NSA KNOWS

[thejaytiesto]

I don't see how bullets would prevent anyone from cracking your wallet if they had the processing power to do so. In fact, they would not ever need to come in contact with you.

I'm hoping that he was not just stating nonsense, but was rather just trying to show his disapproval of the NSA.

Also, think the following: if you are so scared to show that you use Bitcoin, what will happen in the future, when a large part of population will use it?
Will they all pretend to be still using dollars?

What will happen? The NSA will have a harder time doing anything illicit with the information they're tracking, because the more people that use it the greater the protest if something illegal happens from the government agencies.

Well, unless something changes within our society, the spying and tracking is only going to get a lot worse. One should not be scared of using Bitcoin. Why are you using anything Facebook, Microsoft or Google then? Bitcoin is different due to it's decentralized nature. They can't force companies that accept Bitcoin to reveal information if they do not request it. I've recently bought some digital codes, and aside from a e-mail (for delivery), the seller didn't receive any potentially harmful information.

Tl;Dr: Bitcoin needs to acquire anonymity features that would be built into the client as a optional (not standard!) option.

The real tragedy seems to be that people simply don't care. Most people out there are clueless, they are updating to Windows 10 and don't give a fuck if it is spying central or not. No one of them is going to go throught the hassle of installing Linux. So you can see where things are heading. Windows 10 will be the most used SO in the planet in no time and anything that runs under it will be at danger, including Bitcoin.
People has no sense of privacy anymore, just look at how huge instagram and so on is.

[Hopalong]

I don't see how bullets would prevent anyone from cracking your wallet if they had the processing power to do so. In fact, they would not ever need to come in contact with you.

I'm hoping that he was not just stating nonsense, but was rather just trying to show his disapproval of the NSA.

Also, think the following: if you are so scared to show that you use Bitcoin, what will happen in the future, when a large part of population will use it?
Will they all pretend to be still using dollars?

What will happen? The NSA will have a harder time doing anything illicit with the information they're tracking, because the more people that use it the greater the protest if something illegal happens from the government agencies.

Well, unless something changes within our society, the spying and tracking is only going to get a lot worse. One should not be scared of using Bitcoin. Why are you using anything Facebook, Microsoft or Google then? Bitcoin is different due to it's decentralized nature. They can't force companies that accept Bitcoin to reveal information if they do not request it. I've recently bought some digital codes, and aside from a e-mail (for delivery), the seller didn't receive any potentially harmful information.

Tl;Dr: Bitcoin needs to acquire anonymity features that would be built into the client as a optional (not standard!) option.

The real tragedy seems to be that people simply don't care. Most people out there are clueless, they are updating to Windows 10 and don't give a fuck if it is spying central or not. No one of them is going to go throught the hassle of installing Linux. So you can see where things are heading. Windows 10 will be the most used SO in the planet in no time and anything that runs under it will be at danger, including Bitcoin.
People has no sense of privacy anymore, just look at how huge instagram and so on is.

About Windows 10 http://bgr.com/2015/07/31/windows-10-upgrade-spying-how-to-opt-out/.

I guess Linux is the only option now...

[hashman]

The real tragedy seems to be that people simply don't care. Most people out there are clueless, they are updating to Windows 10 and don't give a fuck if it is spying central or not. No one of them is going to go throught the hassle of installing Linux. So you can see where things are heading. Windows 10 will be the most used SO in the planet in no time and anything that runs under it will be at danger, including Bitcoin.
People has no sense of privacy anymore, just look at how huge instagram and so on is.

You might want to check where you get your stats buddy.  Nobody uses that shit fo real.  What do you expect next, us to be believe "box office" numbers?  "Record sales"?   These numbers are lies paid for by specific parties.  Don't believe the hype.  Pass around unix pendrives.  It's not a hassle, it's actually much easier than booting a new windows box.  And more and more people are doing so, it's basically mandatory if you wish to have a reputation of knowing anything about computers.     

[n2004al]

I read the main post by the author about the NSA knows. My question is: And so? If NSA knows what is the problem. What can be made with bitcoin? Bought. So NSA know that me has made a buy. What kind a secret is this? And why I must concern me this?

[M4nfred]

There's a degree of anonymity when you pay with Bitcoin: it's a little more than when you pay in cash, when you buy online, and it's THE SAME of paying in cash if you use Bitcoin at a cafe or in a shop.

I hope this topic is meant to have a sense of humor. The blockchain is there for all to see. And I too believe they connect to nodes and they can probably even interact with you (to know if your node is fully up to date).

Don't forget laundry services by definition can't be trusted because you don't know who is running them and various attacks can be launched against these services (if only 50 people use a laundry service in 1 mixing day, you will not get a high degree of anonimity)

And on your comment that cash is less anonymous. Well that's not true. But fortunately we use BTC for legit purposes and fun experiments only.

Having said that... if bitcould would by nsacoin they better use their calculation power to do some mining :-)

[M4nfred]

The sweet thing about secret agencies is that they don't need to KNOW who uses that ip, they only need to guess correctly. And even when they don't guess correctly, you still can be catched in their net wrongly.

They are not the police. They don't need to prove that you are guilty. They catch you away and you rot in some hidden prison. If they are not so sure about you then they will ask you, maybe abu ghraib style?

The police would be more your friend because they abide the law. I am sure many people are hurt in one way or another because of association (Sharing the same cellular id, being in the same place, using the same Tor exit node..)

People nag about metadata collection but I would advocate for content reviewal because metadata analysis can be way more dangerous than actually knowing who is who and doing what. Where the secret agencies can cause you security problems while in fact they should protect you being part of the 'larger national audience' , I think privacy is not very relevant anymore.

Ofcourse this is at the chokepoint where normal citizens, or even police working on the edge, get mixed up with criminals altogether. If only the secret services would have different ways of evaluating things, citizens would not waste this much time on anonimity services.

[klf]

If the NSA created bitcoin, or was able to track it very well, I'd expect that Silk Road would have been taken down earlier and differently.

[n2004al]

If the NSA created bitcoin, or was able to track it very well, I'd expect that Silk Road would have been taken down earlier and differently.

I don't believe this. Those are bullshit. Tomorrow may be told that bitcoin were invented by everyone and this must convince someone only because was told by he/she?

[MF Doom]

If the NSA created bitcoin, or was able to track it very well, I'd expect that Silk Road would have been taken down earlier and differently.

I think you make a really good point.  BUT, if they did create it, that doesnt mean they intended for it to be used for selling drugs online.  Maybe they came down so hard on ulbricht because they were ticked off how much money he was making.

But the whole story about the alleged hit that he contracted is still super sketchy, as far as I know no one was ever found that did the "hit", or that was allegedly killed.  That whole story still sounds fishy to me.