[LEAKED] Private Bitcoin Foundation Discussions On Blacklisting, more (ZIP dump)

[ffssixtynine]

I hesitate to say it again but I did find Mike's post a bit naive (which I'm sure he isn't, it's just my reading of it). You need to differentiate that from 'the foundation', despite his post (it was not a public statement). I think you're misreading the Foundation's position, perhaps because they haven't come out with definitive statements at this point AFAIK.

I've reread some of Mike's posts and I can see he's after a technical solution, but I can't help but feel he's missing the point. Bitcoin is a transaction system and has no moral say on a transaction. The only way it could do so is by human input somewhere along the line, whether a centralised database or decentralised. The moment that happens is the moment you've broken the trustless nature of the system.

Besides, there'll be a million and one ways around it before you could say jump.

My worry is that Bitcoin will get neutered due to those with heavy political influence (CoinV) or replaced. We'll all be the worse off but anyone who wants to can proceed with the same criminal activities as before. That, to me, is the crux of the problem.

[Michael_S]

my 5 cents to this thread, which I read completely:

- sincere thanks to ffs69 for using his brain
- don't feed a master troll.
- never change bitcoin protocol to better suit any govnm't's wishes.
- if govnm't XYZ wants to track bitcoins by blockchain analysis, we cannot avoid it anyway, and they do it anyway, that's for sure. Whether some make national laws using such data is also outside our influence (but it would weaken the country's competitiveness)
- moving BF HQ outside US to a more liberal country might be a good idea to reduce US influence/pressure. It's time to make it international! Then this whole discussion would be carried out as a discussion of the "US local chapter" of the BF, and not within the BF "HQ" itself. Then it would all be about lobbying and talking to the national regulators, and the bitcoin devs would not even be involved/bothered by such a local (national) discussion.
As a location for BF I propose e.g. Finland, which I think is most compatible w.r.t. tech savyness, btc adoption rate per capita, political frame and people's culture. It is not as dominated by the banking sector as Switzerland which might therefore not be the best candidate.

[SebastianJu]

Erm... i wonder where you life since the control of people is a disease spreading worldwide. And yes they use all kind of excuses to forward their plans. Be it terrorism or money laundering. They will spread fear to get the plans through they need to earn money.

Yes.
So you are going to surrender?
Well - do what you please...

I am going to stand up, because I am not a slave, I have my rights as a human being and I am going to use them to promote my human interests.
And Bitcoin is today my most powerful weapon, which I will not give up even after my dead body.

These days I live in Holland, but I was born and raised in Poland, though today I consider myself a citizen of the world.
Unfortunately as it turns out, the World does not issue passports, and without a passport a human being is nobody.
So I am doomed to have a nationality, even though I think nationalism is stupid and inhumane

Of course i fight against. I only wondered that you speak about US-Slaves since its long time away that only USA citizens had problems with that surveillance state.

Its not acceptable. I think i now will join bitcoin foundation to make my opinion be heard. I was told its only $25 per year now anymore.

[NewLiberty]

Erm... i wonder where you life since the control of people is a disease spreading worldwide. And yes they use all kind of excuses to forward their plans. Be it terrorism or money laundering. They will spread fear to get the plans through they need to earn money.

Yes.
So you are going to surrender?
Well - do what you please...

I am going to stand up, because I am not a slave, I have my rights as a human being and I am going to use them to promote my human interests.
And Bitcoin is today my most powerful weapon, which I will not give up even after my dead body.

These days I live in Holland, but I was born and raised in Poland, though today I consider myself a citizen of the world.
Unfortunately as it turns out, the World does not issue passports, and without a passport a human being is nobody.
So I am doomed to have a nationality, even though I think nationalism is stupid and inhumane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Passport

[piotr_n]

- if govnm't XYZ wants to track bitcoins by blockchain analysis, we cannot avoid it anyway, and they do it anyway, that's for sure. Whether some make national laws using such data is also outside our influence (but it would weaken the country's competitiveness)

But that is exactly why the bitcoin development should put much more focus on improving anonymity.
Tracking coins via blockchain analysis is the most important issue that ought to be addressed by the developers - but it hasn't been.

