Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.bitcoinblogger.com/2010/11/bitcoin-gains-legal-protection-through... SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010 Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation There are many legal implications when utilizing Bitcoin. Users of Bitcoin who conduct business with the wrong people could face charges of money laundering, identity theft, and/or fraud. Honest Bitcoin users could be implicated in crimes by criminals engaging in phishing or malware and stealing identities. The Bitcoin economy resembles that of the wild, wild, west with inherently little or no regulation. Because of the barbaric nature of this new currency it is highly susceptible to legal attacks by law enforcement. Bitcoin has recently, however, gained some legal protection by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In another significant milestone for P2P cryptocurrency the EFF has agreed to accept Bitcoin donations! The EFF is known for legal cases involving high profile tech companies such as Apple, Google, Craigslist, and Facebook. The simple fact that the EFF is welcoming anonymous donations is a small but significant step towards Bitcoin societal acceptance. Accepting anonymous donations is not a light decision by the EFF, and the implications are monumental. For example, selling or buying Bitcoins with an anonymous user could mean unintentionally aiding terrorism or helping North Korea build nuclear weapons. Or, political groups accepting Bitcoins could be accepting funds by enemies of the state. The United States recently placed sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programs, and if Bitcoins are adopted universally then sanctions would no longer work as a tool to change the behaviors of government. In essence, the globalization of Bitcoins will affect international political policy. The disruptive nature of Bitcoin can cause unease with existing institutions and the war against Bitcoin will be waged through a legal front. The endorsement of the EFF could set up a legal battle in the future, "Bitcoin vs. Entity X". What courts could fail to realize, however, is the non-centralized aspect of Bitcoin, which makes shutting down the service next to impossible. Most likely, that is why Bitcoin will succeed no matter what trials and tribulations it may have to face. Nevertheless, the EFF's willingness to accept Bitcoins will further the cryptocurrency's cause, and will encourage the recognition of Bitcoin as a currency to be "official". Several members of bitcoin.org have been involved in making the endorsement of the EFF happen which you can read at this forum thread. Feel free to donate to the EFF at their donation page.
I was checking and Wikipedia has deleted its Bitcoin entry. how strange!did they say why? Sarad. --- On Mon, 11/15/10, Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> wrote:
From: Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> Subject: Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation To: tt@postbiota.org, info@postbiota.org, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net, or-talk@freehaven.net Date: Monday, November 15, 2010, 6:39 PM http://www.bitcoinblogger.com/2010/11/bitcoin-gains-legal-protection-through...
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010
Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation
There are many legal implications when utilizing Bitcoin. Users of Bitcoin who conduct business with the wrong people could face charges of money laundering, identity theft, and/or fraud. Honest Bitcoin users could be implicated in crimes by criminals engaging in phishing or malware and stealing identities. The Bitcoin economy resembles that of the wild, wild, west with inherently little or no regulation. Because of the barbaric nature of this new currency it is highly susceptible to legal attacks by law enforcement. Bitcoin has recently, however, gained some legal protection by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In another significant milestone for P2P cryptocurrency the EFF has agreed to accept Bitcoin donations! The EFF is known for legal cases involving high profile tech companies such as Apple, Google, Craigslist, and Facebook. The simple fact that the EFF is welcoming anonymous donations is a small but significant step towards Bitcoin societal acceptance.
Accepting anonymous donations is not a light decision by the EFF, and the implications are monumental. For example, selling or buying Bitcoins with an anonymous user could mean unintentionally aiding terrorism or helping North Korea build nuclear weapons. Or, political groups accepting Bitcoins could be accepting funds by enemies of the state. The United States recently placed sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programs, and if Bitcoins are adopted universally then sanctions would no longer work as a tool to change the behaviors of government. In essence, the globalization of Bitcoins will affect international political policy.
The disruptive nature of Bitcoin can cause unease with existing institutions and the war against Bitcoin will be waged through a legal front. The endorsement of the EFF could set up a legal battle in the future, "Bitcoin vs. Entity X". What courts could fail to realize, however, is the non-centralized aspect of Bitcoin, which makes shutting down the service next to impossible. Most likely, that is why Bitcoin will succeed no matter what trials and tribulations it may have to face. Nevertheless, the EFF's willingness to accept Bitcoins will further the cryptocurrency's cause, and will encourage the recognition of Bitcoin as a currency to be "official".
