scenarios if US Govt tried to take down bitcoin?

[lorax2013]

Starting with the premise that the US Government tries to take down bitcoin entirely. 

What would be the most likely form(s) of attack? 
Would they be able to keep any viable form of attack secret or shift blame to another entity? 
Which if any methods do you believe would have a likelihood of success given a concerted effort? 
What would very rough dollar cost estimates be for various methods?
Would there be signals of an attack or could this occur with no warning?
Could any responses be developed within the bitcoin framework or do you see another existing or proposed cryptocurrency that would be safe from such attacks?

Sorry I know it is a messy bunch of questions, but perhaps also the most important to consider long-term.

[superresistant]

US have no intention to take it down.

They cannot take it down. Can you take down Internet ?

[Bitemarx]

US have no intention to take it down.

They cannot take it down. Can you take down Internet ?

You opened my eyes, it's obvious now. Thank you !

[p2pbucks]

first they will illegalize bitcoin using some funny excuses (drugs , laundering etc)
second ban bitcoin trading platform & frozen tons of bitcoin related companies' accounts (wall st damn banker are willing to do this)
third assert any bitcoin trading activities with US citizens  is illegal ， prepare to suppress bitcoin companies overseas
fourth arrest tons of people to intimidate you guys

[corebob]

Starting with the premise that the US Government tries to take down bitcoin entirely. 

What would be the most likely form(s) of attack? 
Would they be able to keep any viable form of attack secret or shift blame to another entity? 
Which if any methods do you believe would have a likelihood of success given a concerted effort? 
What would very rough dollar cost estimates be for various methods?
Would there be signals of an attack or could this occur with no warning?
Could any responses be developed within the bitcoin framework or do you see another existing or proposed cryptocurrency that would be safe from such attacks?

Sorry I know it is a messy bunch of questions, but perhaps also the most important to consider long-term.

A couple of thoughts:

- The cryptography could be broken. Nobody would know about it.
- The block chain gets too big to maintain for the average bitcoin user. We would know about it and possibly be able to fix it in time.

[lorax2013]

US have no intention to take it down.

They cannot take it down. Can you take down Internet ?

I want to bypass a side debate on whether they would try to take it down and just begin with the premise they try.  If you want to consider whether they would try such a thing research: Liberty dollar, EGold, MFGlobal, etc. 

As I understand it a 51% attack would be one possibility, but I'm not an expert and really admire the collective knowledge enabled by focused discussion on this forum.

[lorax2013]

first they will illegalize bitcoin using some funny excuses (drugs , laundering etc)
second ban bitcoin trading platform & frozen tons of bitcoin related companies' accounts (wall st damn banker are willing to do this)
third assert any bitcoin trading activities with US citizens  is illegal ， prepare to suppress bitcoin companies overseas
fourth arrest tons of people to intimidate you guys

Yes, I should have said I'm focused on more "techinical" attacks like a 51% attack - things that could take it down worldwide.  I think we have a good idea with precious metals how things would play out with the traditional "make it illegal" approach.

[niothor]

US have no intention to take it down.

They cannot take it down. Can you take down Internet ?

Yes , you can. The free internet project it's just a joke at the moment. The main traffic still relies on cables and satellites.
Take down a few cables like that grandma did in Georgia? (the country/not state) and problem solved.
Also the routing servers can be taken down easily.
I remember somebody saying that the us has 10 times the amount of rockets needed to destroy 90% of the largest databases in the world.

So , yes , it can be done. But nobody is insane enough to try it.

Also , why the internet , just raid the location where the mining pools are take control and ..1 hour , 10 blocks , bitcoin problem solved.
At the moment bitcoin is a grain of sand compared to other things the government is preoccupied.

Hopefully , until it becomes a real problem for them we will fix some of the vulnerabilities.
 

[tvbcof]

I suspect that it would take the form of:

 - bio-metric based positive identification for network access.

 - real-time network utilization analysis.

 - filtering and blocking unauthorized protocols and traffic.

 - multinational carrier level embargoes against non-aligned jurisdictions.

Most people would be mainly not seriously impacted by implementation of most of these things, and all of them could be justified after the promised 'cyber 9/11' which we are assured is coming.

