Big Brother tracking bitcoin transactions

[Lethn]

Take a look at Bittorrent, that's where we'll be in a couple of years, the U.S will try their best to shut it down and they may get a few sites or companies ( Like they've done with MT.GOX recently ) or they'll try and do the blockade thing that the U.K government is trying to do to stop me from using it but since it's all open source and P2P there will be nothing they can do in the long run to shut it all down. I know it's a bit extreme example but if you for instance get these mad people who would sue you for listening to their music on a radio or looking at a picture of there's on the internet you may as well gouge out their eyes or slice off their ears as punishment because that's the only way you're going to get people to stop doing it and that's because they're trying to punish people for the act of listening or viewing material not actually stealing anything.

That said, these people are that insane they probably would do that if they knew they could get away with it.

[Carlton Banks]

Take a look at Bittorrent, that's where we'll be in a couple of years, the U.S will try their best to shut it down and they may get a few sites or companies ( Like they've done with MT.GOX recently ) or they'll try and do the blockade thing that the U.K government is trying to do to stop me from using it but since it's all open source and P2P there will be nothing they can do in the long run to shut it all down. I know it's a bit extreme example but if you for instance get these mad people who would sue you for listening to their music on a radio or looking at a picture of there's on the internet you may as well gouge out their eyes or slice off their ears as punishment because that's the only way you're going to get people to stop doing it and that's because they're trying to punish people for the act of listening or viewing material not actually stealing anything.

That said, these people are that insane they probably would do that if they knew they could get away with it.

Bit-torrent is very nearly a direct comparison. A transfer protocol that gets blocked at the network level by some ISPs irrespective of the content, and yet BBC Television use the Bit-torrent protocol to reduce their bandwidth costs with their streaming/catch up service. The same ISPs won't be blocking the BBC.

Just like the banks, really: big financial corporations can trade in all sorts of financial instruments both dubious and benign, but Bitcoin users can get victimised for sending or receiving from exchanges. One rule for us, another rule for them.

[zvs]

Should we take a hit on our perceived anonymity for the sake of creating a more viable currency?

Less perceived anonymity does not create a more viable currency.

I don't really care if governments decide to accept Bitcoin or not.

If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Building bridges between the government and existing financial systems absolutely does create a more viable currency.  You SHOULD care if governments accept bitcoins or not because that will have a direct impact on their value and longevity as a storage of wealth. 

I'm assuming the "dogs" in your comment are supposed to be the governments that track revenues for the sake of collecting taxes?  If you currently pay taxes in any way, shape or form you're already "lying down with the dogs" on some level.  Might as well be the top dog if you're there.

if you're paying taxes and doing it properly, all the gpus, asics and such you buy are tax write-offs.  it's not so bad, esp if you are in a high tax bracket

[Tirapon]

Bitcoin was not ment to be a storage of wealth. Only complete idiot would consider something that requires fucking network of computers,
man made shits that can't survive flood, EMP and so many other real world threats, and require electricity to even run, as solid foundation.

Do you have any idea how the current banking system modern western society works?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I'm suggesting that we put together a public, searchable database that cross references people's identities with their bitcoin addresses.  Sort of like a yellow pages for bitcoin.
(...)
Should we take a hit on our perceived anonymity for the sake of creating a more viable currency?

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
- Benjamin Franklin

Also, this idea is unfeasible when you create new address for each payment.

[og kush420]

i agree, this will be a list of people to rob/infect with RAT

[Tirapon]

Bitcoin was not ment to be a storage of wealth. Only complete idiot would consider something that requires fucking network of computers,
man made shits that can't survive flood, EMP and so many other real world threats, and require electricity to even run, as solid foundation.

Do you have any idea how the current banking system modern western society works?

Yes, it is not working very well.

So you understand that we are already completely dependent on a network of computers, the availability of electricity etc. and that floods, EMPs and other real world threats on a level that would threaten the Bitcoin network would already cause devastation to society? And therefore building a protocol on top of this to be used as a currency and using it as a store of wealth is not much further a stretch?

[Dabs]

I'd like to declare my address as "Green". That's one use for such a database of addresses made public and tied to people. You can be 100% sure that any payment from me to you will not be double-spent; there won't be even an attempt to do so.

However, I still recommend you wait for at least 1 confirmation.

Instead of a yellow pages of bitcoin address, I propose a "green pages". How green an address is is left up to the trust and reputation of the owner of that address.

The other problem with this are the following two reasons:
1. I can prove I control an address. I just sign a message or send some coins.
2. I can prove I no longer solely control an address. All I have to do is publish the private key. (Of course, I'd never use that address again.)
3. No one can prove I am linked to any other address, even the one I just sent to. I just claim, I don't have to the private key to that one, or it's not mine.