Several members of bitcoin.org have been involved in making the endorsement of the EFF happen which you can read at this forum thread. Feel free to donate to the EFF at their donation page.
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 06:17:56AM -0800, Sarad AV wrote:
I was checking and Wikipedia has deleted its Bitcoin entry. how strange!did they say why?
Wikipedia is in the information deletion business now. You might have missed the memo (maybe their deletion squad got it first).
Sarad.
--- On Mon, 11/15/10, Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> wrote:
From: Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> Subject: Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation To: tt@postbiota.org, info@postbiota.org, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net, or-talk@freehaven.net Date: Monday, November 15, 2010, 6:39 PM http://www.bitcoinblogger.com/2010/11/bitcoin-gains-legal-protection-through...
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010
Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation
There are many legal implications when utilizing Bitcoin. Users of Bitcoin who conduct business with the wrong people could face charges of money laundering, identity theft, and/or fraud. Honest Bitcoin users could be implicated in crimes by criminals engaging in phishing or malware and stealing identities. The Bitcoin economy resembles that of the wild, wild, west with inherently little or no regulation. Because of the barbaric nature of this new currency it is highly susceptible to legal attacks by law enforcement. Bitcoin has recently, however, gained some legal protection by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In another significant milestone for P2P cryptocurrency the EFF has agreed to accept Bitcoin donations! The EFF is known for legal cases involving high profile tech companies such as Apple, Google, Craigslist, and Facebook. The simple fact that the EFF is welcoming anonymous donations is a small but significant step towards Bitcoin societal acceptance.
Accepting anonymous donations is not a light decision by the EFF, and the implications are monumental. For example, selling or buying Bitcoins with an anonymous user could mean unintentionally aiding terrorism or helping North Korea build nuclear weapons. Or, political groups accepting Bitcoins could be accepting funds by enemies of the state. The United States recently placed sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programs, and if Bitcoins are adopted universally then sanctions would no longer work as a tool to change the behaviors of government. In essence, the globalization of Bitcoins will affect international political policy.
The disruptive nature of Bitcoin can cause unease with existing institutions and the war against Bitcoin will be waged through a legal front. The endorsement of the EFF could set up a legal battle in the future, "Bitcoin vs. Entity X". What courts could fail to realize, however, is the non-centralized aspect of Bitcoin, which makes shutting down the service next to impossible. Most likely, that is why Bitcoin will succeed no matter what trials and tribulations it may have to face. Nevertheless, the EFF's willingness to accept Bitcoins will further the cryptocurrency's cause, and will encourage the recognition of Bitcoin as a currency to be "official".
Several members of bitcoin.org have been involved in making the endorsement of the EFF happen which you can read at this forum thread. Feel free to donate to the EFF at their donation page.
-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
On Mon, 2010-11-15 at 15:20 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 06:17:56AM -0800, Sarad AV wrote:
I was checking and Wikipedia has deleted its Bitcoin entry. how
strange!did they say why?
Wikipedia is in the information deletion business now. You might have missed the memo (maybe their deletion squad got it first).
What a shame. I honestly thought Jimmy Wales and the others in charge were better than that. -- Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn@speakeasy.net>
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:23:02PM -0600, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
On Mon, 2010-11-15 at 15:20 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 06:17:56AM -0800, Sarad AV wrote:
I was checking and Wikipedia has deleted its Bitcoin entry. how
strange!did they say why?
Wikipedia is in the information deletion business now. You might have missed the memo (maybe their deletion squad got it first).
What a shame. I honestly thought Jimmy Wales and the others in charge were better than that.
They do not seem to exercise their leadership to squash the dysfunctional culture. It's gotten pretty bad, particularly with German Wikipedia. Apparently, something stinky financially as well. The only way to combat that is to use something like Tahoe, and have multiple independent institutions linking into it. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
On Mon, 15 Nov 2010, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
Wikipedia is in the information deletion business now. You might have missed the memo (maybe their deletion squad got it first).
What a shame. I honestly thought Jimmy Wales and the others in charge were better than that.
