Preventing Government And Corporate Control Of Bitcoin - Need New Approach?

[JuenoMT]

 Hello, I am starting this thread in hopes of spurring certain bitcoin related software changes and software developments that will protect the bitcoin ideology from various government and corporate interference. Please join me in this discussion by making useful contributions to the topic, lets have a honest and useful debate that results in some really good and insightful code!

 I was watching a few videos about what the US government hopes to do as far as regulating crypto-currencies. From everything that I was able to observe, the only leverage that any government or corporation could possible have over the bitcoin network is the private business that uses bitcoin. All the bitcoin exchanges are vulnerable to government regulation and corporate manipulation and business can be required to document customers and purchases in association with any data that can accompanies a bitcoin transaction. Any government, if they choose to do so, can or in the future be capable of recording nearly all communications across the bitcoin network within their jurisdiction. Having this datum recorded any government would be able to use software to mine information that highlights certain patterns of use. For the government, those patterns would reveal much useful information, possibly including the identity of those involved in any given transaction.

 I understand that the US and other governments (as well as many individuals, including myself) around the world have legitimate concerns about how currencies are used for illegal activities including terrorism. But, what can reasonably be defined illegal or terrorism is not so easy as is evident with an increasing number of absurd legal actions that have, for the last ten or so years, been documented in the media (and lets not forget those cases that the media has colluded with the government to suppress, has not heard of or has just outright ignored.) I and many others have concerns about government and corporate abuses, manipulations, immoral activities and immoral, unconstitutional or overbearing laws. Unfortunately the laws, specifically but not limited to the US, that are meant to protect the public interest has (as should be expected) been perverted by the law makers and law enforcers (for many various reasoning.) For (at least) decades many US citizens have believed that the US government has been irresponsible with the scope of law created to govern the people (power begets power, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.) Our current age holds the most danger to the ideas of 'freedom for all' that the US citizenship holds so dear. Those who think they are protecting the 'American way of life,' are (at an ever increasing rate) blindly destroying the very spirit of that which they claim to be protecting. Fools abound and are in greater numbers than the wise by far. The foolish, blind or misguided mentality is about to bring its full focus on the bitcoin community and the bitcoin network in general and we as a community have a very short time to prevent undue and unwarranted government intervention.

 I wish I had more time to elaborate on my insights and I will in the future. For now I will list a few things that I believe will prevent some of the issues that bitcoin will soon face, then I will elaborate at a later time to better define each concept.

 1. Bitcoin needs a built-in anonymous (IP) transaction system. (EDIT: I know its in the works but needs expedited.)
 
 2. Bitcoin needs an anonymous peer-to-peer, decentralized currency exchange system. (EDIT: In addition, a peer-to-peer commodities exchange.)

 3. Let the governments regulate their internal and international business but insure that bitcoin remain useful and anonymous much in the same way as using cash is today (i.e.... no government or corporate tracking of private transactions.)

 I know that this list is incomplete, I will be adding other points as time goes on and I hope that you will also contribute your insights as well.

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[StewieG]

"I understand that the US and other governments (as well as many individuals, including myself) around the world have legitimate concerns about how currencies are used for illegal activities including terrorism" ...yeah right, as soon as I hear "terrorism" I click unwatch... Can somebody please ban US Dollars, I think they are used to spy on like EVERYONE... #Ifeelterrorizedbyamericalol

[vaio127]

Think we need to bring up that very relevant quote by Benjamin Franklin at this time.

Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

[JuenoMT]

 In response to vaio127 and StewieG, I am rather confused by your replies.
 
 Both of you, by the nature of your responses, seem to think that I somehow advocate for governments spying on its citizens. If you actually read the entire post I am certain that you would realize that I am saying just the opposite. To say that I understand why governments and individuals would want to do these things IS NOT the same as saying that I am in favor of such activities by any government or individual. What I do advocate for is an early recognition of the possible issues regarding bitcoin and in turn early action in order to prevent those issues from becoming realized.
 
