How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations?

[FreeMoney]

Saying you want someone dead publicly is against the law? Isn't it covered by freedom of speech?

Where are you that you think you have freedom of speech?

[1714899417]

1714899417

[1714899417]

1714899417

[TiagoTiago]

Saying you want someone dead publicly is against the law? Isn't it covered by freedom of speech?

Where are you that you think you have freedom of speech?

I guess you have a point; just the other day over here a senator (or perhaps it was a congressman or somthing like that) ripped the recorder out of a reporter's hand, took it home and erased everything in the memory before returning it to the reporter just 'cause he didn't like the question...

[FreeMoney]

Saying you want someone dead publicly is against the law? Isn't it covered by freedom of speech?

Where are you that you think you have freedom of speech?

I guess you have a point; just the other day over here a senator (or perhaps it was a congressman or somthing like that) ripped the recorder out of a reporter's hand, took it home and erased everything in the memory before returning it to the reporter just 'cause he didn't like the question...

Lol, still safer to interview senators than police I guess.

[MoonShadow]

Saying you want someone dead publicly is against the law? Isn't it covered by freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is a negative right, that the federal government does not have the authority to limit your ability to say what you wish about it.  And it does not.  You can say these things, but once you do you can be persecuted based upon the content.  Not by critiquing the actions of government in general, or the actions of government agents in particular; but by advocating harm being done to another person.  Generally such things are taken more seriously when the person in question also happens to be an agent of the state.  Freedom of speech doesn't imply you have the right to scream "fire!" in a crowded theater any more than the freedom to keep and bear arms implies you have a right to shoot your neighbor if he stumbles drunk into your backyard and pisses on your lillies.

And that is considering places wherein the public actually has a freedom of speech.

[TiagoTiago]

If you believe the theater is on fire or that there is some other important reason for everyone to leave in panic you totally have the right to yell "Fire!" inside the theater; not only the right but the duty to do so.

[eMansipater]

Have you ever seen a person die?  Like, not in a video game or a movie?  The internet tends to make a lot of people pretend they know what they're talking about.

Not that it is any of your business or relevant to the topic, but yes I have. Since you are asking have you?

Basically, blaming the type of money that people are using for crimes is infantile and indefensible as a logical argument. Something only a brain well-pickled and infused with statist tosh could come up with ... but then again you think you know what you are talking about so carry on ... it must be the internet doing that to you.

Your opinion on such a topic is very different if you are willing to be present, understanding the real-life implications of something that for many people is only a thought exercise.  That's why it was a fair question to ask, and one that I was asking seriously rather than as some sort of line.  It's also something that I've experienced personally and it's made me very tired of arm-chair discussions about real life things.  Like I said, the internet tends to make a lot of people pretend they know what they're talking about, so it's hard to know--and there's a heck of a lot of rhetoric bouncing around on these boards that I'd rather not give the time of day to.  Calling someone "holier than thou" and "sanctimonious" for suggesting that the real-world consequences for things need to be at the forefront of this type of discussion (and then erroneously categorising me with some imaginary stereotype of the people you think would be advancing my position) doesn't really get you off on the right foot.  Nor do phrases like "brain well-pickled blah blah blah" contribute to any useful discussion.

Saying I would DDoS an assassination board is not equivalent to blaming the type of money people are using for crimes.  But more deeply what I'm getting at is that technologies do have consequences, which we need to think about.  For example, I would not have opposed the invention of the internet because of its potential for child pornography.  But that doesn't end the discussion.  The internet does change things, and foreseeing that it might be used for child pornography would be a good time to realise that at that point child pornography has become a world issue that will require inter-country cooperation to address.  BitCoin, like the internet, is real life.  It will have real consequences, and they're worth actually thinking about.  Tone down the rhetoric, and take the opportunity to have a productive discussion about it!

[MoonShadow]

If you believe the theater is on fire or that there is some other important reason for everyone to leave in panic you totally have the right to yell "Fire!" inside the theater; not only the right but the duty to do so.

The assumption in intended is that there was no such case, but only the intent to cause a panic.

[TiagoTiago]

So if you trully believe the wolrd would be better if X was not alive anymore it's not against the law to ask for X's assasination?

[pissass]

No civilised people don't lock up people for using drugs. That is what fascist totalitarian fuck heads do. I am all for the use of bitcoin for laundering money and keeping drug users and dealers safe. If you don't like it, don't fucking use bitcoin. Also I suggest you go sign up for the Nazi party you fucking fascist pig. I can't wait for the day that you brainwashed bastards are out of power and can no longer hurt me and my innocent friends who just want to enjoy ourselves and use recreational substances. You are fucking evil and I seriously hope you just die. I would rather all of the people like YOU die than the people like you get to live and ruin the lives of people who mind their own business and live a different life style than you accept. You and your ilk are a disease on society. I also am all for assassination markets resulting in the death of the nazis who impose their morality on us at the cost of our life our liberty and our pursuit of happiness. Go fuck yourself you brainwashed sheep.

[pissass]

If you order drugs there is a box at the postal office getting picked up.

Which is why you need to ship product with an transmitter / Photovoltaic cell / Volatile memory with three states: compromised, not compromised, no transmit. If the package is intercepted and opened, the photovoltaic cell gets enough light to wipe the not compromised state of the memory and replace it with compromised. If the volatile memory is in encapsulation material customs can't flash freeze it fast enough to preserve / restore the 'not compromised' state. Then you can scan the airwaves at the fake ID box office and look for the signal, and not pick up if there is no transmit or compromised signal. The entire device can be made for a few dollars and is the size of a penny, it can be configured to only transmit after some time delay to avoid customs looking for transmitting packages. If they open in a dark room, vacuum seal the drugs and use an oxygen sensor. Customs doesn't have enough money to open all packages in darkened vacuums. Now you know if the pack got intercepted prior to picking it up.

