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

[bluemeanie1]

Im not even sure mixing even offers that much privacy.  In most parts of the civilized world they track all your internet traffic, so given that they can track the ip origin of any tx, thus revealing the real world identity(at least to a degree).  By using data mining you can cluster the data with more complete sets, like from web wallets to hone in on virtually any activity on the block chain.  St. Snowden revealed recently that they are tracking you pc activity even when its not connected to the internet.  Mixing certainly makes it more dificult but not impossible to indentify bitcoin use.

Well, I surely appreciate your skepticism and awareness of the environment that bitcoin needs to live in.
That is exactly the approach that people who pretend to develop a privacy for Bitcoin need.

But you must admit that mixing services like "Bitcoin Fog" are exactly like coinjoin - except that they are definitely so much better than coinjoin.
Though, if you can propose an even better idea, a one which addresses the issues that you have just complained about - man, then you will be our hero!
But first show us how it works - because only then we have something to talk about... The other way around (just talk - show nothing) is only a waste of our time.

Not looking to be a hero, but keep in mind the real software is the ideas behind it.  Code is just an expression of those ideas.  My general goal is to provide flexible tools for private equity creation.  Digital currencies fall under this.  Confidence chains is a generalized solution to this problem.  Im even hestinant to say anything because the moment I do the peanut gallery badtardizies whatever terminology I use.  Ive been in the digital currency world long enough to know what kind of forces your dealing with and they shouldnt be underestimated.

Im aware of your work btw, I think alternative bitcoin clients are certainly important.  Part of what the big firms are doing is monopolizing knowledge of the open source software.

No - don't get me wrong.
I'm saying: what do you have to offer that would provide a better anonymity for my coins that the example Bitcoin Fog that charges 2% of my money?
I haven't seen anything better so far, but even as for this service I cannot be sure that it isnt run by NSA.
All these "stealth addresses" or "coinjoin" - for me it's just some PR bullshit that does not improve my privacy at all.
And no offence for the people who came out with these ideas - I believe they wanted well, but that's not a real solution for a bitcoin privacy.

Its part of the plan I think.

If you THINK no one can see you, then you are more likely to act candidly, and thats precisely what they want.  Keep generating technologies that make people believe they have privacy and they never demand the real thing.  There is a good case for ECC itself being such a technology.  The field is riddled with assumptions and "experts" with layman popular understanding ala Bruce Schneier.  Of course if you do attain privacy, you just might be a terrorist or a pedophile.  We were warned that this was coming, but not many people did anything about it. 

Edward Snowden for President.

[piotr_n]

It's all true what you saying and I couldn't agree more.
But your approach does not provide us with any solutions - does it?
And our job (as bitcoin developers) is to make solutions, not to cry about how hard the environment is...

Of course it is hard - and that is exactly why making solutions to these problems give us so much fun.
I mean: I can only speak for myself, but I'm not really such a unique person - as a human beings we usually all want the same things.

And Osama Bin Laden is for me just a character from a fairy tail, made for stupid people like Mike Haren, so they'd have some point to anchor to... since they are obviously to lame to anchor directly into my ass, which is certainly the point of the resistance that they ought to fight, in order to win this 'people vs. corporations' war.

[bluemeanie1]

Lol.

Ya I agree, I am working on real code.  Should be out soon.  We also cant overlook that our underlying concepts must be sound as well.  Seems many of the projects pretending to be the 2nd bitcoin skipped that part.

Re. Osama bin laden, look up the writer John Perkins.  Its a good place to start re whats happening internationally.  Also Edward Snowden appears to be driven to expose the surveillance machine.  Theres lots of layers to it, Israel is a big part of it, much of the surveillance technology is developed there.  Also im a big fan of the original Cypherpunks.

It's all true what you saying and I couldn't agree more.
But your approach does not provide us with any solutions - does it?
And our job (as bitcoin developers) is to make solutions, not to cry about how hard the environment is...

Of course it is hard - and that is exactly why making solutions to these problems give us so much fun.
I mean: I can only speak for myself, but I'm not really such a unique person - as a human beings we usually all want the same things.

And Osama Bin Laden is for me just a character from a fairy tail, made for stupid people like Mike Haren, so they'd have some point to anchor to... since they are obviously to lame to anchor directly into my ass, which is certainly the point of the resistance that they ought to fight, in order to win this 'people vs. corporations' war.

[BitcoinEXpress]

The bottom line is,

if any one of you think that any system that is value in BILLIONS of USD is ever going to remain "uncontrolled" you are seriously delusional.

Bitcoin = Money

Money = Power

If not the Bitcoin Foundation, then another.

There will always be a desire and battle to control it.


~BCX~

[bluemeanie1]

The bottom line is,

if any one of you think that any system that is value in BILLIONS of USD is ever going to remain "uncontrolled" you are seriously delusional.