 To vaio127, I agree with you and old Ben. Even so, I cannot tell if you are in support of my posit or if you have misread it because offering a quotation that is only loosely relevant to my post in essence offers nothing. I would like your participation in this topic discussion, I just wish that you would elaborate at least a little about what you are trying to convey.
 
 To StewieG, I don't see how your comments are helpful. If you truly despise government or corporate control over peoples lives then you are also someone whom I would like to contribute to this topic. My only issue is that your approach is combative in nature and is more likely to offend people and create artificial arguments over issues that are not relevant. It is useless to point a finger of blame at any given country for several reasons. First off (directly addressing your comment), it would be folly to think that the vast majority of US citizens are in favor of their governments activities on this matter (assuming that those US Citizens actually KNOW what their government is doing in their names.) That, I believe, as a general rule goes for most people in most countries. The real issue is rarely the people of a nation but rather that certain personality types tend to fill seats of power within governments and many of those personality types tend to believe that they have a (sometimes divine) right to dictate their own morality onto others and another personality type tends to exist as support for the former and just follows the rules, no matter what those rules might be. Finger pointing can also be counterproductive because people tend to think of their national identity in much the of same way as they do their family identity, in other words, you may not like Uncle Sam very much at all but he is family. So insulting a persons country is often just asking for a fight (even if they know that you might be right.) Advocating actions that would bring hardship onto others is not the correct approach for solving this kind of issue. In fact, that type of mentality is the same mentality that can bring about the type of behavior that this topic is meant to thwart. It is better to refrain from negative comments about individuals or an individuals country (let them do that themselves.) Instead, I want this thread to be about practical solutions to potential weakness' in the bitcoin software and other related systems.
 
 I do not want this thread moved to the politics board, lets just talk about bitcoins code and bitcoins supporting systems, potential abuses of bitcoins code and supporting systems and how we are going to solve these potential issues.

[StewieG]

It is useless to point a finger of blame at any given country for several reasons. First off (directly addressing your comment), it would be folly to think that the vast majority of US citizens are in favor of their governments activities on this matter (assuming that those US Citizens actually KNOW what their government is doing in their names.) That, I believe, as a general rule goes for most people in most countries. The real issue is rarely the people of a nation but rather that certain personality types tend to fill seats of power within governments and many of those personality types tend to believe that they have a (sometimes divine) right to dictate their own morality onto others and another personality type tends to exist as support for the former and just follows the rules, no matter what those rules might be. Finger pointing can also be counterproductive because people tend to think of their national identity in much the of same way as they do their family identity, in other words, you may not like Uncle Sam very much at all but he is family. So insulting a persons country is often just asking for a fight (even if they know that you might be right.)

Dude I´m not fingerpointing at all, I´m naming facts. US government is spying on all they can, if you don´t agree on that the conversation from my side is over. Also I think there is no need to prevent any ban on bitcoin, if government wants to ban it then they will(look at Thailand), I don´t know what to prevent there, the bitcoin protocol is just fine. Is there any reason to believe the US will ban btc in the near future? I don´t think so, so what is this topic about? Especially this terrorism argument, ridiculous... how would you support terrorism with bitcoins, you think the terrorists change bitcoins on MtGox or at Localbitcoins or what? I think there are far more US dollars involved in terrorism than bitcoins. And why does it say we need a new approach? Was there ever an old approach? Did I miss something???!? Please remove this thread or at least move it to politics. Ah yeah I don´t know how I insulted America? Was it the they spy on everyone argument or the US Dollars are involved in terrorism argument? I know saying the Dollar supports terrorism is as stupid as saying drugs support terrorism. (Am I even allowed to write the word terrorism on the internet without ending on some US-Nofly-watchlist-like bs??)It sounds kind of fanatic to me when you say that when I insult uncle bam I also insult your family.(Hope uncle sam won´t bomb my house now...)

[Ola]

"2. Bitcoin needs an anonymous peer-to-peer, decentralized currency exchange system."