[St.Bit]

I'd like to declare my address as "Green". That's one use for such a database of addresses made public and tied to people. You can be 100% sure that any payment from me to you will not be double-spent; there won't be even an attempt to do so.

However, I still recommend you wait for at least 1 confirmation.

Instead of a yellow pages of bitcoin address, I propose a "green pages". How green an address is is left up to the trust and reputation of the owner of that address.

Fuck reputation, put some cash on the table if this shouldn't end like the "trust-system" here.

A group of (really really) trustworty people handle some funds for all green adresses. If you want to get on the list that is good for 100BTC you have to pay a insurance premium to that group and they would have to pay any double spends. Giving them the 2nd key to your wallet and that premium would be very small.

[TitanBTC]

Building bridges between the government and existing financial systems absolutely does create a more viable currency.  You SHOULD care if governments accept bitcoins or not because that will have a direct impact on their value and longevity as a storage of wealth.

Bitcoin was not ment to be a storage of wealth. Only complete idiot would consider something that requires fucking network of computers,
man made shits that can't survive flood, EMP and so many other real world threats, and require electricity to even run, as solid foundation.
The idea behind Bitcoin was to buy or mine coins and send them to anyone without some 3rd party being able to prevent you in doing so.
Bitcoin is about machine controled supply of coins. It is about keeping a decent level of privacy when doing something with your money.

It is retards like you, people blinded by opportunity to become rich quick, that are fine with government involvement or whatever. Fuck off!

I'm sorry for whatever I said that directed such a torrent of hateful assumptions towards me.  You must have really been hurt by people that invaded your privacy or took something that was important to you.  I feel your pain, as its happened to me too.  I assure you that I'm merely a pragmatist with no "significant" mental deficiencies that I'm aware of. 

I WILL be honest with you though...Getting rich quick does sound nice.  Getting rich slow would be fine too, am I right?

Being fine with government involvement is quite different than acknowledging that government involvement is inevitable.  We, the torch bearers for this new form of currency, have a choice at the current state of things.  We can either:

1.) Play with our toys in the corner with big brother secretly looking over our shoulders with "dark intentions", or we can

2.) Shake hands with the "enemy" out in the open and create cooperation between bitcoin supporters and goverment entities on mutually beneficial terms. 


I'm simply in favor of the latter, and I don't mind if you disagree with me.

[TitanBTC]

Bitcoin was not ment to be a storage of wealth. Only complete idiot would consider something that requires fucking network of computers,
man made shits that can't survive flood, EMP and so many other real world threats, and require electricity to even run, as solid foundation.

Do you have any idea how the current banking system modern western society works?

Yes, it is not working very well.

So you understand that we are already completely dependent on a network of computers, the availability of electricity etc. and that floods, EMPs and other real world threats on a level that would threaten the Bitcoin network would already cause devastation to society? And therefore building a protocol on top of this to be used as a currency and using it as a store of wealth is not much further a stretch?

Brilliant.  I couldn't have said it better myself. 

Bravo.

[St.Bit]

I don't feel like wasting more of my time on you and alikes. Go ahead, put all your wealth into Bitcoin, I'll be glad to see your kind losing all.

In order for bitcoin to be useable as currency it has to be able to store wealth or nobody would accept them is exchange for something of value. The current market cap is tenfolds to small to handle even all transactions of a bigger town so it's nessasary for some people to put their wealth in it (and some to make some serious money).

You seem to want crypto to get used AND nobody to profit from it that just risked their wealth. One isn't possible without the other.

[lavalampoon]

Should we take a hit on our perceived anonymity for the sake of creating a more viable currency?

We already have a viable currency. What we lack is respectful government. There is no need to modify bitcoin so that governments can infringe on people's rights. If having government intrusion has value then the government can launch their own cryptocurrency and see how many people they can force to use it. We don't need to help them.

You had an interesting idea about getting there first as perhaps a way to strengthen anonymity, but understand that an unjust government will take what they want once you've done the work for them.

[Dabs]

A group of (really really) trustworty people handle some funds for all green adresses. If you want to get on the list that is good for 100BTC you have to pay a insurance premium to that group and they would have to pay any double spends. Giving them the 2nd key to your wallet and that premium would be very small.

That would only work for people who have 100 BTC, and that means either big sites or big online wallets or big exchanges. For everyone else, or for those who don't need the speed, stick to waiting for at least 1 confirmation, since that is free. Or use a wallet like inputs.io where transfers are considered instant (and accepted by at least 1 dice site) if you are impatient.