Bitcoin = Money

Money = Power

If not the Bitcoin Foundation, then another.

There will always be a desire and battle to control it.


~BCX~

If its contolled, ie centralized,  then its not p2p and functionally identical to Paypal, ie. Worthless.

So your inevitability argument doesnt really support a case for bitcoin's use.

[BitCoinDream]

People discussing here should not miss this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=332918.0

[BitcoinEXpress]

The bottom line is,

if any one of you think that any system that is value in BILLIONS of USD is ever going to remain "uncontrolled" you are seriously delusional.

Bitcoin = Money

Money = Power

If not the Bitcoin Foundation, then another.

There will always be a desire and battle to control it.


~BCX~

If its contolled, ie centralized,  then its not p2p and functionally identical to Paypal, ie. Worthless.

So your inevitability argument doesnt really support a case for bitcoin's use.

I'm just stating the facts be they PC or not.

and while I am not a fan of Paypal, it is anything but worthless.

As long as Bitcoin = Money, then Bitcoin = Power and there will be inevitable battles for control.

Start all the new coins you want.


If it attains a value of Billions USD, it will meet the same fate of control by the powerful.


~BCX~

[Kungfucheez]

The bottom line is,

if any one of you think that any system that is value in BILLIONS of USD is ever going to remain "uncontrolled" you are seriously delusional.

Bitcoin = Money

Money = Power

If not the Bitcoin Foundation, then another.

There will always be a desire and battle to control it.


~BCX~

Seriously this. Doesn't matter if it's Bitcoins, USD, leaves on a tree or bags of sand, as long as it's something used to exchange goods and services, there will always be someone wanting more of it. And if we say that, then there must be a need to control it somehow, or else things would get out of hand very quickly. That's just human nature.

[whtchocla7e]

What is the Bitcoin foundation?

The more I read about the entities that are getting involved with Bitcoin the muddier my picture of Bitcoin gets.

You say Bitcoin is decentralized? It is not and will never be as long as there's someone pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Whether it's an entity within the network (a large pool), a shady wall-street investor or the big brother foundation...

Where is the long term plan posted? Where is the list of planned features? Where do I send my feature suggestions? Where is the open discussion?
Where are the miners in all of this? Are we just dumb, cheap labor?

[tvbcof]

...
If it attains a value of Billions USD, it will meet the same fate of control by the powerful.

~BCX~

One of my very early philosophies on Bitcoin, and why I consider it 'better' than gold (from the perspective of humanity), is this:

Ultimately what gives Bitcoin it's strength is it's userbase and that is a simple decision about what software to run.  In contrast, gold's strength is derived from it's scarcity.

A tyrant with vault full of gold is not easy to dislodge because he/they can store it adequately and safely.  Were he sitting on Bitcoin, the plebs could simply devalue it at the click of a mouse by switching to something else en-mass.  No more need to stick anyone on a pike poll.  They/we just need to organize effectively.

(Parenthetically, I believe that the extreme resources and mandate granted to the NSA have a lot to do with the threat of people being able to organize since mapping out the individuals and org structures is key to quashing such a threat.)

My advice to the Bitcoin Foundation is to not push their luck to far, though it is probably to late.  From day one they got off on a bad start, and in exactly in the way I was concerned about (and mentioned in the relevant thread before TBF was created) regarding transparency.  TBF had one chance to earn and retain the confidence of the userbase and I believe they may have already blown it.  Whether they take Bitcoin down with them will be interesting to find out...it depends, I expect, on how much damage they are able to do before burning through the 'default' credibility they obtained as a natural consequence of forming any such body.

  edit: spelling, and additional estimate.

[tspacepilot]

This is why we need alternative blockchains. Bitcoin is going mainstream.

We do not need alternate blockchains. There is only one Bitcoin.

The real Bitcoin, as stated in the design paper, has fungible Bitcoins.

The real Bitcoin, as stated in the design paper, has no authorities regulating it.

The real Bitcoin, as stated in the design paper, has irreversible transactions.

Anything that changes away from these 3 principles is not Bitcoin, despite what they may call itself.

You (yes you) is a thousand times more powerful than the Bitcoin Foundation. Boycott any modification that makes Bitcoin no longer Bitcoin.

This post seems to strike at the heart of it.  Community members, keep true to the manifesto!  Don't accept modifications that subvert the public interest.

[tvbcof]

...
You (yes you) is a thousand times more powerful than the Bitcoin Foundation. Boycott any modification that makes Bitcoin no longer Bitcoin.

This post seems to strike at the heart of it.  Community members, keep true to the manifesto!  Don't accept modifications that subvert the public interest.

Do be a little bit cautious about this.  Many people find many aspects of Libertarianism (and more generally, of various kinds of freedoms) to be somewhere between fringe and abhorrent.  If/when Bitcoin becomes 'mainstream' it is very possible that the Bitcoin Foundation members ideas about blacklisting and such will have surprisingly broad support among the userbase.