This is a big step that needs implementation fast!!! I have spend the last couple of months working on such a systems. Within the next two months I will launching into private beta. I am taking a poll here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281096.0

This will help me decide what kind of support I will get from the bitcoin community in general before I release the details of the project and create a campaign to fundraise. Let me know your opinions in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281096.0

[JuenoMT]

"2. Bitcoin needs an anonymous peer-to-peer, decentralized currency exchange system."

This is a big step that needs implementation fast!!! I have spend the last couple of months working on such a systems. Within the next two months I will launching into private beta. I am taking a poll here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281096.0

This will help me decide what kind of support I will get from the bitcoin community in general before I release the details of the project and create a campaign to fundraise. Let me know your opinions in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281096.0

I like your idea in concept, yet what I am suggesting is an open-source peer-to-peer exchange. Any exchange that is owned or controlled by a small private group can be controlled and manipulated by outside powers of influence such as a legal system, government body or unscrupulous corporation.

[Ola]

"2. Bitcoin needs an anonymous peer-to-peer, decentralized currency exchange system."

This is a big step that needs implementation fast!!! I have spend the last couple of months working on such a systems. Within the next two months I will launching into private beta. I am taking a poll here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281096.0

This will help me decide what kind of support I will get from the bitcoin community in general before I release the details of the project and create a campaign to fundraise. Let me know your opinions in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281096.0

I like your idea in concept, yet what I am suggesting is an open-source peer-to-peer exchange. Any exchange that is owned or controlled by a small private group can be controlled and manipulated by outside powers of influence such as a legal system, government body or unscrupulous corporation.

As a point of correction, the point of this idea is to eventually build the solution into a semi-p2p software with no one single point of failure. It is going to be basically, a peer to peer exchange. To put it more accurately a "peer to peer scalable dispute resolution service". The Solution will be completely resilient to censorship and government control.

Secondly "the entity/ developers or business" will only be needed to develop and guide the solution in the right track. Every other process: Like the exchanges and rules of value exchange are dictated by the traders, secured with front-end encryption and enforced by a pseudonymously represented third party when there is a dispute between traders. In the early stages (pre-p2p version) Even if government tries, there is nothing to seize, just Hash of encrypted contracts and a list and credential of the mediators.

Third parties (mediators) are blind to the process unless a trader raises a dispute, in which case each party(trader) has to decrypt contracts and provide evidence support contract fulfillment to be able to win dispute. Mediators are involved though multi-signature transactions and are incentivized to make the right decision by gamified system of payment and other peer mediator assessments. The possibility of an unscrupulous entity does not apply in the case because traders set their own rules and protocols and bring in a blind third party to make a decision based on evidence and pre-agreements.

The solution will be centralized initially due to the limited human and financial capital. It is the goal to port the solution into a p2p software. Also early centralization will help adoption through various Web marketing techniques..i.e SEO, social media marketing etc.
I have decided that I will be putting the project up for crowd funding even though I did not see a large response to the poll.

[JuenoMT]

As a point of correction,..

 That's what I thought, and I think it is a good idea. My only reservation is the tendency for people to want to continue to keep a good thing going when there is money involved. I trust you in the since that you are sincere and intend to make this a public p2p system. The problem that could arise is some of the other people involved in the project, especially if you have a viable product. There is nothing to stop a wealthy banking organization from bribing one of your developers to feed them project updates or code. They could release their own client and spend way more money to market and develop it than you could or just make an offer that the board of your organization just can not refuse, even without your consent and against your strongest objections. That's why I believe it should be open-source from the start.

 Its not that I think your idea is not a good one, it is. Its just that I do not trust human nature when there is potentially a great deal of wealth involved. Just because it is started out with good intentions doesn't mean that it will stay that way as things develop and more people get involved.

 I'm not trying to discourage you. I hope to inspire you to think of ways to prevent such a thing from happening to your vision.

[Ola]

As a point of correction,..

