The question going through everyone's mind.

[mattjoon]

At least the one going through mine..


How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like murderers, terrorists, not to mention drug deals, sex traffic, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?


THAT my friends, is the question...or its at least one of them.

[1714962405]

1714962405

[Zooey]

You don't. 

Do I win a prize?

[Bitemarx]

I guess feds (or local law enforcement) must be able to blacklist some adress, meaning miners wouldn't accept transactions coming from this adress. Then they would be able to block some drug dealer fund if they can identify the address.
But this is easy to counter, online criminal just have to use different adress for each incoming transaction, randomly generated.

Another solution is to disable criminals to spend their coins without telling their identity. To do that you need to make every business using bitcoin follow KYC policy.


PS : english not native language

[Elwar]

How do we keep people who use Bitcoin to buy offensive things like pornography or devil music such as Metallica or One Direction or non-mainstream religious material such as some forms of Christianity or certain Muslim/Jewish teachings?

I know most people have been thinking about this but I am bold enough to say it.

One solution may be to require webcams to be attached to all Bitcoin clients with desktop streaming and we monitor every person spending their money. The more centralized solution the better of course.

[Bitemarx]

How do we keep people who use Bitcoin to buy offensive things like pornography or devil music such as Metallica or One Direction or non-mainstream religious material such as some forms of Christianity or certain Muslim/Jewish teachings?

I know most people have been thinking about this but I am bold enough to say it.

One solution may be to require webcams to be attached to all Bitcoin clients with desktop streaming and we monitor every person spending their money. The more centralized solution the better of course.

Being ironic, best way to solve problems since 1853.

There are two things that scare me :
-the government passing laws crippling it (in my country)
-bitcoin+tor makes it easy for cyber-criminals to buy drugs, guns, child pornography, crowfund for murders or terrorist actions

Burying your head in the sand won't help in findind some kind of balance

[qwerty555]

At least the one going through mine..


How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like murderers, terrorists, not to mention drug deals, sex traffic, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?


THAT my friends, is the question...or its at least one of them.

I suggest they use whatever laws they use against those people with their use of dollars in those SAME activities. Simply setting a legal precedent by ruling that where the law states "money/ dollars /payment" that bitcoin or any vitual currency is held to be within that definition and therefore could not be used as an excuse to evade or circumvent existing laws.

There is no need to re invent the wheel for bitcoin in those respects. Legislation may be required for other matters.

[Zooey]

How do we keep people who use Bitcoin to buy offensive things like pornography or devil music such as Metallica or One Direction or non-mainstream religious material such as some forms of Christianity or certain Muslim/Jewish teachings?

I know most people have been thinking about this but I am bold enough to say it.

One solution may be to require webcams to be attached to all Bitcoin clients with desktop streaming and we monitor every person spending their money. The more centralized solution the better of course.

No, no.  It's, unfortunately, written into law that we can't monitor our own citizens, even for their own good like you propose.  But this doesn't have to stop us protecting people from becoming victims of their own deviance: afterall, we have friends with benefits!  The US and Great Britain can monitor each other's citizens so all of our people can benefit from these freedom-protections.  

[DeathAndTaxes]

How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like murderers, terrorists, not to mention drug deals, sex traffic, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?

What makes you think the purpose of legislation is to not hurt the small businesses?

If you are a big business you pay Congress a lot of money to specifically hurt the small businesses.   The small businesses, the startups are your biggest strategic threat.   Far cheaper to just kill them in the cradle then someday run the risk of having to face them in a fair fight. If you are a company like WU or PayPal you aren't going to 51% the Bitcoin network, nerd fantasies aside it would be risky, expensive, and pointless.  You are going to lobby to have Congress to slam these tiny startups (2,3, 6 people and budgets of $100K to $1M) with tens of millions of dollars in regulatory cost.

[niothor]

You don't. 

Do I win a prize?

You do like you did it before Bitcoin.
I'm in for the second place prize.

[Bitemarx]

You don't. 

Do I win a prize?

You do like you did it before Bitcoin.
I'm in for the second place prize.

Before Bitcoin the dark net was way less frightening. And they couldn't stop it anyway.

[Elwar]

At least the one going through mine..


How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like jews, muslims, not to mention females, homosexuals, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?


THAT my friends, is the question...or its at least one of them.

I am sure this is what you meant.


When will people learn that governments do not always have their best interests at heart.

[Hawker]

The Bank of England sent a representative to a meeting to discuss this precise issue.  They were very blunt about it - cash is way more suited to crime than Bitcoin and as such they have no particular concerns about Bitcoin as a way to pay for crime.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/11/20/1699582/the-bubble-is-us/

Bitcoin is well suited to money laundering though - they have a very different attitude to it from that perspective.

[knarzo]

At least the one going through mine..


How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like murderers, terrorists, not to mention drug deals, sex traffic, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?


THAT my friends, is the question...or its at least one of them.

Well.. Is that's the default state of mind nowadays hm? Why should drugs be something forbidden? Because the government decided so?
It's easy and popular for politicans to "fight" the symptoms all over the gobe instead of dealing with the root-causes. But there are still too many people which believe this BS they are telling.
And by the way: How do we take down the bad guys which are using [$/€/whatever]?

[corebob]

How do we keep people who use Bitcoin to buy offensive things like pornography or devil music such as Metallica or One Direction or non-mainstream religious material such as some forms of Christianity or certain Muslim/Jewish teachings?

I know most people have been thinking about this but I am bold enough to say it.

One solution may be to require webcams to be attached to all Bitcoin clients with desktop streaming and we monitor every person spending their money. The more centralized solution the better of course.

Being ironic, best way to solve problems since 1853.

There are two things that scare me :
-the government passing laws crippling it (in my country)
-bitcoin+tor makes it easy for cyber-criminals to buy drugs, guns, child pornography, crowfund for murders or terrorist actions

Burying your head in the sand won't help in findind some kind of balance

The ability to use recon and killer drones will more than compensate for this if you ask me

[qwerty555]

The Bank of England sent a representative to a meeting to discuss this precise issue.  They were very blunt about it - cash is way more suited to crime than Bitcoin and as such they have no particular concerns about Bitcoin as a way to pay for crime.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/11/20/1699582/the-bubble-is-us/

Bitcoin is well suited to money laundering though - they have a very different attitude to it from that perspective.

+1

[knarzo]

At least the one going through mine..


How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like jews, muslims, not to mention females, homosexuals, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?


THAT my friends, is the question...or its at least one of them.

I am sure this is what you meant.


When will people learn that governments do not always have their best interests at heart.

+1

It's a well established businness to keep ppl in this bubble..

[MicroGuy]

At least the one going through mine..


How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like murderers, terrorists, not to mention drug deals, sex traffic, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?


THAT my friends, is the question...or its at least one of them.

Well, bitcoin has already been demonstrated to be less anonymous than cash in many cases. I would suggest more legislation is not needed.

[Zooey]

...
When will people learn that governments do not always have their best interests at heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

[icebergslim]

when has legislation stopped any of the badness it was created to stop?

[worldtreasurefinders]

How do you legislate around bitcoin, in order to take down the bad guys (like murderers, terrorists, not to mention drug deals, sex traffic, etc.) without bearing down too heavily on innovative businesses or shutting out potential markets?

All of those things are already against the law.  Problem solved.