The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#71

Post by seibelj » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:15 AM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #62

Houshalter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that they are treating it similarly to cash. The problem is that our society is slowly criminalizing cash as well. If cops catch you with a large amount of cash, they can just take it with no recourse. It's assumed to be for criminal activity, since why else would anyone transport cash? Using cash is increasingly seen as suspicious and possibly criminal behavior. If you deposit a large amount of cash it…

Before you run away with your paranoid hat on, think about it the other way around: voters want something done about organized crime, and politicians look for the easy wins. Since large untraceable cash transactions are almost always criminal in nature, it makes sense to lower the weight of evidence required to seize unusually large amounts of cash. And frankly, I'm fairly comfortable with that. It'll never affect me…

Don't take cash from citizens without proper process through the courts. Simple as that!

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#72

Post by aianus » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:20 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #61

Mendenhall wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am sure those reasons play a part I think thats not even close to all of what makes it valuable. Ease of use is a huge one. I can set up a wallet in less than a minute and someone from across the world can send me bitcoin in the time it takes for it to clear the block, other cryptos even faster. One can post their wallet address and make jokes on social media and receive bitcoin just because people like the c…

What is missing from this picture is that whoever wants to send you bitcoins needs to get them. This is still a huge barrier especially with having no idea what your bitcoins are actually worth and also it's a given that your wallet will be stolen sooner or later so you want to buy only a little at a time but that has overhead so... As for transferring money, Transferwise is leagues ahead in usability when you consid…

Transferwise is stupidly expensive. Costs about $140 in fees to transfer $10k from US to Canada vs. ~$0 for BTC depending on how sophisticated you are in timing the trade.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#73

Post by wfunction » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:37 AM UTC

kemonocode wrote: post #67

wfunction wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding how awesome Bitcoin must be, can I just take a moment to point out that only half the reason crap like randomware exists (and hits places like hospitals, etc.) is suboptimal security. The other half is untraceable digital payments. Food for thought.

Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. Tainted money like that would need to be put through a Bitcoin tumbler which is unsafe and imperfect or only ever used to pay for other criminal activities as exchanging it for fiat in an exchange cooperating with any authorities could be pretty hard.

> Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there.

And I was merely saying Bitcoin has been making untraceable digital payments possible (and practical/easy).

Nowhere was I saying it is impossible to also use Bitcoin for traceable digital payments.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#74

Post by labster » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:39 AM UTC

afsina wrote: post #18

pmoriarty wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget rampant speculation and tulip mania. The author of the article speaks disparagingly of a "money grab" by the government, as if money grabbing wasn't what most bitcoin traders are after.

Government grabs money by force. That is the difference I guess.

Government is the legitimate exercise of force. That's kind of the whole reason it exists.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#75

Post by yorwba » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:44 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #50

Analemma_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1) Bitcoin isn't new, it has been around for years now, and millions in venture capital has been poured into it. It's still a pain in the ass to use at all and basically impossible to use securely. I'm starting to think that if it could be fixed, it would be by now. 2) Not all those problems are UX faults. A lot of us happen to consider transaction irreversibility to be a bug and not a feature, for exampl…

> 1) Bitcoin isn't new, it has been around for years now, and millions in venture capital has been poured into it. It's still a pain in the ass to use at all and basically impossible to use securely. I'm starting to think that if it could be fixed, it would be by now. I think it's improved quite a bit in that time. Especially so if you consider some of the newer cryptos. Is it there yet? No. But these things take tim…

> You may want to build reversibility as a layer on top of Bitcoin.

How is that supposed to work? Once the money has been sent to someone's private key, you rely on their cooperation to get it reversed.

To effectively force them to give it up, a trusted third party would have to hold an even larger amount in escrow. But then what if that third party refuses to cooperate? You would need a larger escrow service to hold the escrow service accountable ... or they would have to make their identity public and be personally liable for any losses, putting government regulation back in the loop.

And this is assuming the transaction was made voluntarily in the first place. If someone steals your money they are not going to make the transaction reversible if they can avoid it. Unless you have the clout to convince a majority of miners to do a hard fork, good luck getting your money back.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#76

Post by darawk » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:37 AM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #75

darawk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Bitcoin isn't new, it has been around for years now, and millions in venture capital has been poured into it. It's still a pain in the ass to use at all and basically impossible to use securely. I'm starting to think that if it could be fixed, it would be by now. I think it's improved quite a bit in that time. Especially so if you consider some of the newer cryptos. Is it there yet? No. But these things take tim…

> You may want to build reversibility as a layer on top of Bitcoin. How is that supposed to work? Once the money has been sent to someone's private key, you rely on their cooperation to get it reversed. To effectively force them to give it up, a trusted third party would have to hold an even larger amount in escrow. But then what if that third party refuses to cooperate? You would need a larger escrow service to hold…

In Ethereum, reversibility could have strict constraints. For instance, you could devise a contract in which the funds are held in escrow for 90 days, during which time a neutral third party may reverse the transaction using their key.