[mmitech]

mining these days is mostly centralized, you have few pools that have the most of the network hash power, p2pool is not that popular which really bothers me, so an attacker (could be US government or any one else) in has to achieve that 51% in order to start his own fork and do a big mess.

the easiest way and most efficient is to heavily DDOS the biggest pools, they say that they are DDOS protected but 100 DDOS protection is a myth, so lets say the attacker can take the biggest 3 pools (BTCguild, GHash.IO, Eligius) this is equal to 66% of the network hash rate.

so the technical aspect of the scenario is possible, but the question that popup is why ? if I have that kind of power I would just mine and make money, because such operation will cost millions of dollars, who wants to invest (lose) millions of dollars to do such thing ?

the million dollar question is what the government and big organizations think of Bitcoin ? in which position Bitcoin stands ? is bitcoin a threat for them ? will they ever regulate bitcoin ?

it is a serious matter that should be discussed but when you have the answers to these questions it will be easier to imagine the 51% attack.

[lorax2013]

so the technical aspect of the scenario is possible, but the question that popup is why ? if I have that kind of power I would just mine and make money, because such operation will cost millions of dollars, who wants to invest (lose) millions of dollars to do such thing ?

the million dollar question is what the government and big organizations think of Bitcoin ? in which position Bitcoin stands ? is bitcoin a threat for them ? will they ever regulate bitcoin ?

it is a serious matter that should be discussed but when you have the answers to these questions it will be easier to imagine the 51% attack.

Thanks for the answers, to diverge again as to why:  If bitcoin continues unchecked it will likely displace fiat currency to a large degree.  Fiat currency is the main power source for the entire banking industry and to a lesser degree the US Govt.  The US / European Establishment are very unlikely to stand by as a large portion of their power structure is dismantled and handed over to diffuse individuals.  You can see already with the Mt Gox account seizure, bank account closures, etc. what the govt/banks think of bitcoin - they want to destroy it.  They have already done the same with EGold, Liberty Dollar, and many others.  However, bitcoin is so widely held, popular, apparently difficult to attack, and clearly a moral good that a traceable attack, at this point, is going to be a last resort.  I'd expect to first see a continued propaganda effort and further attacks on the fiat-bitcoin interface.  This will drive bitcoin further underground and give impetus to the propaganda that it is the currency of illegal activities.  Eventually this can attempt to build public support for destroying bitcoin.  So, back to the most important questions...

[mmitech]

so the technical aspect of the scenario is possible, but the question that popup is why ? if I have that kind of power I would just mine and make money, because such operation will cost millions of dollars, who wants to invest (lose) millions of dollars to do such thing ?

the million dollar question is what the government and big organizations think of Bitcoin ? in which position Bitcoin stands ? is bitcoin a threat for them ? will they ever regulate bitcoin ?

it is a serious matter that should be discussed but when you have the answers to these questions it will be easier to imagine the 51% attack.

Thanks for the answers, to diverge again as to why:  If bitcoin continues unchecked it will likely displace fiat currency to a large degree.  Fiat currency is the main power source for the entire banking industry and to a lesser degree the US Govt.  The US / European Establishment are very unlikely to stand by as a large portion of their power structure is dismantled and handed over to diffuse individuals.  You can see already with the Mt Gox account seizure, bank account closures, etc. what the govt/banks think of bitcoin - they want to destroy it.  They have already done the same with EGold, Liberty Dollar, and many others.  However, bitcoin is so widely held, popular, apparently difficult to attack, and clearly a moral good that a traceable attack, at this point, is going to be a last resort.  I'd expect to first see a continued propaganda effort and further attacks on the fiat-bitcoin interface.  This will drive bitcoin further underground and give impetus to the propaganda that it is the currency of illegal activities.  Eventually this can attempt to build public support for destroying bitcoin.  So, back to the most important questions...

at this point I cant imagine Bitcoin taking over the Fiat system, I might change my point of view when larger adoption appears or when governments make an official statement about the hole thing, but you have no idea of how governments are struggling to change their Falling fiat systems, they know the size of the mess they are dealing with but change is not that simple as we think.

many will disagree about what I will say, but I truly think that regulation is a really important thing here, which bring us back to "technical part" of an attack.

the theory of a 51% attack is possible, the motive is the question again. so lets say, to get a 51% of the network you need around $500 million  worth of equipment add to that electricity AC,internet..... that money will be worth of using only once because when you take Bitcoin down you just achieved something and you lost $500M, but again this doesnt mean the death of Bitcoin.

if you both have $50 billion, would you invest $500 million to "try" to kill a supposed threat, or wouldn't be easier to take the ride and invest and double/triple/... your money.

