Bitcoin is beggining to get "bad" publicity...

[billyjoeallen]

Ill use 2.5 men as an example; I never even considered watching it until after Charlie Sheen was "exposed by the media"

+1 winning

[1714165771]

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[Anonymous]

If I was a government and wanted to kill Bitcoin, I would fork it.
* Mining difficulty is fixed at 1, but only blocks signed by the government grant coins.
* Government mining with geographically distributed servers to protect against disasters.
* Grant a tax credit if those taxes are paid with the new coins.
* Peg its value to the existing national currency, and offer a simple API to convert back and fourth for existing banks and credit card companies.

Benefits:
* The same convenience benefits of Bitcoin
* Inertia of the existing currency and infrastructure
* A big trustworthy government telling you "it's gonna be OK".
* Association with a powerful people's government, instead of a cabal of selfish libertarian crazies.
* Ability to raise taxes with inflation
* Ability to shut down evil nodes and revoke their coins

The only thing the government is any good at is pointing guns and violence. The answer to bitcoin will be one of those two choices.

ninja edit: who can they point guns at? We are legion. 

[mewantsbitcoins]

It is not the only way and certainly it is not the way it communicates on tor. In fact, you can run your client with noirc=1 in bitcoin.conf and still have fully functioning client.

So my question to you is how Silk Road users are going to be surprized?

Ah, I see. It is going to be like that, eh?

Okay, I can play ball.

Hostile Exit Nodes  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=677943

Not Anonymous http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/not-anonymous-attack-reveals-bittorrent-users-on-tor-network.ars

Online Idiocy Kills http://beyondclicktivism.com/2011/02/14/online-idiocy-kills/

Among other examples. Executive summary is that Tor isn't perfect, so there are things to worry about in hostile environments.

It has nothing to do with your proposal that bitcoin is using irc and leaking IPs. The only thing you should concern yourself when on tor with bitcoin is that you
DON'T TALK SHIT!

Learning to do a wireshark capture doesn't make you a m4st3r h4x0r. You would know way more by reading our wiki than by using tools way beyond your understanding

[iCEBREAKER]

Progressives are raving on Twitter about how Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme founded upon faux-libertarian economics.
I have a feeling in my gut that things are about to get really exciting.

Yes, we're on the threshold of a metasystem transition, courtesy of bitcoin.

Let the progressive tweeters twitter witlessly about which they know nothing.

The louder they scream and whine, the more publicity and traction is gained for the bitcoin project.

They know they are useless parasites, and that it's almost time to purge western civilization and polite society of their endless complaining.

Progressives and their Banker-Mobster-Rat enablers are the disease.  Bitcoin is the cure.

[Bazil]

pigf*cking sodomite necrophiliac pedophile terrorist racist drug-dealing money-laundering gun-running slave-trading kiddy-porn puppy-stomping paint huffers.

I've gotta find somewhere I can use that quote, it's great!

[TraderTimm]

It has nothing to do with your proposal that bitcoin is using irc and leaking IPs. The only thing you should concern yourself when on tor with bitcoin is that you

DON'T TALK SHIT!

Learning to do a wireshark capture doesn't make you a m4st3r h4x0r. You would know way more by reading our wiki than by using tools way beyond your understanding

Again, you assign me traits I didn't aspire to acquire. I used wireshark earlier this evening for something totally unrelated, but noticed the IRC traffic it captured when I had the bitcoin client running.

As for your assertion that users can specify -noirc, that is enlightening, but guess what, the average user doesn't give two shits about command line parameters, and even less will even bother looking them up. So it is safe to say they will be using IRC methods.

If the government decides to get all "serious" on us, there are a few vectors they could take.

I keep stating that I support bitcoin, and I believe in it, but all you have to offer is bolded text and fancy font sizes with 1990's color schemes.

Is there a point to it all? Yes. I am concerned that any easy route to mess with bitcoin will make it a short ride, and I have invested enough where that is a liability for me.

I don't get the hostility, honestly. I am not attacking you - or bitcoin for that matter. There are things that need to be addressed, I even admitted that core developers are more aware of the issues than I am, but this is what seems obvious at this point.

Why do you hate me?

[frycicle]

Ill use 2.5 men as an example; I never even considered watching it until after Charlie Sheen was "exposed by the media"

+1 winning

bi-winning

[hazek]

If I were the government trying to stop Bitcoin I'd first get the mainstream media propaganda machine to put out some serious spin on the ideological aspect of it and then I'd move to shutdown all the online exchanges and at the same time forbid any online payment system from dealing with any such exchanges in the future.

[Explodicle]

The only thing the government is any good at is pointing guns and violence. The answer to bitcoin will be one of those two choices.

ninja edit: who can they point guns at? We are legion. 