My personal feeling is that there will be unintended consequences to a lot of the plans (e.g., control methods and fantastic userbase growth) which will eventually kill the solution even though the individual efforts will be successful and solving the narrow problems that they are engineered for.

At the end of the day, though, the cat is out of the bag.  To kill distributed crypto-currencies means killing people's right and ability to interact.  This would be challenging to do in a airtight and durable way, but it does not mean that it won't be attempted.

[whtchocla7e]

This my friends is the Bitcoin foundation:
https://members.bitcoinfoundation.org/current

Protecting the interests of the hands that feed.

[tvbcof]

This my friends is the Bitcoin foundation:
https://members.bitcoinfoundation.org/current

Protecting the interests of the hands that feed.

Yup,  Inputs.io still there (and 'tradefortress' is still gone) demonstrating conclusively how much of a shit the Bitcoin Foundation gives about theft and fraud in the ecosystem.  Of course they are all up on it when it comes to 'protecting the children' and things which don't threaten people who put money into their coffers...or almost anyone else due to the rarity of this and it's cousin 'terrorism' which are puffed up into existence almost exclusively as an excuse for certain projects such as coin blacklisting.

The speed of the Bitcoin Foundations descent into standard trade organization level of secrecy, nepotism, and duplicitous behavior has surprised even me and I started out being pretty leery of this before the organization was even formed.

[MikeH]

This my friends is the Bitcoin foundation:
https://members.bitcoinfoundation.org/current

Protecting the interests of the hands that feed.

yeah, what are these gold and silver members - are they based on size of donations?

I hadn't heard of Circle (1 of the 2 gold members), looks to be a few dodgy characters running that.
http://www.circle.com/about

oh and this is kind of interesting too..
http://www.circle.com/regulatory 
eg. "Monitoring and reporting suspicious transactions"

[pungopete468]

This just ruined my mood this evening.

This implementation would be no more than a virus in the Bitcoin protocol and should be viewed and attacked as such.

I understand the "Nanny State" mentality where "nobody should be allowed to touch money unless they identify themselves" because who knows, "they might be a terrorist, or a drug dealer, or a rapist, or a political extremist, or a religious nut, or a gun supporter, or mentally unstable, or a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Libertarian." Pretty much insert whatever you want and exclude those who disagree... Grow a spine people.

If a majority base of the Bitcoin community supports this draconian approach at centralization then that majority base does not support nor believe in Bitcoin and should choose a different currency to stifle with their cowardice.

I don't even care to express myself more on this thread. If this were actually implemented across the pools I could easily see a forked blockchain created by a rift of ideology and a mass migration between pools... The fork which deserves to win is the fork which preserves the integrity of the actual Bitcoin protocol.

/Done with this thread...

P.S.

This is not a conversation anybody should be having or considering. Some things need to be determined and established at the start; which was obviously the case with this. This is a betrayal...

[ko2a]

It makes sense that certain people would want to authenticate the receivers of certain cc's i suppose this is somewhat inevitable.  Hopefully this isn't leading to trying to get everyone to get a rfid chip in their hand.

[BitcoinEXpress]

I don't know what is more amusing, the fringe few thinking that the masses would revolt against anything that Gavin et al
would release or the fringe few realizing they are indeed, the fringe few.

I would say easily that 95% of the people that use and/or mine Bitcoin haven't even read Satoshi's writings on Bitcoin. On the flip side I would say less than 5% understand Bitcoin on any technical level beyond being able to point a miner at a pool.

With that being said,

Some form of regulation and control is coming, like it or not.


~BCX~

[tvbcof]

I don't know what is more amusing, the fringe few thinking that the masses would revolt against anything that Gavin et al
would release or the fringe few realizing they are indeed, the fringe few.

I would say easily that 95% of the people that use and/or mine Bitcoin haven't even read Satoshi's writings on Bitcoin. On the flip side I would say less than 5% understand Bitcoin on any technical level beyond being able to point a miner at a pool.

With that being said,

Some form of regulation and control is coming, like it or not.

~BCX~

Bring it on.  It's going to be a tricky needle to thread.  Chop up a starfish into pieces to try to kill it and what you end up with is a whole bunch more starfish.

To your other point, ya, not a lot of people understand networking and cryptography.  A much larger number can recognize abusive and unfair strong-arm tactics, especially when it effects themselves and their friends and family.  At some point in the regulatory process it's going to come time to clamp down on basic freedoms of association.  'Piss or get off the pot' one might say.  It'll be interesting to see how (and if) that is accomplished.

[BitcoinEXpress]

'Piss or get off the pot' one might say.  It'll be interesting to see how (and if) that is accomplished.

Agreed

 


~BCX~