Ever since Satoshi is gone, no actual privacy improvement have been made in bitcoin. The people in charge who he left the project to have obviously sold it to corporations and are now busy not developing bitcoin, but a surveillance system around it. Am I the only person who actually sees it?

Of course i fight against. I only wondered that you speak about US-Slaves since its long time away that only USA citizens had problems with that surveillance state.

I did not mean that all the people living in US are slaves. There are millions of brilliant and thoughtful people living in US, just like there are tens on millions, if not billions, of american slaves living outside US. Ironically, some of them don't even speak English.

But the system of the economic slavery that is on stake here was made in USA - first raised along with the FED, then forced onto the rest of the wold in Bretton Woods and at the end totally released by another genocidal psychopath US president who decoupled the dollar from the gold, thus lifting any limits on the debt slavery. Bitcoin is going to destroy this system, but not without a fight. The war is already happening and people need to choose sides.

I don't have a problem with people saying to me (and I hear it every day) that they prefer dollars over bitcoins. What I do have a problem with though are the hypocrites who pretend to be developing bitcoin, while in fact they are conspiring to kill it... or not conspiring, but just promote the "media and politicians will use it to beat us up if we don't turn bitcoin into dollar" approach - these are the american slaves and trust me; they live all around the world.

[justusranvier]

Ever since Satoshi is gone, no actual privacy improvement have been made in bitcoin. The people in charge who he left the project to have obviously sold it to corporations and are now busy not developing bitcoin, but a surveillance system around it. Am I the only person who actually sees it?

I seem to remember there's some organization whose favourite pastime is going around compromising open source projects and standards committees to make sure they implement security incorrectly in subtle ways.

Don't remember their name off the top of my head, but I think it rhymed with NASA maybe?

[bee7]

May be it worth to support proposals that targets the increase of privacy?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334316.0

You would ask: "how it could help?" Simple: the less the addresses are reused the more complex the graph of connections between addresses become. Thus it takes much more resources to analyse that data and make conclusions. This is not the complete solution. It is a small step among others but it has to be done if we want privacy.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

- if govnm't XYZ wants to track bitcoins by blockchain analysis, we cannot avoid it anyway, and they do it anyway, that's for sure. Whether some make national laws using such data is also outside our influence (but it would weaken the country's competitiveness)

But that is exactly why the bitcoin development should put much more focus on improving anonymity.
Tracking coins via blockchain analysis is the most important issue that ought to be addressed by the developers - but it hasn't been.

Ever since Satoshi is gone, no actual privacy improvement have been made in bitcoin.

Actually, wrong aaaand... WRONG again.

What about CoinControl, CoinJoin and Coinswap ? The first one is being merged into Bitcoin-QT, second is being worked on and avaiable already at blockchain.info's wallet, and third is at the concept stage.

These are all new ideas, give it time.

The people in charge who he left the project to have obviously sold it to corporations and are now busy not developing bitcoin, but a surveillance system around it. Am I the only person who actually sees it?

Actually AFAIK for now it's just Mike Hearn from core devs, do you have proof that other core devs are also working on it ?

[notthematrix]

- if govnm't XYZ wants to track bitcoins by blockchain analysis, we cannot avoid it anyway, and they do it anyway, that's for sure. Whether some make national laws using such data is also outside our influence (but it would weaken the country's competitiveness)

But that is exactly why the bitcoin development should put much more focus on improving anonymity.
Tracking coins via blockchain analysis is the most important issue that ought to be addressed by the developers - but it hasn't been.

Ever since Satoshi is gone, no actual privacy improvement have been made in bitcoin.

Actually, wrong aaaand... WRONG again.

What about CoinControl, CoinJoin and Coinswap ? The first one is being merged into Bitcoin-QT, second is being worked on and avaiable already at blockchain.info's wallet, and third is at the concept stage.