[St.Bit]

A group of (really really) trustworty people handle some funds for all green adresses. If you want to get on the list that is good for 100BTC you have to pay a insurance premium to that group and they would have to pay any double spends. Giving them the 2nd key to your wallet and that premium would be very small.

That would only work for people who have 100 BTC, and that means either big sites or big online wallets or big exchanges. For everyone else, or for those who don't need the speed, stick to waiting for at least 1 confirmation, since that is free. Or use a wallet like inputs.io where transfers are considered instant (and accepted by at least 1 dice site) if you are impatient.

That wouldn't have to be a big fee, so this could be done as adertisment and quality improvement. There are more ways to screw a customer and a insurance gives an improvement for both. With the insurance group holding a 2nd key of that adress or an other form collateral that fee would be in the area of transaction fee.

Back to topic:
The better way would be if those group of trustworthy handle the proposed "green adresses". They have the 2nd key and the right to freze funds when some basic rules are broken. They know the names of the adresses and are willing (or more realistic forced) to cooperate with gov. This makes BTC no different than bank wires and kills the argument about bitcoin tax avasion.

It's an illusion that BTC stays so unregulated for ever.

[Fuserleer]

I very rarely post in actual BTC forums and mention eMunie, but as someone has piped up with Zerocoin earlier, I thought I would chip in.

For you that dont know, eMunie is NOT a BTC fork.  We started the code from scratch, with a different ideal on how a digital currency could build on BTC strengths and mitigate some of the weaknesses.

eMunie manages both in a lot of area's but the interesting one here is the anonymity.

Very briefly, in our protocol, all transaction data are encrypted with the receivers public key (which can only be decrypted with the private key), signatures are created using a throwaway key pair.  A secret is created which is passed to the receiver in the encrypted data packet for them.  This allows them the verify the senders signature, and also provides the proof required that any particular transaction is owned by who claims it as only the receiver can decrypt that information.

The sender and receiver addresses are never publicly available in the block tree (we use a tree, not a single chain), thus the only parties that know that transaction occurred are the sender and receiver.  Yet with the throw away sig pair, and the generated secret, future spends can be verified without needing to know who sent what to where.

Transaction sizes are marginally larger than a BTC transaction (about 30% or 1.5k on average) as opposed to 30-40kb for Zerocoin.

We believe our protocol is the most secure and anonymous transaction protocol available today with current technology, while still keeping performance high, and storage requirements acceptable.

If you'd like more info on the protocol or anything else to do with the above, feel free to PM me

[Tirapon]

Bitcoin was not ment to be a storage of wealth. Only complete idiot would consider something that requires fucking network of computers,
man made shits that can't survive flood, EMP and so many other real world threats, and require electricity to even run, as solid foundation.

Do you have any idea how the current banking system modern western society works?

Yes, it is not working very well.

So you understand that we are already completely dependent on a network of computers, the availability of electricity etc. and that floods, EMPs and other real world threats on a level that would threaten the Bitcoin network would already cause devastation to society? And therefore building a protocol on top of this to be used as a currency and using it as a store of wealth is not much further a stretch?

I don't feel like wasting more of my time on you and alikes. Go ahead, put all your wealth into Bitcoin, I'll be glad to see your kind losing all.

Its really quite simple - if you have money in the bank, then you are already dependent on 'fucking network of computers that requires electricity to even run'. That shouldn't be too difficult to understand.

Now if you fully expect some sort of apocalyptic mass flooding/asteroid strike/nuclear holocaust etc. to occur any time soon, don't keep your money in the bank, and certainly don't keep any in Bitcoin. Buy gold, silver, tinned food, weapons, ammo, go build a bunker in the woods and start preparing to ride it out.

[b!z]

Bitcoin was not ment to be a storage of wealth. Only complete idiot would consider something that requires fucking network of computers,
man made shits that can't survive flood, EMP and so many other real world threats, and require electricity to even run, as solid foundation.

Do you have any idea how the current banking system modern western society works?

Yes, it is not working very well.

So you understand that we are already completely dependent on a network of computers, the availability of electricity etc. and that floods, EMPs and other real world threats on a level that would threaten the Bitcoin network would already cause devastation to society? And therefore building a protocol on top of this to be used as a currency and using it as a store of wealth is not much further a stretch?

I don't feel like wasting more of my time on you and alikes. Go ahead, put all your wealth into Bitcoin, I'll be glad to see your kind losing all.

I think he is trying to tell you that the world economy relies on computers, and would be affected by an EMP attack, just like Bitcoin. He is not saying it is a good idea to store all your money in BTC.