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Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
91–100 of 142 posts
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a problem with the internet in general. In the future, we will have an archive of everything everyone did on the internet and can use stylometry, Facebook likes and clicks, and temporal association to uncover individuals. The only way to opt-out is to just stop participating. All newer cryptography based systems for preserving privacy, like ZCash and Monero, are based around elliptic curve math that will one…
How soon is that day when elliptic curve cryptography will be broken? AFAIK RSA is still mostly unbroken and it has been decades. EC could last 50 years or 500 years, right? And if one were to, say, take some transparent ZEC, send it to an invisible location, then take it out to a transparent location and do the same again to a third transparent location (to then convert to bitcoin or whatever)... EC would have to be…
10 years, at most. Google is seeing to production-ready QC within the next 3 years for specific applications. Factoring elliptic curve point multiplications is log(n) with QC, so once the cat is out of the bag decrypting a large dataset should be trivial.
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Money laundering is a fake crime and propaganda by governments with prosecutors unable to find real crime. Absolutely true. I'm a convicted money launderer because I once used a chinese bitcoin exchange instead of an European one. The wires from the Chinese exchange were nothing compared to the EU ones, simply the origin country was enough to justify my conviction.
But why? Was it dirty money somehow?
Nah, I was charged with other crimes (none of which had a financial incentive, according to LE or the courts).
While at it they "subpoenad" my bank account history, saw a bunch of wires from normal European exchanges and then one wire from a Chinese account. Never cared to ask about the European ones (I verified that they didn't ask the exchanges directly either.), but the Chinese one was apparently particularly interesting.
They asked me a few questions, I explained the (legal) source of the money, few years later the thing actually got to court and I was found guilty with the only evidence against me being the country where the funds came from.
Not worth it to appeal, I might get my 6-7k euros back but would probably end up paying more than that for lawyers.
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is basically money laundering, right?
Under US law, no. Money laundering requires the intent to conceal the origin of proceeds from certain specific unlawful activities or to avoid financial reporting requirements. Hiding the origin of lawfully obtained money is legal.
This is not true. There simply doesn't exist any court that'd accept your justification that your service is only intended to conceal the origin legitimately obtained funds.
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean it's a made up victimless crime that only serves prosecutors. It's on the moral level of asset seizure and worse than "crimes" like wire fraud. Prosecutors are free to think someone's doing something wrong. Investigators might be able to get warrants under such suspicions (iffy but perhaps acceptable). But they should need to find actual wrongdoing to be able to convict people, and this last part is what is la…
It is only money laundering if is done with money that is the result of a crime. Just like a trader is only a fence when he trades stolen good. Therefore, by definition, money laundering is assisting a crime. If the crime had a victim, then, by proxy, laundering the money of the crime is not victimless either.
This is absolutely not true, at least in the US. If you are a business that transmits even 100% lawful funds without registering with FINCEN and registration as a MSB in your jurisdiction, you can and will be charged with money laundering.
Also, using your argument about money laundering, what about a restaurant that serves mostly mafioso, but never engages in any unlawful activity themselves. They are providing food to criminals, which is even more critical to their criminal enterprise. After all, the mafia can't commit crimes if they can't eat, right? And they are paid with funds that result from crimes. By your analogy, the restaurant owner is assisting in a crime. So should that restaurant owner be charged with some kind of new crime? (like money laundering is a relatively new crime that has been created over the past 50 years) Like, criminal gastronomy, feeding in the 3rd degree, or something?
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#96OK, so it's cool to see some of this background.
But far more important is the challenge of designing an exchange that can't be taken down.
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's privacy. Money laundering is a fake crime and propaganda by governments with prosecutors unable to find real crime. It's as bad as calling copyright infringement "theft" or even "piracy", though the later term has been pretty watered down. Or how banks push the idea of "Identity theft" as if someone stole your identity versus the bank failing to verify your identity. We don't call encryption "information launder…
People go to prison for it all the time. It's as real as any other crime. If you are acting in a way that's indistinguishable from someone who is attempting to hide evidence of a crime, don't be surprised when people think you are doing something wrong.
> If you are acting in a way that's indistinguishable from someone who is attempting to hide evidence of a crime, don't be surprised when people think you are doing something wrong.
Do you apply this kind of reasoning to encrypted communications? If not, why not?
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is basically money laundering, right?
Under US law, no. Money laundering requires the intent to conceal the origin of proceeds from certain specific unlawful activities or to avoid financial reporting requirements. Hiding the origin of lawfully obtained money is legal.
This is absolutely not true, at least in the US. If you are a business that transmits even 100% lawful funds without registering with FINCEN and registration as a MSB in your jurisdiction, you can and will be charged with money laundering.
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#99These domain name seizures from non US-resident entities keep coming. But more worryingly, "The language in the indictment about BTC-e’s “criminal design” mimics the indictment against Liberty Reserve". This also mimics the Kim DotCom / MegaUpload take down, along with a likely "FBI" operation in a foreign country. It seems there is now a policy of taking down things that are "criminal in design" - waiting for the ne…
It's more like a turf war between gangs. The US is just the world's meanest bastard, and isn't reticent about using its power.
Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges
#100> The language in the indictment about BTC-e’s “criminal design” mimics the indictment against Liberty Reserve — an anonymous currency service taken down by law enforcement in 2013 — which also accused the online exchange of having a “criminal design” and a system “designed so that criminals could effect financial transactions under multiple layers of anonymity.” Basing the indictment on the intent of the design - so…
Right. They can target anyone they like, and create some plausible bullshit to justify it.