[TiagoTiago]

Lol, yay for internet pseudonimity!

Now on a serious note; whoever that was, i hope you used a good annonimyzing proxy to create that sockpuppet and was careful enough with traces control on your machine...

[goober]

child pornography

I for one am all for the legalization of the possession viewing and distribution of child pornography. I don't see people sitting in the privacy of their own homes looking at pictures to be a big fucking deal in the slightest. In fact, the distribution of child pornography on the internet is a good thing, as it allows photographic forensics to locate the actual child abuser.

God, where did all these statists come from?

[John Kirk]

I agree with cypherdoc that we need to have a more responsible attitude toward how we react to the use of bitcoins in illicit activities.

I do understand that it is impossible for us to prevent illegal actions from being performed with bitcoins, any more than we could prevent them from being performed with hard cash.  However, that does not mean that this community should actively promote it.

When growing a new currency, public perception is everything.  Bitcoin needs a squeaky clean image if it is ever going to be accepted by the mainstream public.  And yet, we have a section promoting businesses selling Psychotropic Drugs on the bitcoin wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade).  I understand that these drugs are actually legal in some countries.  But, that's not going to matter to most businesses that are investigating whether they should accept bitcoins from their customers.  Most will take one look at that wiki page, see that there are questionable businesses being promoted there, and immediately conclude that they do not want to associate their business name in any way with that kind of activity.  I would guess that there have been far more businesses dissuaded from joining the bitcoin community due to those advertisements than have been attracted because of it.

It is not a matter of freedom of speech.  Illicit businesses are free to advertise as they want.  But, as a community, that does not mean we have to allow them to do it here.  This is a matter of practical reality.  If we fail to police ourselves, the governments of the world will be more than eager to step in and do it for us.  They won't be able to shut down the bitcoin network in its entirety, due to its distributed nature.  But, they sure as heck can take it away from me as well as many others on this forum.

/thread

Stop making asinine arguments and whining that USD does it too!!! 

I must bow to the superior eloquence of your argument.

Before I completely concede defeat, however, could you please specify what it is about my arguments that you find so asinine, so that I may have some cogent basis on which to reply?  Also, since I never mentioned USD anywhere in my post, would you be so kind as to briefly describe what I am apparently whining about concerning it?

[rezin777]

I must bow to the superior eloquence of your argument.

Before I completely concede defeat, however, could you please specify what it is about my arguments that you find so asinine, so that I may have some cogent basis on which to reply?  Also, since I never mentioned USD anywhere in my post, would you be so kind as to briefly describe what I am apparently whining about concerning it?

I think he was agreeing with you and telling others to stop.

[AaronM]

[...] it would be pretty trivial for pretty much any government, not to mention a small-cap corporation, to DOS or disintegrate the Bitcoin network.[...]

+1

I can see at least three ways to attack it other than DoS: delete the bitcoin.org domain (commonly done by US law enforcement), arrest key persons (developers, website owners), or coerce Freenode into blocking this "illegal activity" on their IRC network.

Bitcoin has an urgent need for robustness.

[LightRider]

It's absurd to absolve the corrupting systems of money, government and religion of the actions people make while being forced to operate within their confines.

Wrong. You blame the individual, not the tool. You could not pay me enough money, give me enough power over others, or threaten me with the wrath of any god to convince me to commit murder, theft, or any other immoral act against my fellow man. If I can rise above the confines of these systems, anyone can.

Blaming the tool shifts the focus from the real actors, and practically absolves them of their misdeeds.

"Yes, he committed atrocities, but he did it in the name of his god, he can't be held fully accountable."

"Ahh, but he was poor, and offered such a large sum, who wouldn't have done the same in his place?"

"Of course he voted to go to war, he would have been ostracized by his own party had he not."

Baloney.

If you fear the consequences of negative actions, remove the impetus for those actions. People are violent because they have not been given better tools to deal with conflict. People resort to religious beliefs because they did not learn sufficient reasoning and social skills. Politics are immersed in corruption because everything is for sale in a monetary system. You can't talk about individual actions outside of the context in which they are conditioned, and to do so is to excuse the various systems and actions that produce their behavior.

Edit: Unless of course you are asserting that people will do these things because it is part of their essential "nature", in which case there can be no discussion on how to prevent such behavior, rendering the initial question moot.

[John Kirk]

I think he was agreeing with you and telling others to stop.

Ah.  I see.

Well then, nevermind my misguided remonstrations.  :-)

[MoonShadow]

[...] it would be pretty trivial for pretty much any government, not to mention a small-cap corporation, to DOS or disintegrate the Bitcoin network.[...]

+1

I can see at least three ways to attack it other than DoS: delete the bitcoin.org domain (commonly done by US law enforcement), arrest key persons (developers, website owners), or coerce Freenode into blocking this "illegal activity" on their IRC network.

Bitcoin has an urgent need for robustness.

None of these three attacks would do a thing to the running Bitcoin network, and aren't even likely to do much to prevent new users.

[TiagoTiago]

Could they secretly force Freenode to silently mute anyone joining the channel except the govt's bots that will report the addresses of honeypots to cripple the network by keeping most people making useless connections and at the same time buil.d a database of who is trying to use Bitcoin?

[MoonShadow]

Could they secretly force Freenode to silently mute anyone joining the channel except the govt's bots that will report the addresses of honeypots to cripple the network by keeping most people making useless connections and at the same time buil.d a database of who is trying to use Bitcoin?

Not for long, and not likely to any useful degree even in the short term.  The current client no longer requires the IRC channel even for initial bootstrapping.  I don't even let my client connect.