 That's what I thought, and I think it is a good idea. My only reservation is the tendency for people to want to continue to keep a good thing going when there is money involved. I trust you in the since that you are sincere and intend to make this a public p2p system. The problem that could arise is some of the other people involved in the project, especially if you have a viable product. There is nothing to stop a wealthy banking organization from bribing one of your developers to feed them project updates or code. They could release their own client and spend way more money to market and develop it than you could or just make an offer that the board of your organization just can not refuse, even without your consent and against your strongest objections. That's why I believe it should be open-source from the start.

 Its not that I think your idea is not a good one, it is. Its just that I do not trust human nature when there is potentially a great deal of wealth involved. Just because it is started out with good intentions doesn't mean that it will stay that way as things develop and more people get involved.

 I'm not trying to discourage you. I hope to inspire you to think of ways to prevent such a thing from happening to your vision.

Totally understood thanks for your objective point of view. People are not perfect same can be said about their nature. I have though about this issue and I struggle with the final answer to the question. One of the options I though about was to follow satosshi dice's lead and be an "unregistered corporation", crowdfund human, financial capital and make the funders part of the stake holders who's votes count toward any strategic decision intended by the company. That way the funders interest will be continuously aligned with the initial core goals of the project which can never be changed. I am assuming there will be more than 1000 funders and all of them will be people who see the need for an unregulated decentralized exchange and will not easily convinced unanimously to adulterate their convictions.
The structure and plan protecting the initial goals of the service is not the clearest at this point and is one that has to be discussed thoroughly among stakeholders and board of the "company". As for the bribery scenario, I think the same is true for open source software: bitcoin, open transactions..these are are all open source software available to the public. Yet not one big corporation has taken the initiative to fork and create their own system. The point is big companies historically do not move fast and because of that startups and small innovative projects will continue to have the first mover advantage which has some serious  implications for customer switching costs.

Also the "core system" built around the bitcoin protocol enabling such an idea like mines to exist is already filed at the patent office. So I think any collusion between core developer and another unscrupulous entity will be futile at best in the long run.

[JuenoMT]

Totally understood thanks for your objective point of view. People are not perfect same can...

 Glad to hear that you have given the issue some thought, one suggestion is that the goal of public ownership be heavily emphasized with monthly meetings whose only purpose is to discuss the status of this final event for the 'company' and what needs to be done to continue to move the 'company' towards that goal. The reason for making the meetings singularly focused on the specific goal of releasing the whole system to public ownership and not discussing the goal as part of a list of agenda's at a regular board meeting is to make the meeting feel like a very special event. This will induce a sense in all the participants that the whole purpose for their involvement is a sacred and solemn duty. Such practices are based on social engineering (i.e.. people tend to go with the crowd, so to speak, they follow a group thinking and look towards others to indicate whether or not the are doing what the group expects of them, if not they will feel pressure to conform to the group even if they do not agree with the group, especially when the goal is given the importance of higher social and emotional meaning... it works, very well in fact, even in extreme circumstances, just ask any German who was an adult during WWII.) Another thing you might consider is a strongly worded, legal sounding TOS and contracts for each type of participant, this is an effective way of discouraging decent (even if the contracts have no teeth, perception is on the order of 90% of the cause for compliance.) I think a combination, with the two concepts heavily woven together in all documentation that relates to either subject and constant reminders in just about any kind of communication media within and without the 'company' would be particularly effective. (Of course, caution would be in order, too much emphases could cause desensitization, undoing a lot of hard work... so maybe the use of a subconscious indicator like a meaningful symbol would be more effective but not be overbearing... think about Germany again, what symbol comes to mind?)  

