BOYCOTT all businesses associated to Alex Waters, Matt Mellon, and Yifu Guo!

[bluemeanie1]

Meh... as soon as these guys are up and running some other smart guys will come up with a system for "de-sanitizing".

working on it!

[bluemeanie1]

there are a lot of services out there which are a serious threat to privacy.

take Coinapult.  This company has an enormous database of Bitcoin Addresses to Email Addresses.  The NSA routinely buys such companies out(through their partner VC firms) and adds the database to their system for monitoring the populace.

[bluemeanie1]

Remember a couple of years ago all the conspiracy theorists were talking about one world currency, one world government, chips, all that stuff? Every day Bitcoin looks more and more similar to it. Sometimes I think we have been tricked into using a currency that offers us no privacy at all.

Yeah we may become insanely rich, but there is a price we pay for it.

I do also sometimes suspect that Bitcoin was an inside job.

[waxwing]

If you read it closely its not a bad idea.

If I get it right, someone who has a hard time with computers can use this service to get help doing "safe" transactions.
The rest of us opts out obviously.

I don't think you do read it right, at least not in its complete intent. Look at the last paragraph:

Waters says there are a few million Bitcoin addresses with positive balances. “If 10% of those were clean addresses, it would substantially improve the regulatory landscape state-side,” he says. He predicts in the future that every user will have at least one address that’s self identified, “or at least every user who wants to do business in the U.S.”

[Walter Rothbard]

When somebody threatened to compromise the anonymity of actors on the Silk Road, Dread Pirate Roberts (allegedly) ordered a hit on their life.

Was he morally justified?

I don't think so.  My feeling is that if you want privacy and security and anonymity, you have to bear the expense of it yourself.  If Bitcoin can be tracked, and you don't want to be tracked, you need to take the steps to prevent being tracked.

In this case, nobody seems to be advocating use of force against these three.  Avoiding associating with them is probably a good step to avoid being tracked.  But consider that if these three are working on tracking you, others probably will as well.  So boycott alone is probably not sufficient to protect anonymity.  And even if you did cross the line and use or advocate force against them, there could be others out there tracking you that you don't even know about.  If they can do it - so can someone else!

Bitcoin mixers might be a good step to take to preserve anonymity, along with avoiding services that gather information about you.  (Not just these guys - all of them.)

Another good idea might be Zerocoin.  I'm personally hoping that in the near future an altcoin will show up that implements Zerocoin, and it will become possible to exchange between that coin and Bitcoin.  Assuming the ideas behind Zerocoin are sound, that would bring about the anonymity that most of us feel is desirable.

[waxwing]

It isn't actually about mixers, CoinJoin or zerocoin, because it's not a blacklisting approach, but a whitelisting approach.

The scenario they depict is: yes, you can buy stuff from Amazon or any other online shop with bitcoin, but the address you use to buy has to be a pre-sanctioned acceptable address. Mixing doesn't stop this from happening.

[bee7]

I heard that nearly 100% of printed dollar notes have traces of drugs on surface. Does Fed Reserve wash dollars after DEA completes the seeking of sources?

[corebob]

If you read it closely its not a bad idea.

If I get it right, someone who has a hard time with computers can use this service to get help doing "safe" transactions.
The rest of us opts out obviously.

I don't think you do read it right, at least not in its complete intent. Look at the last paragraph:

Waters says there are a few million Bitcoin addresses with positive balances. “If 10% of those were clean addresses, it would substantially improve the regulatory landscape state-side,” he says. He predicts in the future that every user will have at least one address that’s self identified, “or at least every user who wants to do business in the U.S.”

Yea, bad news indeed.

Need a fix for sure

[BitcoinEXpress]

Are there still people that think Bitcoin is anonymous?


~BCX~

[justusranvier]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333117.0

[hathmill]

50% of the fees in a block should be sent as tax to the government and transactions that dont have outputs as tax to government blacklisted. Businesses accepting tainted coins must pay a fine/serve jail time.....

Seriously thinking about selling my btc and buying ltc instead. Less chance ltc coins have blood on them.

[bee7]

50% of the fees in a block should be sent as tax to the government and transactions that dont have outputs as tax to government blacklisted. Businesses accepting tainted coins must pay a fine/serve jail time.....

Seriously thinking about selling my btc and buying ltc instead. Less chance ltc coins have blood on them.

This is a temporary countermeasure

[kwoody]

People are forgetting "Tom" from bitcoinasic.net. Took thousands of preorders for ASIC devices that never ended up existing. I personally lost 220ish BTC to him.

