Mike Hearn, Foundation's Law & Policy Chair, is pushing blacklists right now

[solex]

I do not understand why  Mike Hearn hasn't come on any of these threads to say anything at all about this project.

If this is a temporary ploy to make Bitcoin look more benign to the US Senate - then it is a stupid, counter-productive move.

It is total insanity to "redlist", blacklist or mark any coins as tainted. This is centralized censorship. What if coins are redlisted because they are owned by someone with political views that the government does not like? Any redlisting is a cancer on Bitcoin.

Mike, please retract this proposal, and focus on scalability - which is your forte!

here's the thing.
you/we can't afford to have ANY coins taken out of circulation due to redlisting.  that mere act alone will destroy your remaining coin's value.

Correct.

[millsdmb]

Like it or not, bitcoin regulation IS coming to the USA. If you want to be heard then write. Not here, write your representatives. If you want no regulation then write your own code and fork the chain. Maybe someone will use your alt-coin.

Bitcoin will be the shittiest alt-coin if what you say is true.

It's not happening.

[FreeMoney]

If people making lists and refusing to honor valid transactions can kill Bitcoin then Bitcoin sucks. To be clear, Bitcoin doesn't suck.

[Rygon]

There is already a proven solution to the problem they are trying to solve by blacklisting. It's called regular old school law enforcement of crimes. DPR made money illegally using bitcoin, but was tracked down outside of the blockchain and the FBI got those coins. That other Pirate guy was also brought to trial for the Ponzi scheme, and all of that happened outside the blockchain. They will probably track down criminals profiting from Cryptolocker too, and without having to rely on some process for blacklisting coins.

[westkybitcoins]

reddit discussion

Hearn posted the following message to the legal section of the members-only foundation forum: https://bitcoinfoundation.org/forum/index.php?/topic/505-coin-tracking/ If you're not a member, you don't have access. I obtained this with the help of a foundation member who asked to remain private.

He's promoted blacklists before, but Hearn is now a Bitcoin Foundation insider and as Chair of the Foundations Law & Policy committee he is pushing the Foundation to adopt policies approving the idea of blacklisting coins. I also find it darkly amusing that he's now decided to call the idea "redlists", perhaps he has learned a thing or two about PR in the past few months.

All Bitcoin investors need to make it loud and clear that attacking the decentralization and fungibility of our coins is unacceptable. We need to demand that Hearn disclose any and all involvement with the Coin Validation startup. We need to demand that the Foundation make a clear statement that they do not and will not support blacklists. We need to demand that the Foundation support and will continue to support technologies such as CoinJoin and CoinSwap to ensure all Bitcoin owners can transact without revealing private financial information.

Anything less is unacceptable. Remember that the value of your Bitcoins depends on you being able to spend them.

+1

Blacklisting IS unacceptable. Totally.

What will Hearn do when such actions either (1) cause the implementation of routines that effectively make ALL bitcoins totally anonymous, or (2) result in a hard fork of the system?

[westkybitcoins]

The Bitcoin Foundation members starting to show their true colors..

I do not think they are lobbying for Bitcoin user's best interests, but instead to promote government agenda.

This seemed the most likely scenario right from the start.

[dewdeded]

Mike does not decide, lawmakers will. Have you contacted your congressman, senator, any regulator? No?, then I guess his opinion trumps yours.
You will get nothing complaining here. Like it or not, bitcoin regulation IS coming to the USA. If you want to be heard then write. Not here, write your representatives. If you want no regulation then write your own code and fork the chain. Maybe someone will use your alt-coin.

Better you fork your US-version of Bitcoin.

Because you fork the project with your US bullshit. Not the people that want no regulation.

Regulation is the end of bitcoin.

[Cubic Earth]

The idea of 'redlisting' is unstoppable.  I don't like it, but you certainly don't need the foundation or the US government to do it.  Any one, anywhere, is free to analyze the blockchain and issue statements and reports based on what they find.  In fact, there will by many different 'redlists'.  It will be a free market unto itself, and people can choose what list, if any, they want to pay attention to.

If 'redlisting' can kill bitcoin, than it is already dead.

[12648430]

The idea of 'redlisting' is unstoppable.  I don't like it, but you certainly don't need the foundation or the US government to do it.  Any one, anywhere, is free to analyze the blockchain and issue statements and reports based on what they find.  In fact, there will by many different 'redlists'.  It will be a free market unto itself, and people can choose what list, if any, they want to pay attention to.

A redlist accomplishes nothing as long as there is a significant proportion of people who don't recognize it, that people with redlisted coins can use to "wash" them (with or without their knowledge). So as long as at least one major client doesn't enable a particular redlist by default, that redlist is ineffective.

[bg002h]

I think the foundation needs to have a policy on the issue. It think it's a non-starter, but, the foundation will be asked about it and the entire community needs a reply better thought out than "no."

Besides, the government doesn't need permission to make it's own such list. It's not on the table to put this inside the protocol (the wallet, sure, but not the protocol).