 Since we are talking about perception, let me mention how that affects business decision. You are correct about the fact that there are lots of open source projects that are not being adopted by business.' There are, however, many examples of once open-source projects going private or being sold to industry, so it can happen. Most of the open-source projects of note are geared towards developing software that already exists commercially but are very expensive. So the reason for starting many of these open-source projects is because a group of people, or an individual, wants to benefit from the program features but can not afford, or does not want to spend the money to acquire the program.  In lieu of these fact, since the market is already represented by commercial software, there is little incentive for a company to purchase or steal open-source developments unless there is a true innovation produced by the open-source project. Alternatively, to a lesser extent, other reasons for starting an open-source project is that it may have been necessitated by a student project and randomly selected, additionally, groups or an individual might be inspired by curiosity about how code for a specific type of software might function or these individuals believe that they can make a specific type of software better than what is available commercially. Or, it could easily be any combination of a number of these or similar reasons. Other open-source projects of lesser notability are often in niche` areas of which the general public has little interest. A few examples would be: Specific applications needed by specific industry, areas of scientific research, purely academic in nature and many other specialized areas and professions. And lets not forget those whose reasons are simply that they love to code or the challenge of the coding, was bored and had nothing better to do or inspired by a dream or grand vision, and those who believe they can solve a problem, the list goes on... Most of the open-source projects that have gone private are from the second and third grouping of sources, they are the areas of interest that is most likely to produce something unique, innovative and disruptive to the status quo...  

 Your project falls under the specific niche` category. What makes your project more likely to have issues with privatization and other major concerns is that it involves several key elements that will bring it a great deal of attention. Most notably, MONEY. But besides that, such systems as yours are a threat to many of the powers within human society. To name the most significant: Politics, Big Industry, World Banking and Trading Organizations and a host of very old and long established Institutions. All of which have a vested interest in the potential effects of systems such as yours on these establishments seats of Power and Prestige. I would not underestimate the voracity and aggressive potential of these powerful, well entrenched beasts of human pride and social positioning if they perceive themselves as having been backed into a corner with few options to escape. It is best to recognize and address any potential threats from any of these institutions to our freedoms as early as possible. That way, we as a group are prepared and can address such issues with how we write are code and organize the structure of our systems so that: One. There is nothing these institutions can do to stop us - Two. That the old system of profit and power will still have a say, but rather only in the manner that we design into our systems that insures fairness and justice for ALL, and not in the specialized way that easily allows the system to be manipulated by bad players such as the current system allows.  

[Ola]

I don't even know how to begin to respond to your insight...but

 "Glad to hear that you have given the issue some thought, one suggestion is that the goal of public ownership be heavily emphasized with monthly meetings whose only purpose is to discuss the status of this final event for the 'company' and what needs to be done to continue to move the 'company' towards that goal. The reason for making the meetings singularly focused on the specific goal of releasing the whole system to public ownership and not discussing the goal as part of a list of agenda's at a regular board meeting is to make the meeting feel like a very special event. This will induce a sense in all the participants that the whole purpose for their involvement is a sacred and solemn duty. Such practices are based on social engineering (i.e.. people tend to go with the crowd, so to speak, they follow a group thinking and look towards others to indicate whether or not the are doing what the group expects of them, if not they will feel pressure to conform to the group even if they do not agree with the group, especially when the goal is given the importance of higher social and emotional meaning... it works, very well in fact, even in extreme circumstances, just ask any German who was an adult during WWII.) Another thing you might consider is a strongly worded, legal sounding TOS and contracts for each type of participant, this is an effective way of discouraging decent (even if the contracts have no teeth, perception is on the order of 90% of the cause for compliance.) I think a combination, with the two concepts heavily woven together in all documentation that relates to either subject and constant reminders in just about any kind of communication media within and without the 'company' would be particularly effective."

this is something i have thought about and provided an reward incentive...The feeling and ability to meet and discuss or cast your vote online in the scenario that you couldn't make a meeting as a board member.

As for entities that may be interested in adulterating initial goals of the project, I think decentralization as an eventual but primary goal will solve the problem. This will be a profit yielding project and there is no doubt it will attract a lot of attention, maybe even from the entities that want control. But  at the core DNA the project will be one that cannot be changed without breaking the whole system and completely pissing off everyone of the patrons of the service.

You should comment on the thread once I launch it on bitcoinstarter. You will also get to see the reward structure and how it plays to make the funders feel like they have the power to control the destiny of the project. You will get an invite within 2 days.

[JuenoMT]

I an tell this means alot to you, with enough will and drive you just might overcome these obstacles. Can't wait to see the results!

 Good Luck!