These are all new ideas, give it time.

The people in charge who he left the project to have obviously sold it to corporations and are now busy not developing bitcoin, but a surveillance system around it. Am I the only person who actually sees it?

Actually AFAIK for now it's just Mike Hearn from core devs, do you have proof that other core devs are also working on it ?

Why would they?? they dont NEED a dollar! , with bitcoin at $500 I dont even want dollars If I have bitcoin!
scare people away is the ONLY tactic the US has left to save the sinking ship!
and yes If I was foreced as developer I wopuld LEAVE the USA....

[sushi]

Here is my 2 centavos....

This is American Thingy.  As long as you are not Americans, may be less to worry about?

I'm sure American get screwed by their own laws but other countries, we more than likely enjoy the traditional Bitcoin!

This years laws got American booted from many Financial Institutions around the world, now, they are going to get booted from the majority of the Bitcoin world.  USA is not the only country the BTC will be used, and the USA will be just the fraction of the pie chart as China is emerging very rapidly into the BTC world.

Another Example...  American Banks don't like to put Chip on the credit cards.  Many Canadian Merchants refused to accept credit cards and debit cards from American due to there is no chip on the card.

After American starts black listing the Bitcoin, many foreign merchants could refused to do business with American due to the risk of Red/Black/Gray whateer the color listing is.  The very same people who came up with the idea will be booted from their own circle.

Which will only hurt their own americans, because they will have to find the merchant that will accept other payment means and will be charged a lot higher transaction fees and extra in the price hike.

May be the riches don't care about a few% price increases as it won't affect them but the average people or so called middle class will feel the pain.

[behindtext]

He's said before that he is in favor of a heterogenous network composed of multiple implementations - perhaps Bitcoin Foundation's job is to piss us all off and get people to take a serious look at btcd and Bits of Proof.

I wonder what it would take to make Armory work with btcd instead of bitcoind...

btcwallet, the wallet daemon for btcd, reads and stores its wallet data in the same format as Armory. there are likely some rpc calls that need to be added to accommodate it.

the gui for btcd, btcgui, was just recently released and works fine on testnet. mainnet coming soon...

[justusranvier]

He's said before that he is in favor of a heterogenous network composed of multiple implementations - perhaps Bitcoin Foundation's job is to piss us all off and get people to take a serious look at btcd and Bits of Proof.

I wonder what it would take to make Armory work with btcd instead of bitcoind...

btcwallet, the wallet daemon for btcd, reads and stores its wallet data in the same format as Armory. there are likely some rpc calls that need to be added to accommodate it.

the gui for btcd, btcgui, was just recently released and works fine on testnet. mainnet coming soon...

I honestly don't care or even want about btcwallet or btcgui. Is it possible to compile btcd without them?

Full nodes are network-facing applications which should have just the minimum necessary functionality to present a smaller attack surface and should focus on correctness and hardening.

User-facing applications like wallets should be separate.

[virtualmaster]

I am really upset how they misused the trust of the bitcoiners.
It was never before such a scandal in the history of Bitcoin.
By Namecoin it will never happen something like this because they are only honest people there.
If the Bitcoin blockchain fork will be imminent I would recommend to change the bitcoins in namecoins for those who are worried.(at least temporary until it will be clear what happens)

[corebob]

- if govnm't XYZ wants to track bitcoins by blockchain analysis, we cannot avoid it anyway, and they do it anyway, that's for sure. Whether some make national laws using such data is also outside our influence (but it would weaken the country's competitiveness)

But that is exactly why the bitcoin development should put much more focus on improving anonymity.
Tracking coins via blockchain analysis is the most important issue that ought to be addressed by the developers - but it hasn't been.

Ever since Satoshi is gone, no actual privacy improvement have been made in bitcoin. The people in charge who he left the project to have obviously sold it to corporations and are now busy not developing bitcoin, but a surveillance system around it. Am I the only person who actually sees it?

