IF the NSA wanted to take control over Bitcoin, how would they do it?

[becoin]

Since I am no terrorist and I have nothing to hide ... go along. I know you are protecting me.

So, in contrast to terrorists law abiding citizens and entities have nothing to hide?!
NSA have a lot to hide... Are they terrorists?

[DimensionZ]

I think the only way to control Bitcoin is to control the developers in charge of developing Bitcoin and if they want to disrupt the Bitcoin network they would need to do a 51% attack but that would need a lot of hash power. But what would the NSA achieve by stopping Bitcoin it's not like they are going to take all our coins and sell them on the market for profit anyway.

[NeuroticFish]

Many people would even agree to it, when they read, that Al-Baghdadi is using Bitcoins to transfer money to his international fight club and there is a need to change some parts of the code, that is EXCLUSIVELY being used to hunt terrorists. Since I am no terrorist and I have nothing to hide ... go along. I know you are protecting me.

For now I suspect quite a lot of people have used Bitcoin to hide big funds (simplest case would be tax evasion). They are not terrorists.
NSA would have, however, only small additions to have to Bitcoin, since the transfers are already somehow traceable.
Blocking addresses would not do much harm since I am certain that for main transfers the terrorists can just learn easily to always use different addresses.
And actually I feel that Bitcoin is safe from NSA intrusion since they don't have much to gain from it and the costs could be big.

[becoin]

And actually I feel that Bitcoin is safe from NSA intrusion since they don't have much to gain from it and the costs could be big.

They don't have much to gain but they have much to lose. Their budget is in dollars not in bitcoins. What will happen if dollar value plummets?

[mki8]

NSA have a lot to hide... Are they terrorists?

fk me...........
no offense personally
but you must be from the states, and dont know how the rest of the world looks at the states

[NeuroticFish]

And actually I feel that Bitcoin is safe from NSA intrusion since they don't have much to gain from it and the costs could be big.

They don't have much to gain but they have much to lose. Their budget is in dollars not in bitcoins. What will happen if dollar value plummets?

Then they will ask the government to print more money and give them more. That's the "beauty" of printed money and governments (and their agencies).

NSA have a lot to hide... Are they terrorists?

fk me...........
no offense personally
but you must be from the states, and dont know how the rest of the world looks at the states

NSA have a lot to hide. The army has a lot to hide. Some of those things are legit. Some may be not. The not legit part is a problem.
But normally such agencies have a lot to hide and it's OK.
I am not from US, but still, while I am (very) far from thinking NSA are saints, I am also sure that Hollywood movies about NSA are... fiction.

[becoin]

But normally such agencies have a lot to hide and it's OK.

Really? Is it really OK? But why for all of us is NOT OK if we hide something? Why are such animals (aka agencies) more equal than others? Are we living in a Democratic Republic or in Orwellian Animal Farm?

If they are special agency then I'm special person... Where can I apply for a special person status, so that I can have the right to hide something?

[AGD]

Since I am no terrorist and I have nothing to hide ... go along. I know you are protecting me.

So, in contrast to terrorists law abiding citizens and entities have nothing to hide?!
NSA have a lot to hide... Are they terrorists?

I should have put this sentence in quotes for a better understanding.

[LCSociety]

Craig White said he was "forced" to speak out. Question is, by whom?

People throw around these three letter abbreviations flippantly, they forget that these agencies, especially the nsa spend 24 hours each and every day monitoring all pockets of activity that occur on the web

If they wanted to infiltrate then, rest assured, they already have

[Jet Cash]

America isn't able to take control of anything. As soon as an entity becomes significant in the world, the managers/owners move it offshore. Look at Google, Apple, Big Pharma etc.

[LCSociety]

America isn't able to take control of anything. As soon as an entity becomes significant in the world, the managers/owners move it offshore. Look at Google, Apple, Big Pharma etc.

The internet is global. No such thing as "offshore" when dealing online. Look what they did to KimDotCom. Full US swat team landed on his property in new Zealand as if it were some slum village in Vietnam.

They took all of his property, froze all of his assets and told him to f** off. The only reason he isn't in jail right now is because he is still able to pay for a credible group of legal advisors

Google, apple, "big pharma" are all huge lobbyists and donate hundereds of millions toward 'their own' political causes in the united states. So you're right. America "isn't able to take control" of these guys, because it is these corporations that control America

If the nsa felt the urge to infiltrate bitcoin, they will have already done this even back when bitcoin was nothing but a seedling of an idea.

Look what they did with the silk road. They didn't wait till it was some rogue rival to GlaxoSmithKline, they penetrated very early and after robbing enough btc over a period of 'years', they brought the entire thing down and made themselves look like the heroes.