Exactly. That's why offering a tax (guns) credit and link with the fiat (guns) currency is an advantage we will never have.

[Astro]

Why do you hate me?

Probably because you're the 525th person to come in here this week and point out the same perceived "flaws" that have been debated to death on these very forums.  In short, READ THE WIKI BEFORE YOU POST.

[bitcoinewbie]

I doubt they have the intelligence to really grasp how bitcoin works.

ok, i've heard this around here before(end of the forbes article for one), the idea that the government, the people strong enough, powerful enough, confident enough to steal well over half the wealth of its citizens with one hand while destroying other countries and keeping them from doing it to us in return, somehow, with all this pirated wealth have been unsuccessful in hiring anyone who knows anything about technology to be on their team. now, i think our quality of life as humans can be greatly improved, but i think it comes from returning to the use of simple logic that we are all capable of. If you don't like something, explain why, don't just mindlessly belittle it and chuckle about your meaningless unthoughtout insults, it really truly does not help.

bitcool, maybe you should watch bitcoinlady

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMDdTpbAZmE

[charliesheen]

The discussion of how the government is going to stop bitcoin is the same as the highschool principal trying to stop a senior prank.

[bitcool]

I doubt they have the intelligence to really grasp how bitcoin works.

"they" here is defined as lawyers, not MI6. Maybe it's because I've met too many idiotic yet greedy lawyers and yours are way smarter.

If you don't like something, explain why, don't just mindlessly belittle it and chuckle about your meaningless unthoughtout insults, it really truly does not help.

If you felt insulted, sorry about that. I am not in the mood explaining my feelings.

[ColdHardMetal]

I doubt they have the intelligence to really grasp how bitcoin works.

Don't kid yourself. Don't assume these places hire dummies. I used to work for a market regulatory agency, and some of the smartest people I've ever met worked there. Like one guy who used to work as a lawyer and who had a masters in CS that he pounded out on the side just because he likes computers. These places pay pretty good and they do get talent, and there are people who will work there on principle to help keep the markets safe even if they aren't earning as much as they could/used to in the private sector.

[Some Dude]

Progressives are raving on Twitter about how Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme founded upon faux-libertarian economics.

Do you have anything to show that it is progressives in general, or just individuals who happen (or you believe) to be progressives?

Any takers?

[bitcool]

Don't kid yourself. Don't assume these places hire dummies. I used to work for a market regulatory agency, and some of the smartest people I've ever met worked there. Like one guy who used to work as a lawyer and who had a masters in CS that he pounded out on the side just because he likes computers. These places pay pretty good and they do get talent, and there are people who will work there on principle to help keep the markets safe even if they aren't earning as much as they could/used to in the private sector.

The fact that they even start thinking about building a fraud case against bitcoin is a sign that they don't understand the system.

"a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud

A bunch of geeks and hackers got deceived by an open source project? that's funny.

If those government lawyers are really tech savvy and smart, then that's great. Nothing to see here, move along.

[Maxxx]

I hope they make us look like pigf*cking sodomite necrophiliac pedophile terrorist racist drug-dealing money-laundering gun-running slave-trading kiddy-porn puppy-stomping paint huffers. I need the price to stay down until I finish buying.  Nothing anybody does will kill Bitcoin. Nothing will stop it except nuclear war or a giant asteroid.  Satoshi Nakamoto himself couldn't stop it now. Critical mass has been reached. There is no going back. Cryptocurrency will be money for our great grandchildren. Austrian economics will be called...economics.

Hear, hear!

[swerving]

I doubt they'll raid people that are mining or just use bitcoin occasionally for legal things, or make you surrender your bitcoins or anything like that. Here's what I bet will happen:

1. Dwolla will suspend MtGox's account from their service, possibly freeze bitcoin user's accounts.
2. MtGox will have its domain name seized by DHS.
3. MtGox will be put under pressure to be shut down completely.
4. Bitcoin price takes a dip triggering a sell-off (hopefully won't be too bad).

[Anth0n]

I'm worried about this situation since governments will look for any excuse they can to thwart anything that threatens their reign over money.

[TraderTimm]

Probably because you're the 525th person to come in here this week and point out the same perceived "flaws" that have been debated to death on these very forums.  In short, READ THE WIKI BEFORE YOU POST.

Thank you then, for demonstrating the key flaw when people 'work' together online. I wasn't given a cursory link to a wiki, or even a single sentence to what was bothering everyone. No, they were fully justified in being A++ douchebags to me because I have the temerity to ask a question.

Great 'spirit' guys. Make sure to save a middle finger for CNN when they ask you the 'obvious' questions later.