[Cubic Earth]

The idea of 'redlisting' is unstoppable.  I don't like it, but you certainly don't need the foundation or the US government to do it.  Any one, anywhere, is free to analyze the blockchain and issue statements and reports based on what they find.  In fact, there will by many different 'redlists'.  It will be a free market unto itself, and people can choose what list, if any, they want to pay attention to.

A redlist accomplishes nothing as long as there is a significant proportion of people who don't recognize it, that people with redlisted coins can use to "wash" them (with or without their knowledge). So as long as at least one major client doesn't enable a particular redlist by default, that redlist is ineffective.

I didn't say a particular 'redlist' would be effective, I just said many would exist.  I agree with what you said.  People need not fear a redlist, but they should fear an effective redlist.

[acoindr]

Hmm, my understanding is Mike Hearn works with Google account security, so I can understand him having a heightened crime fighting mentality. At the same time I hope he really thinks through the slippery slope blacklists can be. It's the same sort of problem as the Bitcoin Foundation itself, which I actually think is a good idea but vehemently objected to initially for not having checks on influence/power (see here for what changed my mind). It's not the original implementation of such things people have a problem with, but rather what they open the door to.

As I mentioned in arguing against the Foundation a great example is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve we have today acts very different than the one lawmakers brought into existence in 1913, and which I'm sure a few long forgotten voices objected to. So it seems Mike is interested in exploring the idea. I don't know that that in itself is alarming. I would caution, however, that broaching this subject requires the care of handling an atomic reactor.

[bluemeanie1]

Anything less is unacceptable. Remember that the value of your Bitcoins depends on you being able to spend them.

good points.  I think a lot of what is happening right now is that the empowered insiders are exploiting the general public's perceptions about Bitcoin(p2p, decentralized, etc.).

[Melbustus]

A few points:

1) This is obviously a terrible idea. Anything that reduces fungibility inherently reduces bitcoin's properties as an ideal money, and to me, that makes this whole experiment much less interesting.

2) I believe Mike's motivations are pure, in that he wants to prevent the situations he alludes to (the old lady getting taken by CryptoLocker). Unfortunately it's an ugly slippery slope littered with good intentions. The treatment eventually becomes far worse than the disease.

3) Unfortunately if black/red lists *can* happen, they will. This has been a known issue for a while, and it's not surprising that people are starting to implement such ideas. The counter-measures MUST BE TECHNICAL. If Mike flipped his opinion, it'd still happen. If CoinValidation disappeared, it'd still happen. Boycotting people, business, the foundation, etc, is not an effective response. Either tech like CoinJoin or ZeroCoin becomes production-ready, or we end up with a sea of "these-coins-are-special" lists.


For the record, if these list services develop and gain marketplace traction without any technical means to make them irrelevant, I'm done with bitcoin (that's a tough statement for me to make). And, no, I don't have any interest in doing anything illegal with bitcoin... It's just clear that a robust redlist ecosystem will create a gradient of coins, which will make things ugly, difficult to understand/manage, and ultimately a couple orders of magnitude less useful and interesting than bitcoin currently is.

[corebob]

I think the foundation needs to have a policy on the issue. It think it's a non-starter, but, the foundation will be asked about it and the entire community needs a reply better thought out than "no."

Besides, the government doesn't need permission to make it's own such list. It's not on the table to put this inside the protocol (the wallet, sure, but not the protocol).

By all means put it in the protocol, because if you succeed we all need to go back to the drawing boards

[2weiX]

I have some time now been of the opinion that the path of that salad-tossing, self-empowering, self-interest-serving "Foundation" towards Washington (and selfproclaimed rulership of bitcoin associatens) was what might be able to bring a slow, regulation-choked death to bitcoin.

Boy was I wrong!

The Foundation, if they support this in any which way, is actually bringing a quick, traiterous, back-stabbing death to all ideals, hopes and high goals that millions, billions (!) of people could have lived up and through bitcoin.

Thanks for nothing, ass-wads.

The "Foundation" needs to make it crystal clear that such measures of censorship are DIRECTLY contradictory to freedom of transaction, which is one of the main properties of the bitcoin network.

Should I be able to maintain any respect for any of the boards' members, they would have to leave the foundation TODAY and renounce the implementation of these principles.



edited to remove the impression that the Berlin crew was of the same opinion - I would assume some are, but this is just me WTFing.

[Raoul Duke]

If people making lists and refusing to honor valid transactions can kill Bitcoin then Bitcoin sucks. To be clear, Bitcoin doesn't suck.

Bitcoin doesn't suck, but some of the persons pretending to represent Bitcoin do suck.

[Kouye]

I don't understand how redlisting coins that are sent to CryptoLocker would help fight threats like CryptoLocker at all.

1 - CryptoLocker coins are redlisted.
2 - CryptoLocker buys something using those coins from a legit merchant.
3 - Legit merchant sees the warning on his client, and clicks the "I'm honest" button.
4 - Coins get unlisted and are now clean.

Ok, that looks like a lot of fun, but what's the point?
Can anyone enlighten me, please?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

If any kind of blacklist or redlist ever happens i will definately create a fork of Bitcoin without the blacklist.

I already created and maintain one, so no problem with that there.

[gweedo]

I just want to say I am very disappointed in this...

First Yifu...
Now Mike...
Who next?