Also, the nsa might not want to destroy bitcoin at all.

Bitcoin is actually the wet dream of an agency like the nsa

[fenican]

Agree they love Bitcoin so why kill it? Every transaction in Bitcoin is traceable so once you figure out what address someone is using, usually an easy investigation, you can figure out where all their money went. Contrast with cash where there is no audit trail.

[raphma]

They will need more hash power than the whole world mining today to do a 51% attack, which is probably nit gonna happen. There is no other way to block bitcoins.

Well... that could happen with the new quantum computer but it will need time to nsa put their hands on one of these.
At the same time they want one quantum, companies already work on new cryptography to avoid that, so... it's possible but wont be easy.

I don't see any government succeeding in control bitcoin for now, at least for some years(10+).

[NeuroticFish]

But normally such agencies have a lot to hide and it's OK.

Really? Is it really OK? But why for all of us is NOT OK if we hide something? Why are such animals (aka agencies) more equal than others? Are we living in a Democratic Republic or in Orwellian Animal Farm?

If they are special agency then I'm special person... Where can I apply for a special person status, so that I can have the right to hide something?

If police tells "we think that one of ISIS funders is John Doe from city X, street Y and we go now to catch him", he may just escape. So it's OK to keep secret.
If the army has this and that which could keep the country safe, it's OK to keep it secret, since else the others will build something better.
If NSA can crack Bitcoin and see whoever sends whatever amounts where, they'll keep it secret to find easier the terrorists, the tax evaders and so on, and it's OK.

Of course, they can hide this way also illegal stuff, which obviously is not OK, but that was not my point.

And whether you admit it or not, you have secrets too. And it's OK. Maybe you smoke in secret, or take drugs, maybe you masturbate and would not like everybody to know, maybe you have a mistress, or .. whatever, I hope you've got my point.

[pbleak]

The NSA have no obvious history of doing something like this (the FBI do).

I would imagine it would involve a few tactics:
(a) at least one member in Core providing excellent code for a long time that then begins to cause debate/trouble.
(b) introduce a bug or bad feature that turns users off Bitcoin (that is, destroy the user experience subtly).
(c) encourage further scams or dark net markets to re-associate Bitcoin with crime.
(d) fund counter, centralised blockchains to bleed money from the Bitcoin economy.
(e) fund relatively decent alt-coins to channel money from Bitcoin to fragment the economy.
(f) cause trouble with the mining network wherever possible, disrupt pools, ddos large pools, spread rumours about the Chinese operation.

[RodeoX]

We need to bring back civics education. 

[Cuidler]

To take control over Bitcoin, you need to take control over Bitcoin Core actually. This would be very slow process of infiltration + discrediting estabilished Bitcoin Core members. It would take many years, but quite achievable.

The only possibility of failure to the above strategy would be if in meantime
1) Bitcoin Core lose defacto monopoly in Bitcoin development process
2) miners starts voting only for the BIPs which they believe are benefitical for them, and not just running the latest Bitcoin Core version, thus automatically vote for every new Bitcoin Core BIP proposal by default

[becoin]

.. whatever, I hope you've got my point.

I've got your point. Let me summarize it:
- everybody can have secrets and that is OK
- NSA have secrets and taxpayers are not allowed to know them because taxpayers will not be safe if they know them.
- If taxpayers have secrets NSA have the right to know them because taxpayers will be safe if NSA know their secrets

[NeuroticFish]

.. whatever, I hope you've got my point.

I've got your point. Let me summarize it:
- everybody can have secrets and that is OK
- NSA have secrets and taxpayers are not allowed to know them because taxpayers will not be safe if they know them.
- If taxpayers have secrets NSA have the right to know them because taxpayers will be safe if NSA know their secrets

However silly it sounds, yes, this is the big picture.

The other alternative would be the Eden: no secrets at all, we all go naked, nothing wrong will happen.
I guess that this is what you'd like.
Oh well, the sad truth is that some say that there was a snake in Eden and then everything was ruined.

[JaneEverycunt]

Some ideas on how it could work:

- Read through the connection data (phone,email etc) from key figures of the Bitcoin community to gain insider knowledge
- Infiltrate core development and replace Bitcoin key figures with NSA staff
- Discredit respected members of the community
- Kill people, if they don't corporate.


Are core devs discussing this possiblility of a large scale infiltration and how to avoid?

- Find dirt on devs; offer laughably small sums of money to put on jackboots. Alternative: fed time.
- Offer Chinese miners actual IRL money > 12.5 BTC after the halvening to solve blocks.
- Block port 8333 at provider level.
- Be like Russia and Iceland, make BTC illegal.