Can the U.S. government meddle with BitCoin code?

[HCLivess]

Can the developers of BitCoin be forced by law to change the code according to desires of the U.S. government?

[spazzdla]

Can the developers of BitCoin be forced by law to change the code according to desires of the U.S. government?

In short, no chance.  The rest of the world (included me from Canada) would refuse to use their fork even if they got that far.

[BurtW]

Since anyone can download and read the code how would they do this?

[zolace]

yeah if it was that easy, I wonder if they can block the code from being accessed would that be possible.

[hilariousandco]

They could try, but it wouldn't work. America is not the world.

[ljudotina]

Bitcoin is protected by fact it's open source. Ppl wouldn't adopt new fork, they would just use old one or fork in another direction and that would be end of it (trying to control BTC that way).

[franky1]

hypothetically yes the government can, and here is a thought that proves why

if this were to be done, meaning a update where the government changed the protocol, maybe asked to call it bitcoin-core instead and it was a version 0.9

how many of you can honestly say that you know for sure that YOU have checked this version?

its all good to say that people will decline any government intervention. but how many people have actually checked 0.9 to see if this has or has not already happened.

i know 99% have simply downloaded the .exe and not even be bothered to check the code, in the hopes that someone smarter will check it and tell people to downgrade back to version 0.8x if something nasty was in the code.

this is the same as people using webwallets. 99% of people want to be lazy and let others deal with the security. thus when their wealth is lost they can play the victim.

people need to wake up and self regulate what programs you put on your computer and definitely dont reply on others. no violins will play for you when your wealth is lost. so dont rely on others to help you or shift the blame to.

i do say hypothetically yes the government can meddle with the protocol. but it will only impact peoples lives for maybe 48 hours, the time needed for the smarter people to find the change and try to publicise the requirement to downgrade again.

trust me. when the new update came out. no one waited around for people to check the code was legit. they were all too busy installing the EXE in the first few hours. so dont expect a government ordered update to be instantly ignored ... there will be a few days of disruption

[RodeoX]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

[franky1]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

wrong. open source is only good if the majority bother to read it.

i know for sure that 99.9% of people have not read the code line by line... and that is the flaw, lazyness

[RodeoX]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

wrong. open source is only good if the majority bother to read it.

i know for sure that 99.9% of people have not read the code line by line... and that is the flaw, lazyness

It is good if only one qualified person reads it. It can't be me; so it's true that I must trust someone else, but I do.

[franky1]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

wrong. open source is only good if the majority bother to read it.

i know for sure that 99.9% of people have not read the code line by line... and that is the flaw, lazyness

It is good if only one qualified person reads it. It can't be me; so it's true that I must trust someone else, but I do.

then expect that governments can mess with the protocol. but as said before, know it wont last forever.. possibly a few days of problems or a decision to move over to litecoin permanently. either way the government wont win in the end.

[HCLivess]

well i am sure my mother would welcome the govbtc just as she accepts fiat under pretext of security

[RodeoX]

... either way the government wont win in the end.

True that. That's the thing for me. There are so many ways for us to resist that destroying bitcoin could not be done in a cost effective way. Mess with BTC and it will just mutate into a harder to control form. It's why I think we have already largely won the war.

well i am sure my mother would welcome the govbtc just as she accepts fiat under pretext of security

I will not. Want to trade? Ok then it's on again. Bye bye govbtc.

[madmadmax]

Can the developers of BitCoin be forced by law to change the code according to desires of the U.S. government?

No but they are working by other means such as either buying off or infiltrating software companies in order to introduce vulnerabilities that favor them. (aka the OpenSSL bug which was introduced to Bitcoin despite the fact of having a huge additional attack vector)

The Bitcoin Foundation have also voiced their intentions of helping the CIA fight Bitcoin funded pedophilia (by which means?) which is huge anti-Bitcoin propaganda. If you run a simple calculation the Bitcoin black market is currently worth 2% of its economy (and all of it is drugs, we have no proof to believe otherwise) versus the nearly 30% black market of USD which includes organ sale, children, pedophilia, human trafficking, weapons of mass destruction etc etc.

[BurtW]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

wrong. open source is only good if the majority bother to read it.

i know for sure that 99.9% of people have not read the code line by line... and that is the flaw, lazyness

Enough qualified people constantly monitor the changes that are made to the code.  Anything even the slightest bit hinky would be spotted and removed or, failing that, virally exposed all over these boards, Redit, etc.

There is no way the goobermint could put something directly in the code without us finding out about it.

Libraries are a different matter (eg Heartbleed in OpenSSL) but that was an implementation bug in a library used by the Bitcoin software and not a deliberate attempt to change to the Bitcoin protocol.

[BurtW]

If you run a simple calculation the Bitcoin black market is currently worth 2% of its economy.

Interesting.  Please explain how you calculated this or give us a link to the calculation.

[spazzdla]

well i am sure my mother would welcome the govbtc just as she accepts fiat under pretext of security

It all comes down to what the miners do.

[madmadmax]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

wrong. open source is only good if the majority bother to read it.

i know for sure that 99.9% of people have not read the code line by line... and that is the flaw, lazyness

Enough qualified people constantly monitor the changes that are made to the code.  Anything even the slightest bit hinky would be spotted and removed or, failing that, virally exposed all over these boards, Redit, etc.

There is no way the goobermint could put something directly in the code without us finding out about it.

Libraries are a different matter (eg Heartbleed in OpenSSL) but that was an implementation bug in a library used by the Bitcoin software and not a deliberate attempt to change to the Bitcoin protocol.

You cannot prove that however, the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL was introduced to Bitcoin despite the pleading of many members to just use PGP private keys to authenticate connections.

If you run a simple calculation the Bitcoin black market is currently worth 2% of its economy.

Interesting.  Please explain how you calculated this or give us a link to the calculation.

If you calculate the worth of the top 10 marketplaces on the dark web you get 1.25%, as it stands we have no reason to believe that Bitcoin assassinations or sale of arms is taking place. I have never seen any evidence suggesting that pedophilia is being funded with BTC.

The USD black market is worth 29.75% according to their calculations.

[zolace]

if this true im sure hackers would have done so, and if not then we are safe. im sure bitcoin would have fallien by now

[hilariousandco]

No.
You should read up on open source software to understand why.

wrong. open source is only good if the majority bother to read it.

i know for sure that 99.9% of people have not read the code line by line... and that is the flaw, lazyness

Enough qualified people constantly monitor the changes that are made to the code.  Anything even the slightest bit hinky would be spotted and removed or, failing that, virally exposed all over these boards, Redit, etc.

There is no way the goobermint could put something directly in the code without us finding out about it.

Libraries are a different matter (eg Heartbleed in OpenSSL) but that was an implementation bug in a library used by the Bitcoin software and not a deliberate attempt to change to the Bitcoin protocol.

You cannot prove that however, the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL was introduced to Bitcoin despite the pleading of many members to just use PGP private keys to authenticate connections.

If you run a simple calculation the Bitcoin black market is currently worth 2% of its economy.

Interesting.  Please explain how you calculated this or give us a link to the calculation.

If you calculate the worth of the top 10 marketplaces on the dark web you get 1.25%, as it stands we have no reason to believe that Bitcoin assassinations or sale of arms is taking place. I have never seen any evidence suggesting that pedophilia is being funded with BTC.

The USD black market is worth 29.75% according to their calculations.

Where are you getting the data from for the blackmarkets? And CP is most certainly being bought and sold with BTC, just like it is with dollars and Paypal too, but of course the government will signal its illicit uses out to make their point.