Okay. This makes me want to indulge in youthful indignation. If I saw this and was at a company like OpenDNS, I'd start considering saying "No. Sorry. We're going reverting back to the last good record." The federal government might have technical jurisdiction, and U.S. customers might technically be violating U.S. laws but the ability of the federal government to seize internet properties terrifies me because it mig…
Someone maintain a zone record (or hosts file) for all seized domains and make it public via P2P? Just an idea.. ;)
You are right - as long as the nomination is exchangeable for U.S. currency and all transactions are taxed accordingly. But on the note of the parent: > Where does one draw the line between bartering with chips and paying with chips? It's not bartering when you are trying to get around things intentionally.
I like how you just assert-- sans any evidence or argument-- that they are trying to "get around things intentionally". You don't even say what things. Don't bother, I don't care. I'm just amazed at the BS this topic has elicited from people, and I am done defending these guys. All the BS is just proof of why the country is going to hell- why the FBI was able to steal $7M in gold, silver and platinum and get away wit…
You come off like a completely arrogant know it all, regardless of the validity of your claims, the responses you're getting are largely from your own comment's original tone, not the subject, in my opinion of course.
There is no law prohibiting private currency. Disney Dollars: http://www.disneydollars.net/ BerkShares: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070... . Buy Local—With Town Currency Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community Microsoft Points: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Live/MicrosoftPoints Pittsboro Plenty: http://www.demo…
Nika, none of the issuers you mention will convert back into dollars. Its a one way street. Presumably they have set up agreements with people who will accept them an they have pre-negotiated a discount rate. Its like chucky cheese tokens, you can't turn them back into quarters so that you can play more video games.
What about bitcoins? I thought you could convert those back to dollars.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, in what courtroom does a 1-sentence wikipedia definition of "currency" followed by some blogger exposition constitute what is and is not creating an alternative currency? This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end…
I agree that there's a different between Liberty Dollars and casino chips, but I've also been known to keep casino chips as souvenirs as well, so I guess they're similar in that regard. I personally equate the Liberty Dollars to comic books or baseball cards, in that they're collectible items. Being silver, they should appreciate over time, but I would not confuse them with currency myself. I can see how others might…
Well, fault of the company is in the beholder I suppose, but they named it "Dollar" and explicitly marketed it (as in paid for advertisements that say this) as an alternative currency pandering to the Ron Paul crowd. It's not like they're being accused by an idiot who mistakes Chuck-E-Cheese tokens for real currency.
You are right - as long as the nomination is exchangeable for U.S. currency and all transactions are taxed accordingly. But on the note of the parent: > Where does one draw the line between bartering with chips and paying with chips? It's not bartering when you are trying to get around things intentionally.
I like how you just assert-- sans any evidence or argument-- that they are trying to "get around things intentionally". You don't even say what things. Don't bother, I don't care. I'm just amazed at the BS this topic has elicited from people, and I am done defending these guys. All the BS is just proof of why the country is going to hell- why the FBI was able to steal $7M in gold, silver and platinum and get away wit…
This isn't really the best site for the "Wake up, sheeple!" thing.
It's real and it's happening now. I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent shivers down my spine. Who's next? The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US government. Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will probably be the highest profile to da…
Indeed. I'm quite disgusted by the principle of the thing. Something about being deprived of property without due process of law. My primary domain is a .net. I'm loathe to part with it since the TLD is a useful descriptor in this case, but now I'm very seriously considering registering and switching over to the .eu equivalent, which is only a couple bucks more per year.
Does the EU not have a similar procedure they could follow? Or do they just not have a history of doing this (yet)?
Unfortunately, I highly doubt that this will be seen as disturbing by the main stream.
I'm not so sure, a bunch of my mainstream friends are freaking out about it. They didn't care about the previous seizures, but once you stop people from playing Internet poker at work everyone turns into a civil rights advocate.
That's not necessarily a representative sample - it's only poker players, thus far.
Please don't cite dictionary definitions. A dictionary will give you every possible meaning of the word, in any context. In the context of economics and law, currency is physical money. I think you are more interested in winning the argument than being correct.
OK, knock it off. This is exactly the kind of comment that's been leading to HN's oldest of oldtimers to conclude that there's been a decline in civility here. edit: looks like he edited his comment while I was replying; his comment originally ended with, "I hoped your ilk would never find currency on this site, but I guess the day was going to come.", and was that way for at least 30 minutes before I replied.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, I allowed my common sense to be temporarily overrode by the desire to make a pun.