How governments could destroy bitcoin (for most) in one day

[knybe]

the op assumes bitcoins are stored on a Pc and are able to be deleted.

your personal wallet is just a password file ( your private keys) which give you access to change ownerships of the coins held on the blockchain which is distributed.

so with torrent websites holding many seeds of the latest blockchain database and not everyone doing windows updates to fear their copies of the blockchain/wallet getting destroyed.. there would be very little damage to the network that cant be fixed within 24 hours.

all i would advise is to back up private keys.

It seems that OP's who post threads like this still done quite grasp the concept... it'll sink in.

[coinedBit]

you could be making money by coming up with an Indie movie named "BitCoin - The Heist"...

[franky1]

you could be making money by coming up with an Indie movie named "BitCoin - The Heist"...

+1 many movies can stem off of bitcoin.

not just documentary channel movies but major picture movies like
social network (facebook)
fifth estate(wikileaks)

so imagine a bitcoin major picture, then many major pictures as spin offs which over dramatise bitcoinica and pirate@40 into some kind of die hard esq movie lol

[CasinoBit]

They may be able to kill Bitcoin but they can never kill an idea.

Plus all us tinfoil hat wearing folks would be on our way to forking a new client, we would probably reach the same stage Bitcoin is currently in relatively fast. They will also never get away with that, people are not that brainwashed.

[Ichthyo]

The threat OP outlines would work only if executed in perfection.
As soon as just someone escapes the destructive assault and finds out that there was an intervention which "doesn't sum up", then the effect of such an attack would be the exact opposite as intended: it would strengthen the Bitcoin community and the originators of such an attack would be challenged, drawn to court, or declared as "Terrorists".

Let's put it this way: "THEY" are well aware of the danger of backfiring inherent to such an attack vector. Thus "THEY" will probably prefer less spectacular and less risky attack vectors....

[PrintMule]

Conglaturation!

This thread has earned you, the OP, an honorable IGNORE!

What for? Why would you ignore a guy for some lengthy sci-fi post, and then visit his thread to say that you did?

[high110]

I think this is a risk each individual will have to avoid themselves...having said that...I'm going to get a wallet.

[SilverVigilante]

Bitcoin is far too interesting to just do away with. The academics and technocrats would rather watch. Im not sure what the aliens want.

Www.goldsilverbitcoin.com

[mobile4ever]

I imagined it in more straightforward way - grab some pool owners by the balls, find where majority of asics are located, seize them and make 51% attack.

That would be in the Southern US, and most of them have guns in the house.

[raze]

The media retaliation from this would be horrendous for the companies involved. Can you just imagine if the government/Microsoft/Apple/whoever just started randomly deleting legitimate files from users' computers? I'd hate to be associated with them if something like that did happen. I think an easier way would be to just get rid of the exchanges.

[bytemaster]

Who said such a company would do it in a way that is directly traceable back to them?

[AliceWonder]

If you use OSX, Windows, or any Linux with 'auto-update' then the government has a ready-made backdoor through which they could delete all traces of Bitcoin and their wallets from most computers.

They could send a 'stealth' update through normal channels, most computers would install it.

Mine would only install it if the update was signed by Fedora. I don't see that happening.

[AliceWonder]

Ok, you don't need all vendors to be compromised at once and who said anything about them being 'hacked'.   Governments can easily coerce any large company into signing anything. 

It has never happened before, not with Red Hat / Fedora / Debian / SuSE / etc.

[justusranvier]

I just realized today a very simple reason and practical that governments can not destroy bitcoin. It's the same reason all the money in Hollywood isn't capable of stopping file sharing.

The set of skills needed to stop Bitcoin resides within a fairly well defined group of people. The hearts and minds of that group of people are for the most part on the side of Bitcoin, not governments.

Too much of the necessary talent just can't be bought for that job, and that which can be bought is insufficient when to overcome the opposite such an effort will attract.

[Razick]

If you use OSX, Windows, or any Linux with 'auto-update' then the government has a ready-made backdoor through which they could delete all traces of Bitcoin and their wallets from most computers.

They could send a 'stealth' update through normal channels, most computers would install it.  Then on some specified date all bitcoin related files would be deleted including the client. 

It would probably be an 'unpopular' move, but the government would probably find a way to make it look like a security breach by hackers rather than an intentional attack by government.    They may even 'frame' someone and lock them up so people don't keep looking for the real attacker.

Highly unlikely. All updates by major software vendors are signed, and the signing keys are stored in specially designed hardware. It would be highly unlikely that ALL software vendors had their signing keys compromised.

Even if you were smart enough to have an off-line backup the vast majority would not.

LOL, who doesn't keep backups? It's going to be easier than ever with deterministic wallets.

All 'trust' in the safety of bitcoin wallets would be destroyed taking the value of bitcoin with it.

No, people will just learn to BACKUP THEIR WALLETS.

Ok, you don't need all vendors to be compromised at once and who said anything about them being 'hacked'.   Governments can easily coerce any large company into signing anything.   

Even with a wallet backup, you can have your client patched to steal your password and coins the next time you make a transaction.

Having to basically blackmail so many people would leave a trail. The same way Prism came out, such a huge overstep as this couldn't remain secret. Also, remember that not everyone in the government is willing to stoop so low. All of the recent leaks provide proof of that even if they didn't handle it quite right.

[legitnick]

I dont think this could happen, think about all the government officials who would have to be involved in this. Probably hundreds, to thousands. One of them would say something then mass protests, and a lawsuit against the government