Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters • Hacker News Board

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#21

Post by tabsa » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:13 AM UTC

eli wrote: post #14

tabsa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current currencies "cash platform" already provides such services. Also offshoring, lobbying, loopholes in the law and creative accounting. There is no elephant here.

Pretty tough to send cash anonymously over the internet.

Bitcoin is pseudo anonymous. Everyone knows about all the transactions - they are kept in the block chain that all the clients have, you can only try to hide the real identities of the persons involved in transactions, and that is still quite hard, and anonymity could be attacked using different techniques (see Tor anonymity problems)

It was a bit harder(more costly) before Bitcoin to send small sums "anonymously", but if you have millions or billions there is a whole industry of lawyers/accountants/bankers to help you out. So in that perspective Bitcoin brings anonymity to the common people, lowers the barriers to entry, or you can also say that it brings the era of financial democracy upon us :)

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#22

Post by ww520 » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:18 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #16

pointillistic wrote: post #6

The elephant in the room is that in addition to the obvious upside these platforms are ripe for money laundering.

History tells us that the CIA doesn't necessarily mind.

CIA would be a big user of bitcoins. There are a few operations that they don't want the money to be traced.

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#23

Post by daeken » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:24 AM UTC

tabsa wrote: post #21

eli wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty tough to send cash anonymously over the internet.

Bitcoin is pseudo anonymous. Everyone knows about all the transactions - they are kept in the block chain that all the clients have, you can only try to hide the real identities of the persons involved in transactions, and that is still quite hard, and anonymity could be attacked using different techniques (see Tor anonymity problems) It was a bit harder(more costly) before Bitcoin to send small sums "anonymously", b…

Tor type attacks won't work here. Why? Because transactions go to everyone. Bitcoin "addresses" are really key fingerprints -- it's impossible to know who has the key to decrypt a given Bitcoin. It's equivalent to sending everyone in the world an encrypted email; if you send it to everyone, how do you know who the intended recipient is?

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#24

Post by michaelchisari » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:35 AM UTC

ww520 wrote: post #22

rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History tells us that the CIA doesn't necessarily mind.

CIA would be a big user of bitcoins. There are a few operations that they don't want the money to be traced.

Which is the interesting push and pull of our government. While the CIA would love to be able to launder money through a system such as this, the FBI are probably fuming over how much more difficult their job will become because of it.

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#25

Post by bitwize » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:35 AM UTC

danek wrote: post #18

"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." Aren't these goals are completely at odds with the goals of the government, or do I read too much Chomsky?

If the government doesn't have a backdoor in allowing them to track and/or tax every transaction, you bet your ass it's incompatible with the goals of government!

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#26

Post by richardw » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:36 AM UTC

I'd say their primary interest is knowing how to watch payment flow. They'll develop ways to discover patterns in payment and deduce who is part of what network. Unlikely to disrupt, rather find ways to leverage it.

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#27

Post by antihero » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:39 AM UTC

ww520 wrote: post #22

rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History tells us that the CIA doesn't necessarily mind.

CIA would be a big user of bitcoins. There are a few operations that they don't want the money to be traced.

Didn't Tor start out as a project for spies to communicate?

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#28

Post by trotsky » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:53 AM UTC

sgornick wrote: post #4

Good to see something happening. I hadn't seen anything regarding Bitcoin on HN for about 24 hours and was starting to get worried.

I hate to whine, but has an editor/admin looked at the volume of bitcoin submissions and any possible voting block behavior on the stories? A new bitcoin story seems to have shown up every few days for the past several months, with many of the same posters adding support in the comments every time.

Let's take this story for example. Let's frame it in general terms. A leader of an open source project is going to be speaking in a few months at a meeting that isn't open to the public, and he doesn't suggest he'll be presenting anything new.

Would this be newsworthy on HN for any normal project? Highly unlikely. Many of the bitcoin stories seem to be similar - press about bitcoin that offers nothing that hasn't been said here 100 times.

If the voting and interest is organic, then fine, so be it. But maybe somebody could take a look and see. There is an obvious incentive to certain speculators holding bitcoin to hype it as much as possible in an attempt to fuel the already extreme fluctuations that occur in its trading.

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#29

Post by rms » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:58 AM UTC

mieses wrote: post #19

boring. this business model is well known. 1 create a popular encrypted system the CIA can't see inside of. 2 get invited into CIA headquarters. 3 [redacted] 4 retire.

3) is known as an offer you can't refuse.

Re: Lead bitcoin developer invited into CIA headquarters

#30

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:25 AM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #28

sgornick wrote: post #4

Good to see something happening. I hadn't seen anything regarding Bitcoin on HN for about 24 hours and was starting to get worried.

I hate to whine, but has an editor/admin looked at the volume of bitcoin submissions and any possible voting block behavior on the stories? A new bitcoin story seems to have shown up every few days for the past several months, with many of the same posters adding support in the comments every time. Let's take this story for example. Let's frame it in general terms. A leader of an open source project is going to be sp…

I vote up a lot of the BitCoin Stories - wish there were more of them. While I hold 48.5 BTC, I don't believe I'm speculating/hyping it.

The CIA story didn't have much in it - couldn't be bothered to upvote it, but I can understand why others might - The CIA is interested in BitCoins. How cool is that.