Is it possible that he is Satoshi Nakamoto?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

The article certainly illustrates why Satoshi chooses to remain anonymous.   

This quote from the article was interesting:

When authorities monitored the criminals’ communications, they discovered that E-Gold was among the carders’ preferred money-transfer methods, because the system allowed users to open accounts and transfer funds anonymously anywhere in the world.

This is why bitcoin will eventually be a target...assuming the user-volume rises above its current noise floor.

and how would they hurt us? just asking... freeze all bitcoins?

There are a myriad of ways an entity with the resources of a nation-state can hurt bitcoin, even destroy it for all practical purposes.  Will they?  I think they will if it gets on their radar as anything other than a momentary blip.  To what extent will they go after it?  To whatever extent is necessary to remove the threat they think it poses to them.

From the article:

When the Shadowcrew investigation wrapped in October 2004 with the shuttering of the site — and the arrest of more than a dozen members — the Justice Department turned its sights on E-Gold. Its goal was to force the service to comply with regulations governing money-transmitting services like Western Union and Travelex. Federal regulations required those businesses to register with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), to be licensed in states that required it, to diligently authenticate the identity of customers and to file suspicious activity reports on shady-looking customers. But E-Gold wasn’t doing this.

This represents the nut of it.

so they will just say: bitcoins are illegal.
know what i would say: FUCK YOU. i live in europe, you can't touch me, im behind 5 proxys.

the main diffrences between bitcoin and e-gold is that bitcoin is decentralized, and backed by nothing.

"...and backed by nothing." http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22bitcoin+is+backed+by%22  OR  http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22bitcoins+are+backed+by%22


Bitcoins: Backed By More Than You Know

[Phinnaeus Gage]

They could get the EU to pass similar laws, and EU would do it; they have anti-money-laundering interests too.

true. but im still behind 5 proxys. and you can't really not stop innovation.

They can target the BTC/$ interfaces (the exchanges).

sure they can, but only the ones in the states. mtgox is in japan.

They can devote very significant CPU time to screwing with the bitcoin validation process.

no. fallacy. the governments could *maybe* perform double spending, they could not create new coins, or use mine coins, or destroy mine coins. or do anything that would screw with my coins. to perform double spending, they would also need to isolate the node the want to double spend with.

In short, while they can't really kill the underlying bitcoin algorithm, they can certainly apply enough leverage to destroy it's perceived value; destroy the 'general' confidence in the system, thus making the trade value zilch...or close enough to zilch so its not a threat.

they can not destroy my confidence in the system. i could still use it.

This isn't about you.  It isn't [wouldn't be] about YOUR confidence in the system.  It doesn't matter how many proxies you're behind, and I honestly don't know what that has to do with anything.  They're not targeting YOU.  Their goal would be to destroy 'general' confidence in the system and destroy the trade value. 

This isn't about you.  It isn't [wouldn't be] about YOUR confidence in the system.  It doesn't matter how many proxies you're behind, and I honestly don't know what that has to do with anything.  They're not targeting YOU.  Their goal would be to destroy 'general' confidence in the system and destroy the trade value.

+1

[kokjo]

"...and backed by nothing." http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22bitcoin+is+backed+by%22  OR  http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22bitcoins+are+backed+by%22


Bitcoins: Backed By More Than You Know

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Bitcoin_is_backed_by_processing_power

bitcoin are backed by nothing. gold is also backed by nothing.
money(USD) are(was) backed by gold.

[vector76]

and i would be able to exchange my bitcoins to a local currency, i would just need to find someone that is using it.

Start your own fresh block chain and see if you can get someone to exchange your private block chain coins to a local currency.  If so, you'll be rich.  If not, you'll know why it takes more than your 10 friends to make bitcoins valuable.

[benkebab]

So bitcoins will necessarily stay underground and never go mainstream? Too bad for all the small businesses and the economy that could have flourished around it! 

[kokjo]

and i would be able to exchange my bitcoins to a local currency, i would just need to find someone that is using it.

Start your own fresh block chain and see if you can get someone to exchange your private block chain coins to a local currency.  If so, you'll be rich.  If not, you'll know why it takes more than your 10 friends to make bitcoins valuable.

why would i start my own blockchain?

no it does not take more then my 10 friends to make bitcoin valuable among us.
if we would like to trade little round white stones, instead of bitcoin, they would be valuable among us.

[kokjo]

So bitcoins will necessarily stay underground and never go mainstream? Too bad for all the small businesses and the economy that could have flourished around it! 

thats why it may go mainstream, even if they are illegal.
drugs are illegal too you know, people are using them anyway.
there will be small businesses taking bitcoin as payment.

[leeloulee]

brought down by "the man"

[Smalleyster]

brought down by "the man"

I guess "the woman" brought them back up?

[Sovereign]

wrong! we all could be Satoshi Nakamoto.

but only if we have the private key

true. the only proof that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, is if he haves the private key from block 1.

What if he spent block 1?

[Mike Moceri]

Have you ever wondered why it takes so much to generate a single block?

It's because all the rest of the computing power is being pooled into to virtualize a human brain perfectly. Satoshi Nakamoto isn't the creator of Bitcoin, he IS Bitcoin. He is the AI spawned of a network with massive computing power.


But not really.

+1

[kokjo]

wrong! we all could be Satoshi Nakamoto.

but only if we have the private key

true. the only proof that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, is if he haves the private key from block 1.

What if he spent block 1?

then he would just be the guy who mocked Satoshi, and stole his private key.

no then he could proof that he was Satoshi. by signing something with it.
Satoshi is the only one with that private key, and its the only proof he haves.

[old_engineer]

in April 2007, the Justice Department wrapped up its four-year-long investigation by indicting Jackson and his colleagues on federal charges of money laundering, conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

If it took Justice Dept. four years to figure out what to do about E-Gold, it'll probably take them years to figure out what to do about bitcoin exchanges.

[BubbleBoy]

If it took Justice Dept. four years to figure out what to do about E-Gold, it'll probably take them years to figure out what to do about bitcoin exchanges.

You can draw a parallel with the Napster affair and it's later distributed incarnation, Bittorrent trackers. Exchanges are vulnerable but they are many and easy to start.

“Douglas Jackson and his associates operated a sophisticated and widespread international money remitting business, unsupervised and unregulated by any entity in the world, which allowed for anonymous transfers of value at a click of a mouse,” said U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor for the District of Columbia in a press release. “Not surprisingly, criminals of every stripe gravitated to E-Gold as a place to move their money with impunity. As alleged in the indictment, the defendants in this case knowingly allowed them to do so and profited from their crimes.”

Perish the thought that someone might get any financial freedom or privacy. No, we can't allow for that since the criminal might use it. Come to think of it, car and road builders make huge profits when criminals are allowed to purchase their products. They fully know that criminals use the motorways each and every day and move with impunity, and yet they do nothing about it ! I believe the solution to this travesty is to register each and every person that uses a car, which should submit ahead of time a detailed plan of his daily itinerary. Every driver should be fitted with an explosive collar that would automatically go off should he steer off route.