Gavin will visit the CIA

[grondilu]

keep your friends close and your enemies closer

Exactly.

Well, at least it was a good idea to publicly announce that he has been invited by them.  In case something happens, we'll know who to blame.

[cypherdoc]

I think it's a great way for government to fund the development of Bitcoin, by paying speaker's fees to the developers.

Gavin ought to have charged 10x that.

[cypherdoc]

CIA is filled with analysts.  Crypto, math, infosys, they've got some of the best of the best.

Some of the people who listen to the talk will write internal memo's using some sort of US centric threat metric.  These memo's will be circulated, socialized and further analysis (data gathering) may be ordered up (depending on possible risk/opportunity idea holds).

Finally an official memo will be circulated to upper level govt. staffers in house and senate.  Maybe, and I mean maybe, Obama will get a 20 sec briefing on it in the next year.

my 00.02 btc


Gavin, you have to do this.

doesn't sound very encouraging to me.  i'm not sure of any good of this for btc.

[CryptikEnigma]

Probably the beginning of the end of Bitcoin as we know it IMO. It continuing to stay anonymous now is almost certainly not going to happen.

The CIA is obviously aware of Bitcoin already, otherwise they would not have contacted Gavin.

What do you fear that they will do, exactly, to make Bitcoin less anonymous?

Don't know. But they're just not going to let it go and say 'Oh yeah sounds good continue operating your competing anonymous currency the way it is, good luck!'


You are completely naive if you think that. Whatever changes after this because of the CIA. It won't be anything we like.

[cypherdoc]

Gavin - please be sure to emphasize the transparency of bitcoin - every transaction being logged publicly makes it slightly less attractive to the drug-smuggling terrorist child pornographers. A careful analysis of the network would yield a lot of information about who is paying who how much, even if it doesn't tell you their name and address. One easy thing they could do is to pay money to some illegal service, and watch where the money goes.

second that.  Gavin pls emphasize also that btc was created by Satoshi b/c he and we are sick of FerBanke and central banks worldwide devaluing our money to enrich themselves and financial arsonists.  it was not invented to facilitate drug pmts, money laundering, or assasinations.

[cypherdoc]

I find this revelation to be supportive of Bitcoin's future.  If they are openly asking a major representative of the Bitcoin community to speak, that means that they not only have looked at it fairly closely and have judged generally that it's not a threat or a crime (meaning they are not going to commit resources to destroy the network) it also means that someone has a use for Bitcoin.

Keep in mind, they have a use for Tor, and if every Tor node were owned by the feds, it woundn't be very useful to them either.

It might also explain some of the mystery money that has been flowing into MtGox and driving the price.  If the CIA has a use for it, they are going to have to have some of it.

If this presentation goes well, and tells them what they really would like to verifiy (they don't ask questions that they don't already have strong opinions on, like lawyers never ask questions in court that they haven't already researched, the CIA has access to some truly high class programmers themselves) then just imagine the level of hashing power that the feds could bring to Bitcoin.

I know that most people think that the fact that the US FRN is the international reserve currency is a major boon for the US economy, but there are some very notable downsides.  In some ways it's in the interests of the US to gently back away from that role.  Bitcoin could help that endeavor.

can u explain the downsides of being the reserve currency?

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile we will have anonymous cryptocarrotcurrency waiting in the wings......

Just try anything funny and a mushroom cloud of blockchains will appear .
 
The source is open and anyone can start their own.

It is not us who should be scared it is the banksters - btw gavin shoulda been paid in bitcoins
 

[xf2_org]

I want to get this out in the open because it is the kind of thing that will generate conspiracy theories:  I'm going to give a presentation about Bitcoin at CIA headquarters in June at an emerging technologies conference for the US intelligence community.

Gavin -- be prepared for a "blackout presentation."

That's where you are speaking to an audience with lights shining in your face and a darkened auditorium, so that the audience is shrouded from your view.  It's a weird experience.  

[grondilu]

I wouldn't be too surprised if, instead of a 3,000USD cheque, Gavin would receive some nice bracelets once he arrives there:

[cypherdoc]

and the WH will obviously be hostile towards Bitcoin.

I don't agree that this is a given.

You must be joking. Bitcoin is threatening them with bilions of dollars loss if not a total dissolution and you don't think it's a given?

i'm afraid i have to agree with mewant.

[xf2_org]

In private, the CIA and other secret services may be delighted by the new possibilities a tool like Bitcoin gives them, but that does not necessarily mean that the governments those secret services work for will endorse Bitcoin publicly.

Yup.

