Commenting as an interested individual, taking company hat off.As someone who has worked in related industries in the past, I can confirm that the document is either an extremely well put together fake written by someone with extensive knowledge of government writing style and organisations, or real.
Honestly, going off experience I believe it's real. The fact that it has spelling / grammatical errors or doesn't use the sort of language you'd expect an employee of the government to use is irrelevant - whoever wrote it was human, and I've come across more than my share of spelling and grammatical errors in official government documents. Taking it as a given that the document is real, its contents are pretty bog-standard boring stuff - a general overview of Bitcoin, possible tie-ins to organised crime and the like. It doesn't include any actionable items, which would be contained in a more highly classified report anyway.
Overall impact to Bitcoin and Bitcoin community: zero
Not saying that won't change in the future, but for now it's just an interesting look at another perspective on Bitcoin.
As for LoupGaroux's refutations, to disassemble them quickly:
1. The FBI does not watermark their "internal documents" with a badly shaded, homemade Seal of LEO authenticity.
You'd be surprised how much of a pain it is to get your hands on department templates sometimes.
2. A quick search of the entire database of the Directorate of Intelligence indicates that the phrase "bitcoin" has never been used in any official document, and the only positive links to a press release from March 18, 2011 about von NotHaus and NORFED.
Not everything discussed internally makes it onto public sites. This doesn't even have anything to do with classifying documents, (although I believe this one was "for official use only") but more to do with the fact that the guys responsible for posting up documents publicly are far fewer and slower than the people producing the original internal documents.
3. No US agency identifies Classified status by the paragraph, especially not any document that would have For Official Use Only status. The entire document would be identified as such on the cover, only.
I can't comment on FBI policy, but this depends on the document - particularly for overview documents, it can help people to gauge how classified certain topics are considered to be within the department.
4. No US agency would use a cut and paste graphic on the cover of the document, especially not when that cover is a template from Word '95.
Ref point 1.
5. No US agency would ever give attribution for a graphic below the graphic, and especially not ever do so on the cover. Attributions would be in the notations and citations, basic Strunk and White. They have entire libraries devoted to the correct style of document production.
True, but again whoever wrote it was human. For the average analyst who has a list of documents he needs to write longer than his arm, most of them far more important / interesting than Bitcoin, I can believe that a little sloppiness would come through.
6. Distribution lists come at the beginning of official documents, so that any official considering disseminating the document can check quickly if it can be shared.
This is true, but does not preclude the inclusion of a distribution list later on, particularly because these things get re-forwarded like crazy on a regular basis.
7. An official document of this sort would not be released as an attempted slick looking report, it would be very straightforward text blocks, and almost always block-justified.
I can't comment on the FBI's particular style of documents. This could be true, but on the other hand I have seen some very nicely put-together packages before.
8. No self-respecting FBI Junior G Man would ever sprinkle phrases like "vendor acceptance", "actors" , "malware" or "botnets" in a report that would ever be read by a superior. It would probably cost them their job.
Depends on the audience.
9. A real report would not mis-identify the entity that money transmitters must register with. They are not legally required to register with "FinCEN", that is where reports are filed by Law Enforcement, and advisories developed to coordinate the efforts of Law Enforcement to combat financial crimes, not as a registry for money exchangers. They would be far more likely to be required to register with their respective Secretary of State, or Corporate licensing
agency on a state by state basis, licensing of financial institutions is done on a state level, not on a Federal one.
This is untrue. MSBs must also register with FinCEN -
http://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/10. The language is wrong.
Again, regardless of what you might think of the FBI, it is primarily composed of humans, not robots. The kind of kid who's likely to get the junk assignment of doing a writeup on Bitcoin probably isn't going to be that entrenched in the style guide yet.
IMHO.
