Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
bitcoinweekly.com
Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#2"The likelihood that some government is going to declare Bitcoin illegal and try to crack down on it is low"
I wish this were true...
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#3Bitcoin's greatest strengths [...] that will hardly affect the average user of Bitcoin [...] avoiding a port blocking attack would be as simple as [...] The forums and main site would be up in a matter of days [...]
ad infinitum.
While the article may (or may not) mostly make valid points, there is no honesty in linking to a site that will always promote the subject and only give positive spin to the discussion.
Imagine the subject of debate was axes: are axes dangerous? If you only asked theAxeGuild.com the answer would always be no: axes are useful tools but far too unwieldy to be used as a weapon. Such a website would fail, of course, to publish the editorial: "My whole family was killed by an axe murderer".
Clearly this website is simply trying to sell you axes no matter how good or bad they might actually be.
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#4I guess it's time to prime the pump again. More hype == more investment == $35 bitcoin.
Then in a few weeks, the early adopters start the "dump" phase of pump & dump. (ie. history repeats itself)
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#5Surely there's an easier, legal and potentially cheaper solution open to any government that wants to shut down bitcoin: buy up each and every bitcoin they can lay their hands on.
I would have thought it would wreck havoc with the market (there's no reason why the government couldn't use multiple fronts rather than buying under the same wallet), and past a certain point make it impossible to trade in bitcoin without inducing a headache.
However, I accept that I know next-to-nothing about how money markets really work; please let me know where I might be going wrong :)
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#6The government does not need to take down the network to cripple Bitcoin, it just needs to make it difficult to exchange it for other currencies. This will dry up demand for Bitcoins, and the exchange rate will plummet.
The US government can compel almost any financial institution in the world to stop exchanging Bitcoins by threatening to sanction them for money laundering.[1] A private letter from the State Department stating that an activity is illegal (without specifying any laws) has been enough in the past for certain significant money transmitters.[2]
Recent reports that Bitcoins are being used in the transaction of illegal drugs & money laundering make it highly likely there will be government intervention.[3]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Delta_Asia [2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/08/paypal-wikileaks/ [3] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/bitcoin_under_attack...
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#7The government does not need to take down the network to cripple Bitcoin, it just needs to make it difficult to exchange it for other currencies. This will dry up demand for Bitcoins, and the exchange rate will plummet. The US government can compel almost any financial institution in the world to stop exchanging Bitcoins by threatening to sanction them for money laundering.[1] A private letter from the State Departme…
Along with the massive amount of bitcoin hoarding by early adopters, as well as the difficulty of obtaining bitcoins from a country other than America. I won't be surprised to find bitcoin exchange rates plummet after a few weeks of no media attention.
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#8"Even in a worst case scenario, if a government or some other anti-Bitcoin faction gets a hold of greater than 50% of the processing power (an extremely expensive feat, and hardly worth it unless you're really determined to destroy the network), the rest of the network can be reconfigured to reject that block chain."
At this point the author shows that he does not have much technical background in regard to the Bitcoin network. Once an adversary gains >50% of the processing power you have basically lost. Yes - you can manually blacklist a single "fork" of the blockchain, but the adversary can fork as often as he wants and you cannot immediately tell if a new block has been generated by the adversary.
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#9The government does not need to take down the network to cripple Bitcoin, it just needs to make it difficult to exchange it for other currencies. This will dry up demand for Bitcoins, and the exchange rate will plummet. The US government can compel almost any financial institution in the world to stop exchanging Bitcoins by threatening to sanction them for money laundering.[1] A private letter from the State Departme…
I think that if Bitcoin is made illegal, people will trade them like dollars and West German marks were traded in East Europe during Stalinism, or like dollars and euros are traded now in Cuba, in the black market. People never stopped using good currency instead of the bad one.
Re: Taking Down The Bitcoin Network
#10"Even in a worst case scenario, if a government or some other anti-Bitcoin faction gets a hold of greater than 50% of the processing power (an extremely expensive feat, and hardly worth it unless you're really determined to destroy the network), the rest of the network can be reconfigured to reject that block chain." At this point the author shows that he does not have much technical background in regard to the Bitco…
Right. In fact, it's hard to imagine any network working if over 50% of the power rests with users who are trying to subvert or destroy the system.