The important point is that the actual parties to the transaction may choose how they want to mediate this, whether they want reversibility, what conditions they want it to have, and have it all enforced by code and cryptography.

Of course, this burden would only really take place on high value transactions. For most transactions, there'd be a standard configuration people and merchants would use.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#77

Post by ploxiln » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:37 AM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #62

Houshalter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that they are treating it similarly to cash. The problem is that our society is slowly criminalizing cash as well. If cops catch you with a large amount of cash, they can just take it with no recourse. It's assumed to be for criminal activity, since why else would anyone transport cash? Using cash is increasingly seen as suspicious and possibly criminal behavior. If you deposit a large amount of cash it…

Before you run away with your paranoid hat on, think about it the other way around: voters want something done about organized crime, and politicians look for the easy wins. Since large untraceable cash transactions are almost always criminal in nature, it makes sense to lower the weight of evidence required to seize unusually large amounts of cash. And frankly, I'm fairly comfortable with that. It'll never affect me…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...

> There have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments through the Equitable Sharing Program, totaling more than $2.5 billion. State and local authorities kept more than $1.7 billion of that while Justice, Homeland Security and other federal agencies received $800 million. Half of the seizures were below $8,800.

> Only a sixth of the seizures were legally challenged, in part because of the costs of legal action against the government. But in 41 percent of cases — 4,455 — where there was a challenge, the government agreed to return money. The appeals process took more than a year in 40 percent of those cases and often required owners of the cash to sign agreements not to sue police over the seizures.

EDIT: throwing in a great specific example:

http://listverse.com/2015/06/29/10-egregious-abuses-of-civil...

> restaurant owner Dale Agostini was pulled over on the same stretch of highway as Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson for the same reason: driving in the left lane without passing. After using what turned out to be an untrained police dog to sniff the vehicle, officers found over $50,000 in cash but no evidence of drugs. Agostini explained to the officers that he had family in the area and he intended to buy restaurant equipment at a local auction with the cash he was carrying. At the time, Agostini was traveling with his fiance and their one-year-old child, along with a cook who worked at Agostini’s restaurant.

> Agostini and the passengers were informed by Lynda K. Russell, the district attorney who had arrived on the scene, that they would face charges for money laundering and for engaging in organized criminal activity, and the baby would be turned over to Child Protective Services. The car, the $50,000, six cell phones, and an iPod were all seized.

> No criminal charges were ever filed.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#78

Post by mirimir » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:38 AM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #75

darawk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Bitcoin isn't new, it has been around for years now, and millions in venture capital has been poured into it. It's still a pain in the ass to use at all and basically impossible to use securely. I'm starting to think that if it could be fixed, it would be by now. I think it's improved quite a bit in that time. Especially so if you consider some of the newer cryptos. Is it there yet? No. But these things take tim…

> You may want to build reversibility as a layer on top of Bitcoin. How is that supposed to work? Once the money has been sent to someone's private key, you rely on their cooperation to get it reversed. To effectively force them to give it up, a trusted third party would have to hold an even larger amount in escrow. But then what if that third party refuses to cooperate? You would need a larger escrow service to hold…

A major innovation by Silk Road was its escrow system.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#79

Post by abritinthebay » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:49 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #44

abritinthebay wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The problem is that Bitcoin wants to be taken seriously as a currency while at the same time not being subject to all the rules and regulations imposed on currencies. This was predicted years ago by most critics but was most often just hand-waved away by advocates, most responding that it was impossible to regulate the system itself. Well.. yeah, so you regulate assets and income of the people and companies i…

Some of us see P2P cryptocurrencies as a way to opt out of government regulation. Governments can't regulate entities that maintain strong anonymity. Most vulnerable are asset movements to and from meatspace. But there are well-known methods for dealing with that.

It's... like you're repeating exactly the objection I mentioned and not addressing the core problem with it.

Oh no, that is what you just did. Ok then, carry on.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#80

Post by abritinthebay » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:51 AM UTC

wfunction wrote: post #73

kemonocode wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. Tainted money like that would need to be put through a Bitcoin tumbler which is unsafe and imperfect or only ever used to pay for other criminal activities as exchanging it for fiat in an exchange cooperating with any authorities could be pretty hard.

> Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. And I was merely saying Bitcoin has been making untraceable digital payments possible (and practical/easy). Nowhere was I saying it is impossible to also use Bitcoin for traceable digital payments.

And you'd still be wrong. There's nothing about bitcoin that makes payments untraceable (quite the opposite).

It takes longer, but it's possible.