German Government Tracks Bitcoin Transactions To Prevent Terrorism Financing

[OmegaStarScream]

Germany wants to take cryptocurrency under government control. On January 2, the Christian Social Union (CSU) presented a document which offers several solutions to combat terrorism. According to Die Welt, one such solution includes taking transactions of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin under control. Such a measure is aimed at preventing terrorism financing,  a problem that stands sharp especially after the Munich terror alert.

BitcoinCT r:  8 allows anonymous transactions without the necessity of personal identification or the ability to track sender and receiver. No wonder the currency is so convenient for illegal purposes such as financing terrorist acts. According to Die Welt, “the so-called Islamic State is financed mainly by oil sales, the antique-trade and, probably, by donations from around the world”.

That is the main reason the German government wants to control cryptocurrency transactions in the first place - they want to dry out terrorists’ income sources as even they need money to act. Seems reasonable enough, though it contradicts the principle of anonymity of Bitcoin. On the other hand it may be a fair price for the possibility of weakening terrorism.

I'm not sure about you but I just this kind of crap ... when they relate terrorism to Bitcoin , It's like terrorists or drug dealers or whatever don't use fiat

Full Article : http://cointelegraph.com/news/115998/german-government-tracks-bitcoin-transactions-to-prevent-terrorism-financing

[unamis76]

They can track all the transactions they want... Beyond that they will find it hard to do anything.

Also, another news matching Bitcoin and illegal activity...

[VeritasSapere]

The governments of the world might be able to track cryptocurrency but they will not be able to control it. Terrorist are not using cryptocurrency as a major source of income and wealth transferal yet, I could argue that terrorists use Fiat more for their purposes. The same is true for most criminals as well. We should never give up our freedom for security, terrorism is going to do continue, if we want to live in a free society we must be brave, the only alternative is totalitarianism so make your choice. I choose freedom every time, just understand that freedom also has a cost.

[foggyb]

Lets compare this with the failed 'war on drugs'. If government agencies can't stop physical objects (smuggled drugs) from crossing borders, how do they expect better results in the war to shut down secure digital money transfers to terrorists? Its hopeless for them.

[Snorek]

I think that decision to agree to take millions of refuges under EU wings (mainly forced by Germany) from Syria and Middle East (and God know where else),
was 100 times more impactful on plague of terrorism than Bitcoin ever was or will be responsible for.
And now they want to push some papers around and convince public opinion that politicians are doing something by restrict bitcoin. Laughable.

[mtnsaa]

Either way this doesn't sound like good news for Bitcoin. I agree that terrorist groups use fiat and I'm very sure they use cash to finance operations but this is another spot for Bitcoin in the eyes of the overall population.

[Jet Cash]

Want to trnsfer money to another country?

Buy a domain name in one country, and sell it in another.
Buy a boat and sail it across the sea, then sell it in the other country.
Do the same with antiques.
Put a fake auction on Ebay, and pay for the item without requiring delivery.

These are just a few methods that occured to me over coffee, I'm sure you guys can think of others.

[maokoto]

But... I do not see how they pretend to track them. At most, they can only track amounts moving from one account to another, but they do not know if the accounts are in country X or Y or if they are owned by person X or Y. It would not be very efficient to track things like that...

[LiteCoinGuy]

I think that decision to agree to take millions of refuges under EU wings (mainly forced by Germany) from Syria and Middle East (and God know where else),
was 100 times more impactful on plague of terrorism than Bitcoin ever was or will be responsible for.
And now they want to push some papers around and convince public opinion that politicians are doing something by restrict bitcoin. Laughable.

Couldn't Have Said It Better.

[Amph]

oh, and how they are going to connect a certain transaction with 100% precision, to a certain terrorism activity?

iif they say by the amount, it's really easy that someone else is moving a big portion  of his pocket to a cold storage

come on this is not doable, until they actually dump for fiat

[DeathAngel]

O RLY

I'd like to track Merkel & see her real reasons for letting thousands of immigrants into Germany.

[Kprawn]

Every time terrorism rears it's ugly head, they want to bash Bitcoin to pieces. We are the scapegoat for political failure. World wars are funded, no matter what method is used.

These people will continue, even after Bitcoins is banned, because it's easy to smuggle items over borders and selling them illegally on the black markets. Take the blood diamonds

that are still being sold, even though it's banned in many countries. Stop the people not the money.  

[DeathAngel]

What did Al Qaeda arrange 9/11 with IOU's or chocolat pennies?

[Erkallys]

The governments of the world might be able to track cryptocurrency but they will not be able to control it. Terrorist are not using cryptocurrency as a major source of income and wealth transferal yet, I could argue that terrorists use Fiat more for their purposes. The same is true for most criminals as well. We should never give up our freedom for security, terrorism is going to do continue, if we want to live in a free society we must be brave, the only alternative is totalitarianism so make your choice. I choose freedom every time, just understand that freedom also has a cost.

This is true. I red a magazine today that was talking about this, and even if it was not so pro-Bitcoin, it said the truth, that drug and arms dealers were using a lot more fiat money instead of Bitcoin, just like you. If they ever ban the cash for credit cards, if they do the same for Bitcoin, they will still do their trades in gold, in silver, in cigarettes, or whatever because they're simply a lot smarter than our dumb governments .

[Denker]

O RLY

I'd like to track Merkel & see her real reasons for letting thousands of immigrants into Germany.

Yeah not only you wanna know this. Half of Europe wanna know why this woman is going crazy.
She is destroying Germany and Europe. I'm sure she is having a plan. I bet it's an evil one!!

Wanna know what happened NYE in some cities? And now 4 days later the public gets to know about it because the pressure on social medias got overheated!These bastards of politicians really tried to camouflage what happened! Our women and daughters are not more than just meat for those animals!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-police-search-for-1000-men-after-mass-sexual-assault-in-cologne-a6797126.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12082366/German-women-report-string-of-sexual-assaults-by-Arab-and-North-African-men.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cologne-shocked-by-sexual-assaults-on-new-years-eve-a-1070583.html

[bearex]

I think it is okay for them to do so. But it would be wrong to track transaction of non-terrorist people. I think you still can bypass this tracking.

[owm123]

There are plenty of such news, like this newest one:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/csu-financial-constraints-to-combat-terrorism-includes-bitcoin-framework-proposal/


If only they new bitcoin is not anonymous. \s Oh well. I guess this is beyond understanding of certain people that bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous and what it means.

[owm123]

I think it is okay for them to do so. But it would be wrong to track transaction of non-terrorist people. I think you still can bypass this tracking.

You think NSA and other government agencies care about tracking/spying on non-terrorist people. They assume everyone is a terrorist.

[Erkallys]

There are plenty of such news, like this newest one:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/csu-financial-constraints-to-combat-terrorism-includes-bitcoin-framework-proposal/


If only they new bitcoin is not anonymous. \s Oh well. I guess this is beyond understanding of certain people that bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous and what it means.

Bitcoin IS anonymous. Even if the transactions are publicly seeable, no name is put on addresses, and being anonymous this is that.

[NorrisK]

The blockchain is public, so they are free to track and analyze it as much as they want. Good thing if they manage to find IS associated terrorists this way!

I'm afraid they can't do much more than that, as they have no control what so ever over the transaction that take place.