I understand you input here, I just want to convince my self why anyone will try to kill Bitcoin. because you know if they wanted to do it, they could do it long ago when people used to mine with CPU then GPU. which again bring another question, if governments and banks hate bitcoin, why didn't they compromise the network when it was smaller and weaker ?


 

[Hawker]

A government will spend a few billion dollars on paperclips or prison overtime or endless wasteful projects.  The easiest way for any government to take down Bitcoin is to invest a few billion in mining kit and hoard all they produce.  They would force up the difficulty while having the ability to flood the market so other miners would be pushed out.

Or they could just buy all Bitcoin.  Again, a few billion is peanuts to a government.

[CIYAM]

Or they could just buy all Bitcoin.  Again, a few billion is peanuts to a government.

I won't sell my very last bitcoin for anything less than a billion and assuming enough others are willing to do the same as myself then no government will ever be able to buy all the bitcoins.

[Hawker]

Or they could just buy all Bitcoin.  Again, a few billion is peanuts to a government.

I won't sell my very last bitcoin for anything less than a billion and assuming enough others are willing to do the same as myself then no government will ever be able to buy all the bitcoins.

Think about that for a second.  All new Bitcoin would be produced and hoarded by the government.  The government is buying all Bitcoin so everyone does as you will do and hoards forever.  Users will move to an altcoin for gambling or drugs or remittances and Bitcoin will be a footnote in history.

Isn't that it - game over - Bitcoin dead?

[mmitech]

A government will spend a few billion dollars on paperclips or prison overtime or endless wasteful projects.  The easiest way for any government to take down Bitcoin is to invest a few billion in mining kit and hoard all they produce.  They would force up the difficulty while having the ability to flood the market so other miners would be pushed out.

Or they could just buy all Bitcoin.  Again, a few billion is peanuts to a government.

yes it seems that I've been a bit ignorant, you remind me about the stupidity of some politicians, I forgot about the billions spent for endless and meaningless war, I guess you are right.

[Hawker]

A government will spend a few billion dollars on paperclips or prison overtime or endless wasteful projects.  The easiest way for any government to take down Bitcoin is to invest a few billion in mining kit and hoard all they produce.  They would force up the difficulty while having the ability to flood the market so other miners would be pushed out.

Or they could just buy all Bitcoin.  Again, a few billion is peanuts to a government.

yes it seems that I've been a bit ignorant, you remind me about the stupidity of some politicians, I forgot about the billions spent for endless and meaningless war, I guess you are right.

Well I agree with your conclusion.  The government would have made us all rich and we would be repeating the process with an altcoin so the government would be making us all rich again.  So Bitcoin is safe - no government will bother doing that. 

But if they did want to destroy Bitcoin it seems they can do so just by investing in mining kit.

[superresistant]

Think about that for a second.  All new Bitcoin would be produced and hoarded by the government.  The government is buying all Bitcoin so everyone does as you will do and hoards forever.  Users will move to an altcoin for gambling or drugs or remittances and Bitcoin will be a footnote in history.
Isn't that it - game over - Bitcoin dead?

Yeah you forgot a detail : take down Bitcoin, you have 10 others Altcoins coming. It's is infinite. Bitcoin is not just a digital currency : it is an idea. You can't stop an idea.

[CIYAM]

Think about that for a second.  All new Bitcoin would be produced and hoarded by the government.  The government is buying all Bitcoin so everyone does as you will do and hoards forever.  Users will move to an altcoin for gambling or drugs or remittances and Bitcoin will be a footnote in history.

Isn't that it - game over - Bitcoin dead?

I think this answers it:

Well I agree with your conclusion.  The government would have made us all rich and we would be repeating the process with an altcoin so the government would be making us all rich again.  So Bitcoin is safe - no government will bother doing that.  

[Hawker]

Think about that for a second.  All new Bitcoin would be produced and hoarded by the government.  The government is buying all Bitcoin so everyone does as you will do and hoards forever.  Users will move to an altcoin for gambling or drugs or remittances and Bitcoin will be a footnote in history.

Isn't that it - game over - Bitcoin dead?

I think this answers it:

Well I agree with your conclusion.  The government would have made us all rich and we would be repeating the process with an altcoin so the government would be making us all rich again.  So Bitcoin is safe - no government will bother doing that.  

My God we are all in agreement.  Shall I ask a moderator to lock and delete the thread before the thing gets contagious???