Of course i fight against. I only wondered that you speak about US-Slaves since its long time away that only USA citizens had problems with that surveillance state.

I did not mean that all the people living in US are slaves. There are millions of brilliant and thoughtful people living in US, just like there are tens on millions, if not billions, of american slaves living outside US. Ironically, some of them don't even speak English.

But the system of the economic slavery that is on stake here was made in USA - first raised along with the FED, then forced onto the rest of the wold in Bretton Woods and at the end totally released by another genocidal psychopath US president who decoupled the dollar from the gold, thus lifting any limits on the debt slavery. Bitcoin is going to destroy this system, but not without a fight. The war is already happening and people need to choose sides.

I don't have a problem with people saying to me (and I hear it every day) that they prefer dollars over bitcoins. What I do have a problem with though are the hypocrites who pretend to be developing bitcoin, while in fact they are conspiring to kill it... or not conspiring, but just promote the "media and politicians will use it to beat us up if we don't turn bitcoin into dollar" approach - these are the american slaves and trust me; they live all around the world.

This is surprisingly accurate, even though I believe some of the developers are trying to do the right thing still.
Its will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Crypto currencies are still in its stone age so one way or another we will see anonymous transactions in the future imo.

[piotr_n]

If the Bitcoin blockchain fork will be imminent I would recommend to change the bitcoins in namecoins for those who are worried.(at least temporary until it will be clear what happens)

IMHO Bitcoin blockchain fork will never happen, unless the american slaves change the POW function.
If they don't change the POW function, they cannot change a shit, since any fork's minority branch would be easily subjective to double-spend attacks.
So all they can do is adding Mike's colored blacklists to US based exchanges or payment processors...
But as someone had pointed it out already, it would only make the rest of the world to not accept US payment processors - just like American Express cards are not accepted in many countries anymore, because they suck and are not reliable.
And I could not care less about US payment processors, could you?

If USA wants to commit an economical suicide, they have enough options already today - they don't need Bitcoin to do it.

[bee7]

If the Bitcoin blockchain fork will be imminent I would recommend to change the bitcoins in namecoins for those who are worried.(at least temporary until it will be clear what happens)

IMHO Bitcoin blockchain fork will never happen, unless the american slaves change the POW function.
If they don't change the POW function, they cannot change a shit, since any fork's minority branch would be easily exploitable.
So all they can do is to add colored blacklists to US based exchanges or payment processors.
But as someone had pointed it out already, it would only make the rest of the world to not accept US payment processors - just like American Express cards are not accepted in many countries anymore.
And I could not care less about US payment processors, could you?

How do you see that possible now, when majority of the network power is provided by ASICs most of which (if not all) are capable to do only search of the gold nonce of the sha256d?

Sorry, did not get your statement correctly.

[corebob]

Ugh another lame try to pump an altcoin, this time... Namecoin. WTF.

namecoin is a decentralized domain name system (DNS)
It really needs to get more attension

[virtualmaster]

It can do much more than DNS, it is great, it's sad that no one exploit its, but it's completely unrelated to the discussion and not a solution to any of the issues here.

STOP PUMPING ALTCOINS. They solve nothing here.

It could very well solve the problems and it is related to it.
By Namecoin they are no blacklists and they are also not intended to be created.
If those who don't want to be regulated and blacklisted change to Namecoin(the second creation of Satoshi Nakamoto) then Bitcoin doesn't need to fork.
Which solution would you prefer if you would decide ?

[virtualmaster]

See here.

And now back to topic please.

This is absolutely  not relevant to the subject.

[Rez]

These days I live in Holland, but I was born and raised in Poland, though today I consider myself a citizen of the world.
Unfortunately as it turns out, the World does not issue passports, and without a passport a human being is nobody.
So I am doomed to have a nationality, even though I think nationalism is stupid and inhumane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Passport

Now accepted as a valid travel document in at least four small countries.  (That said, I've considered getting one on principle. But then again, I'm also an atheist and an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, so there you go.)