From what I've read, US intel agencies sometimes use Tor sometimes for open source intelligence gathering (reading the world's newspapers anonymously etc.)

Quite seriously, I could see the CIA using bitcoins to transfer funds to their agents, or an intelligence source buried deep in a foreign government somewhere.

"Bitcoin:  the currency preferred by spies everywhere"

[grondilu]

Quite seriously, I could see the CIA using bitcoins to transfer funds to their agents, or an intelligence source buried deep in a foreign government somewhere.

You might actually be right.  How weird that would be, though.

[Anonymous]

Former governor Jesse Ventura explains what happened when he met the cia....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzfXOfpFcA

I hope gavin takes his alpaca socks for moral support .   

[xf2_org]

I think the goals of this project are to create a better currency, create a more competitive and efficient international payment system, and give people more direct control over their finances.  And I don't think any of those goals are incompatible with the goals of government.

+1000 on this...

[FreeMoney]

I am sorry Gavin is accepting Tax payer's money in order to do something like that.

If he accepts 3,000$ to give a presentation about bitcoin, what would he do for 300,000$ or 3,000,000$?  Would he accept a full time job as trying to find a way to destroy bitcoin?

Why do CIA need to have someone explain bitcoin in flesh and bone?   Can't they read Satoshi's white paper, source code and other information available on this forum?

I must say I am a bit disappointed by Gavin.  I hope he reconsiders.

From now on, I'll be even more suspicious about any source code Gavin will publish.

I would take all the money from the government.

To me "tax payer's money" refers to whatever they have left after the theft, Gavin isn't taking any of that.

I am not suspicious of Gavin.

If Gavin can harm Bitcoin then Bitcoin isn't go great anyway.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

I am sorry Gavin is accepting Tax payer's money in order to do something like that.

If he accepts 3,000$ to give a presentation about bitcoin, what would he do for 300,000$ or 3,000,000$?  Would he accept a full time job as trying to find a way to destroy bitcoin?

Why do CIA need to have someone explain bitcoin in flesh and bone?   Can't they read Satoshi's white paper, source code and other information available on this forum?

I must say I am a bit disappointed by Gavin.  I hope he reconsiders.

From now on, I'll be even more suspicious about any source code Gavin will publish.

CIA: I'm betting it was more like, Would you please come talk to us about bitcoi-

Gavin: Absolutely!

CIA: And we'll pay you $3000 for travel and time as well

Gavin: I guess?

[xf2_org]

I'm not criticizing Gavin, but profiting from speeches does lead to unfortunate incentives in groups like this one.  It can easily affect incentives and lead to what's known as "capture."  I'd suggest pledging whatever's left after direct expenses toward some community purpose; the other developers aren't paid for their "time."  It's not much anyway; $3000 is closed to what the trip itself should cost.  But I'm leery of seeing any part of it as compensation for time.  If he isn't willing to contribute time for free in this respect, as he has in other respects, he could surely nominate another developer who is.

Now, that's just silly.  Speaking fees are a market, like any other.  You would think bitcoiners would understand that

If Gavin becomes in-demand, I would hope that his speaking fees increase.

[Anonymous]

Former governor Jesse Ventura explains what happened when he met the cia....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzfXOfpFcA

I hope gavin takes his alpaca socks for moral support .   

Jessy Ventura: "Why CIA wanted to talk to me? They did not see me coming..." this is it maybe. They did not see bitcoin coming.  

I think thats correct. Maybe they also looked at google trends and discovered the large userbase in Russia.

 

[kiba]

Now, that's just silly.  Speaking fees are a market, like any other.  You would think bitcoiners would understand that

If Gavin becomes in-demand, I would hope that his speaking fees increase.

And Gavin won't have to beg his wife for money.  

Remember "pretend money" his wife said about his work? Now he get to say "but it make money".

[Anonymous]

CIA: I'm betting it was more like, Would you please come talk to us about bitcoi-

Gavin: Absolutely!

CIA: And we'll pay you $3000 for travel and time as well

Gavin: I guess?

Because surely nobody involved in an open-source currency project cares about money? 

I'm not criticizing Gavin, but profiting from speeches does lead to unfortunate incentives in groups like this one.  It can easily affect incentives and lead to what's known as "capture."  I'd suggest pledging whatever's left after direct expenses toward some community purpose; the other developers aren't paid for their "time."  It's not much anyway; $3000 is closed to what the trip itself should cost.  But I'm leery of seeing any part of it as compensation for time.  If he isn't willing to contribute time for free in this respect, as he has in other respects, he could surely nominate another developer who is.

Id be more concerned if he did it for free....