading with someone else's money and could easily and anonymously trade against them.  You won't be sorry you did.   ;D

The Establishment, FED, all world's governments, all banks, PayPal and so on...

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

He does. You just don't understand where he is getting at.

Please update to the latest BTC logo
http://i43.tinypic.com/zlp0rp.jpg

Some people are just childish and find these things funny. I've removed the stupid responses that I've seen. If people see more of them, you can send the ID to matthewmitchell at godofgod dot co dot uk.

Since it was taken down I would like to add some of the missing information from memory that the guy posted:

Where did you hear about Bitcoin first?
Answer: Other -> Work

When did you hear about Bitcoin first?
Answer: Q2 2011

Age: 42
Gender: Male
Country: United States

Final comment:
Media corporations have a civic responsibility not only to prevent fraud and financial abuse, but also to not corrupt or degrade our culture.

As if the information matters. They were just lonely people, spamming a survey for no good reason.

SomethingAwful.

I would not be surprised at all if that was the truth, since CIA openly admitted their interest in Bitcoin, which means one of tho things: they either want to use it for their dirty buisnesses, or they want to destroy it.

However I need some proof to verify this as "legit" than text from some forum user who could be God knows who...
@Mageant: How do we know you are not working for CIA conducting a psychology study to find out how will we behave if you tell us this ?
You never know... :P

However, this would actually also prove that they themselves are looking for ways to manipulate this community into doing what they want... Tricky thing this conspiracies are, indeed.

The CIA is just a bunch of inefficient bureaucrats. If they are trying to end Bitcoin, it's going to be as hilarious and inane as what they did in Cuba. They are just a bunch of pretentious old men flailing in tax money.

Perhaps, but they still can put a bullet in your head and get away with it.
Also they potentially posess large amounts of money which allows them to manipulate everything.

Yes, the government does effective things with large amounts of money.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-17/solyndra-funds-mostly-lost-to-taxpayers-chu-tells-lawmakers.html

They can attempt to do something but it's just going to be inanely hilarious as history as shown. The CIA is a pitiful joke. They couldn't kill Castro much less a virtual currency.

Few people I meet know anything about the CIA. Case in point, this thread.

I've met and know quite a few truly inspiring and incredibly intelligent people in the Bitcoin community. I'm absolutely mindblown by the resourcefulness and ingenuity of Satoshi and the Bitcoin design. But I swear to the scientific method, 90% of you are so gullible, paranoid, and are so profoundly disconnected from reality that I don't think I will ever be able to put words on it. Holy father of quantum mechanics...

How can you for even a second fall for this kind of shit?

Maybe they want you to think that they are incompetent.
Also, there may be other government agencies, which are more effective.

The point is, if the CIA is aware of Bitcoin, all the other "shady" government agencies surely are.


From my point of view, there is at least 96% probability that this is an obvious hoax.
However, you always have to consider all the possibilities. Even the least probable.

The thing is they have little incentive to care. The government is failing to even keep its basic power structure intact and the populace happy. I doubt they can even comprehend Bitcoin as a threat beyond a blow to taxation which they can't even spend effectively.

Government organizations fail in this regard. They are literally vegetables on life support in comparison to a real business. If anybody cares about Bitcoin right now, it's the central banks. That's where the real power and incentive is.

Couldnt have said it any better.

You aren't the spammer are you?

sry  :-[

If only this were true.  I'd rest easier knowing there are people out there actually employed to attack the Bitcoin network.

Much more likely though, this is just a rumour designed to bolster people's confidence in Bitcoin and possibly even make people think that the current market value is artificially low.

If there is an attack, where's the big child pornography story?  If I were paying someone to attack the Bitcoin network and they didn't work hard to create such a story I'd fire them.  It's such a cheap and effective attack!

Of course, perhaps the whole purpose of this thread is to get thoughts from the community on attack vectors (are people this clever?).  Honestly though, I welcome the gathering of this information.  I'd happily contribute to an open wiki on how to attack the Bitcoin network as I believe this information would be a greater boon to defence than to attack.

just to illustrate how ridiculous these claims are, I created this little parody:

"It's my job to assist in the destruction of the Linux operating system. Currently we are researching various methods that will be used to attack free software in the near future. Previous attacks have resulted in usage drops, but we will not be content until Linux has been driven completely underground to a very small amount of fanatics with no chance of taking off into the main stream software world."