[Melbustus]

this is a bad idea.... very bad idea.

I stand by the boycott and would like to know the specific services i should be boycotting

this must be stopped.

Alex Waters -> Bitinstant
Matt Mellon -> don't know
Yifu Guo -> Avalon


Please feel free to contribute additional information from public sources!


ya.ya.yo!

FYI - Alex Waters hasn't had any involvement with BitInstant for months.


As I've said before, this is a terrible idea. Anything that hinders the core properties of bitcoin as an ideal money, of which fungibility is one, does long-term harm to bitcoin, whatever the motivation. If bitcoin ceases to be a (near)ideal money, this whole thing becomes a lot less interesting.

That said, this is going to happen, whether it's through this company or the next one. If it's at all possible technically, it *will* happen. The bitcoin community needs to be aware of that, and develop technical solutions. Boycotting people or companies won't work. It sounds like CoinJoin is a potential fungibility-preservation tool, and I'd guess that efforts like the above are going to incentivize people to put in some serious work on a Zerocoin-implementing alt sooner rather than later.

[adamstgBit]

this is a bad idea.... very bad idea.

I stand by the boycott and would like to know the specific services i should be boycotting

this must be stopped.

Alex Waters -> Bitinstant
Matt Mellon -> don't know
Yifu Guo -> Avalon


Please feel free to contribute additional information from public sources!


ya.ya.yo!

FYI - Alex Waters hasn't had any involvement with BitInstant for months.


As I've said before, this is a terrible idea. Anything that hinders the core properties of bitcoin as an ideal money, of which fungibility is one, does long-term harm to bitcoin, whatever the motivation. If bitcoin ceases to be a (near)ideal money, this whole thing becomes a lot less interesting.

That said, this is going to happen, whether it's through this company or the next one. If it's at all possible technically, it *will* happen. The bitcoin community needs to be aware of that, and develop technical solutions. Boycotting people or companies won't work. It sounds like CoinJoin is a potential fungibility-preservation tool, and I'd guess that efforts like the above are going to incentivize people to put in some serious work on a Zerocoin-implementing alt sooner rather than later.

yes if its not them it will be someone else, sure, but because its coming from bitcoiners, the community at large might just accept it...

[Melbustus]

this is a bad idea.... very bad idea.

I stand by the boycott and would like to know the specific services i should be boycotting

this must be stopped.

Alex Waters -> Bitinstant
Matt Mellon -> don't know
Yifu Guo -> Avalon


Please feel free to contribute additional information from public sources!


ya.ya.yo!

FYI - Alex Waters hasn't had any involvement with BitInstant for months.


As I've said before, this is a terrible idea. Anything that hinders the core properties of bitcoin as an ideal money, of which fungibility is one, does long-term harm to bitcoin, whatever the motivation. If bitcoin ceases to be a (near)ideal money, this whole thing becomes a lot less interesting.

That said, this is going to happen, whether it's through this company or the next one. If it's at all possible technically, it *will* happen. The bitcoin community needs to be aware of that, and develop technical solutions. Boycotting people or companies won't work. It sounds like CoinJoin is a potential fungibility-preservation tool, and I'd guess that efforts like the above are going to incentivize people to put in some serious work on a Zerocoin-implementing alt sooner rather than later.

yes if its not them it will be someone else, sure, but because its coming from bitcoiners, the community at large might just accept it...

I think it's clear from the responses in this thread already that the community is not going to accept it. Furthermore, there's not much love for Yifu...

[corebob]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333117.0

It appears ZC uses a rather dubious encryption. As of this writing I can't say I trust anything other than Koblitz curves

[Carlton Banks]

I'm very interested to hear what Jon Matonis and the rest of the Bitcoin Foundation crowd have to say about this.

Consider this a "Bitcoin-sign in the sky"

[Painful Truth]

Tons of comments about this also on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qj7sw/sanitizing_bitcoin_this_company_wants_to_track/

 

Edit:

Quote from that reddit thread:

Bitcoins should not be assessed according to where they have been. That would ruin their fungibility and require coin blacklists that would create a central authority.

This post on Reddit explains how in 1749, a court sided with the Royal Bank of Scotland in its legal challenge to a request for such a blacklist. The court ruled that making money responsible for the acts of its previous holders would "render the Notes absolutely useless":

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1le87j/bitcoin_core_dev_on_stolen_coins_and_transaction/cbycmhk

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Not sure  , but maybe this is where genjix gets his dresses: http://hanleymellon.com/

I'm on the fence with this one, albeit leaning toward, "Mongo no like!"