CIA Activity in the Bitcoin Ecosystem

[Vladimir]

Didn't you know? Satoshi Nakamoto is a code name for their "past fed funding project"! It like a full department of PhD's.

[Bitcoin Oz]

I wouldnt be surprised if pirate is CIA in which case they are attempting to cheaply buy all the bitcoins 

[PayPal]

I am the CIA! Bow down to my supremacy, and grovel for my marketshare!

[doobadoo]

I wonder how much damage they could do by buying large amounts of coins and then selling them off in an attempt to create and pop bubbles.

Wouldn't work.  They people "in" on it would likely front run the op.  Also be a hard use of funds to justify, would smell too much like banking agency cash into their own pockets.  But then again, thats how a lot of government works: figuring out ways to bank public funds into private pockets.

[doobadoo]

You've got to remember that bitcoin is small-fry.

If it wasn't, it would be an absolutely trivial matter for a US governmental agency to use a 51% attack or something similar to bring down the network. They have some of the brightest minds in coding, and a eleven-figure budgets, we wouldn't stand a chance.

You give "them" too much credit.  I know they look good right now, you know landing that SUV on the Martian surface and all.  But the fact remains: the current hash rate of Bitcoin greatly exceeds the power of the fastest know supercomputer.   Additionally, a 51% attack doesn't destroy Bitcoin outright.  It only allows them to interfere with the generation of new blocks, eg, they can block transactions and monopolize the block reward.   In *theory* many miners would drop once they hit a point that it became futile to mine (eg, a SUSTAINED 51%+ attack), but i got a feeling that people dont' like getting rolled and you'd see hash rates rise to whatever challenge threatens Bitcoin!

[CoinCidental]

You've got to remember that bitcoin is small-fry.

If it wasn't, it would be an absolutely trivial matter for a US governmental agency to use a 51% attack or something similar to bring down the network. They have some of the brightest minds in coding, and a eleven-figure budgets, we wouldn't stand a chance.

You give "them" too much credit.  I know they look good right now, you know landing that SUV on the Martian surface and all.  But the fact remains: the current hash rate of Bitcoin greatly exceeds the power of the fastest know supercomputer.   Additionally, a 51% attack doesn't destroy Bitcoin outright.  It only allows them to interfere with the generation of new blocks, eg, they can block transactions and monopolize the block reward.   In *theory* many miners would drop once they hit a point that it became futile to mine (eg, a SUSTAINED 51%+ attack), but i got a feeling that people dont' like getting rolled and you'd see hash rates rise to whatever challenge threatens Bitcoin!

If people (like minder in the btc community ) had more hashing power ,why would they wait until an attack ?
they could just  add that power to the network now and take the rewards ?

[Shadow383]

You've got to remember that bitcoin is small-fry.

If it wasn't, it would be an absolutely trivial matter for a US governmental agency to use a 51% attack or something similar to bring down the network. They have some of the brightest minds in coding, and a eleven-figure budgets, we wouldn't stand a chance.

You give "them" too much credit.  I know they look good right now, you know landing that SUV on the Martian surface and all.  But the fact remains: the current hash rate of Bitcoin greatly exceeds the power of the fastest know supercomputer.   Additionally, a 51% attack doesn't destroy Bitcoin outright.  It only allows them to interfere with the generation of new blocks, eg, they can block transactions and monopolize the block reward.   In *theory* many miners would drop once they hit a point that it became futile to mine (eg, a SUSTAINED 51%+ attack), but i got a feeling that people dont' like getting rolled and you'd see hash rates rise to whatever challenge threatens Bitcoin!

I'm just saying, if a company as small as butterfly labs can knock up a hundred terahash in ASICs for a few million and several months' work, then so can just about any government agency.