"I want Linux to be destroyed. It's not personal, this is just a requirement of the company I work for."

+1

lol welp

The problem with your parody is that there is evidence supporting it. Microsoft extended support for Windows XP after netbooks threatened to prove that GNU/Linux is more versatile, yet still usable by the average person. As a result of Microsoft pressure, netbooks moved from Solid-State disks to spinning disks in  order to have enough space to install Windows XP. This results in a slower, more power hungry computer that is simply less functional, other than in storage capablility.

Microsoft also charges manufacturers approximately the same license fees (http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/79179) for both Windows Mobile and Android handsets. At the same time, Microsoft limits what features the Android phones are allowed to have. You can thank software patents for this situation.

TL;DR: Your parody does nothing to prove one way or another whether this annonymous person is telling the truth.

So you've never seen any evidence that banks and credit card companies might try to squelsh their competition?

You really think they are so much different from pretty much any other large company out there?

I'm not saying that anybody is perceiving Bitcoin as an actual threat right now and this guy's survey was a joke for sure, but you don't have to be paranoid to bet on Bitcoin being actively worked against _if_ it was seen as a real threat by a large company.

as above, so below (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-similarity)?  :o

Double facepalm. You fell right into it.

There may be lots of deluded people with the intention, but lacking the means to destroy Bitcoin.

Some others may have a real interest, the knowledge and the financial means to try it. If that is the case, I trust our governments to prosecute those guilty of such heinous actions.

I enclose a link to the US Pentagon stand on cyber-attacks:

US Pentagon to treat cyber-attacks as 'acts of war':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13614125

What? Was that (original quote I responded to) an obvous troll?

I think his point was not to ridicule the legitimacy of the attack, but the idea of the attack itself, real or not: Bitcoin is as impervious to such threats as Linux. The Microsoft case that you mentions is exactly what the PP was alluding to.

Sounds like "JOB SECURITY", pardon the pun. hehehe...


BitCoin welcomes attacks.... Unlike other institutions... What doesn't hurt it makes it stronger...

I admit that I'm handsome, charming, wealthy, and smart. There ya go, forced it outta me. Admitting is so much better than claiming, eh?

At this point, it is the job of every alt coin holder to destroy Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is tipping the financial systems over, it has many enemies, some very powerful too. PayPal, Western Union, credit card companies, banks, the list goes on. Any one of these companies are willing to pay for a anti-bitcoin campaign.

What this means is, bitcoin is fundamentally so sound that corporations feels threatened.

And this thread was revived after more than 3 years lying dormant and coincidentally today is one of the biggest price drop in bitcoin history. And seriously, they need that long to destroy bitcoin? I always have the feeling corporations, banks, huge financial institutions have the means to destroy the coin so if we survive this round of onslaught, we should rise up stronger than before.  

I don't think he or any other negative blogger or forum poster is needed to drop the price of bitcoin.  The scamming exchanges and imprisoned Torah lords are doing more than enough to handle that task. 

It took me some time to realize, that this is an old thread.
This part is interesting. Seems to be true for this time again.

I just wish I had bought his $50,000 wall.

Well, Bitcoin's a fragile environment.

They might be able to take down bitcoin but Cryptos are here to stay.

Wrong, bitcoin is extremely anti-fragile. Think of it like an organism or a virus. Mutating open-source decentralized network software. It's a hydra.

This.

http://sportsblogmovement.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/bullshit-sculpture.jpg

'nough said!

lol...yeah.!! but probably he's getting better at it.!!

When this guy's done destroying Bitcoin, he'll be able to demand high consultant fees to destroy various altcoins.

Will this be his next target?: Greek Town Develops Bartering System Without Euro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9R0v96K48)

Or?: What's Minted in Berkshire County Stays There: Finding Reward in Local Currency (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP0iSnygyhU)