Even a brief perusal of the history of wikipedia and wales would demonstrate that they are not. You may be interested in: http://www.archive.org/details/20070427-jscott-brickipedia http://www.archive.org/details/20061202-jscott-mythapedia http://www.archive.org/details/20060408-jscott-wikipedia
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 15 Nov, 2010, at 19:19 , coderman wrote:
the cuda cards are killing bitcoin, why bother?
(i suppose it is an interesting footnote...)
Nothing could be further from the truth. Mining/Minting operations have little/nothing to do with the viability of the network itself. It's a novel way of dealing with inflation, but, if anything, the easy availability of cheap and fast GPUs is accelerating adoption. Opportunists will quickly drive the profit from generating down to almost exactly that of the power costs, but that's to be expected. They are also the driving force behind a free market. Or do you think they are killing those, too? :) - -jp - -- ======================================================== Jeffrey Paul -datavibe- sneak@datavibe.net +1 (800) 403-1126 http://sneak.datavibe.net 5539AD00 DE4C42F3 AFE11575 052443F4 DF2A55C2 "Virtue is its own punishment." ======================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJM4YhvAAoJEAUkQ/TfKlXCncQP/0KEXywE1TutRcbI2/H+y4bm TYuLbUcY6PLGIS/EbiDP9DIeLCnwbs/Hq7I3JHrjCQash3CbYppqFEyyYlBaY/1U okOE9O6Im1Ja2drBFv8KB8X4vUs7YnFW9iRWGYZtAwWs3JNoy4IiCx5zUkenwvyx FdBX/OhWEPNzN9RWYnFtbH0sodBmbV8f7hiQFhpXEnaq+vQhOwwR3eNNmU+/G/lc zDnQ1H8t1DEoe4clOz5NCVPx2xIgdCswfC+AClYG/dZ12auNuKP008Wd6g/dHp2H s1xV2cZIrWnU3kcltzBnJD+qcgc4k6RH5vFUo1RXv9NDLbak+FufITLhP7K7BrWu LtOyhRLQx/tuS0Ac9u/fEjeDir3jdp8z/TvTn99y5xhFXy2JpLv0RJ+Kru0M8cry cjlsGT56DdoGXyhr5kDolH4ty03ZSMFBx2kvujWhxt1T+MxNLueuR/TnvEY2qrpF AlSS93sa7OqrmHeyj0nyHHe23igjrcaDlFDd1RLK2pNzQaLBcTNxF9BzcRZWUyDk g5Rr0B4Gh3GYddHtHjmQypJgDE2XzJU+WP39sHXGcCmB2hf9FHk0SBQytBIl5KRr DFaePo7CpnVjfZuPZw4AAOl21lYjCY7gRcyMqhzJOATHp7+5vDFok9L2uxiVvdT8 08XWv2ouDYcdLePrzx+w =7oPz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 10:19:31AM -0800, coderman wrote:
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 6:17 AM, Sarad AV <jtrjtrjtr2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
I was checking and Wikipedia has deleted its Bitcoin entry. how strange!did they say why?
the cuda cards are killing bitcoin, why bother?
They chose the space too small? I don't really know which algorithms Bitcoin uses. CUDA isn't that much, for many problems we've got at work it only provides a 10x speedup. Presumably for brute-force searches it could do a 100x speedup. Why is Bitcoin vulnerable to only a couple of orders magnitude faster systems?
(i suppose it is an interesting footnote...) -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
I thought bitcoin had a lot of promise and ran a client/"miner" for a few weeks when it first came out, but then lost interest. I heard about the EFF thing a few days ago and took a look at bitcoin.org. I was amazed to see that bitcoin is thriving! Not only can you buy and sell coins for real money, there is a lot of demand for them, and speculators are hoarding coins in the expectation of price increases. Back at the beginning Eugen and I were playing with it and I sent him 1000 coins as a test, and he sent them back. That would be worth $250 now, pretty amazing. This is the first time I recall that a currency with no intrinsic value has become this popular. It's uncharted ground, with many open questions. What value will bitcoins settle on? Will there be a fork with perhaps more attractive rules? Will scammers (who love transactions that can't be reversed) taint the currency? And the big question, what happens when bitcoin comes to the attention of governments? Can it win? Hal Finney
participants (7)
-
coderman -
Eugen Leitl -
Hal Finney -
Jeffrey Paul -
John Case -
Sarad AV -
Shawn K. Quinn