Pretty much this If they really cared, this would be dealt with promptly. On Monday, January 20, 2014, Steve Jones wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 04:04:16 -0300 Juan Garofalo javascript:;> wrote:

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So, what do you think is going to happen 'if' bitcoin ever

threatens the

...

'integrity' of the financial mafia, I mean, the integrity of the financial system of the Free and Democratic World?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, the free and democratic world has aircraft carriers, tanks and cruise missiles. It also has the ability to turn off bits of the Internet at will. The only way bitcoin would threaten it is if it was really really not paying attention.

-- Steve Jones javascript:;> Key fingerprint: 3550 BFC8 D7BA 4286 0FBC 4272 2AC8 A680 7167 C896

-- Kelly John Rose Toronto, ON Phone: +1 647 638-4104 Twitter: @kjrose Skype: kjrose.pr Gtalk: iam@kjro.se MSN: msn@kjro.se Document contents are confidential between original recipients and sender.

On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 09:11:06 +1000 "James A. Donald" wrote:

On 2014-01-20 23:37, Kelly John Rose wrote:

...

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, the free and democratic world has aircraft carriers, tanks and cruise missiles.

As I said before, there are too many people in the ruling elite, and they do not like or trust each other.

This is just nonsense. The political elite can easily rely on their footsoldiers to enforce the law, and the law is what they say it is. They're wise enough to praise the armed forces frequently and raise enough budget to ensure their well-being as to keep them as an effective force for repressing the masses. Only when a concept has sufficient popular support that the masses strength of numbers becomes embarrassing will the military not obey the elite. Look at Occupy, they didn't even have to break out the military for that one. Now consider the massive support bicoin has; oh wait, it's almost non-existent in comparison. -- Steve Jones Key fingerprint: 3550 BFC8 D7BA 4286 0FBC 4272 2AC8 A680 7167 C896

--On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7:14 PM +1000 "James A. Donald" wrote:

Kelly John Rose wrote:

...

...

...

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, the free and democratic world has aircraft carriers, tanks and cruise missiles.

"James A. Donald" wrote:

...

...

As I said before, there are too many people in the ruling elite, and they do not like or trust each other.

On 2014-01-21 10:34, Steve Jones wrote:

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This is just nonsense. The political elite can easily rely on their footsoldiers to enforce the law,

Suppose the political elite are not in agreement

But they are in agreement. And that's not really the point anyway. I'm asking what practical means would governments use to deal with bitcoin if it becomes a real problem for them. - and they are

finding it harder and harder to get agreement. They tell their footsoldiers to implement the policy, and tell their footsoldiers to not implement the policy - and suddenly the footsoldiers are kingmakers, making the ruling elite nervous.

This is already happening with "asylum seekers".

Large enough funding to take over 51% of the bitmining regime. Ability to block / adjust internet packets on an international basis If necessary, the police and physical force to take down the players with the most bitcoins quickly and effectively. On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 7:43 PM, James A. Donald wrote:

On 2014-01-22 07:45, Juan Garofalo wrote:

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I'm asking what practical means would governments use to deal with bitcoin if it becomes a real problem for them.

And I am telling you that they will act in a way that is chaotic, incompetent, corrupt, and disorderly.

-- Kelly John Rose Toronto, ON Phone: +1 647 638-4104 Twitter: @kjrose Skype: kjrose.pr Gtalk: iam@kjro.se MSN: msn@kjro.se Document contents are confidential between original recipients and sender.

On 1/22/2014 1:27 AM, Juan Garofalo wrote:

--On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7:49 PM -0500 Kelly John Rose wrote:

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Large enough funding to take over 51% of the bitmining regime.

Is there some kind of estimate of the price of doing that? Bitcoin optimists would say that at some point the network will be too big for a single player (even if it's a government) to take over?

The NSA has an almost unlimited budget. I could easily see them being used in this fashion. Especially since if bitcoin was being used by the official enemies of the US, it would allow the NSA to directly screw around with them.

...

Ability to block / adjust internet packets on an international basis

Is it possible to filter bitcoin traffic? The counterargument I've seen is that bitcoin traffic is really light, so it would be possible to 'disguise' it - steganography being the technical term I guess.

True, but the mining needs to happen in the open somehow.

...

If necessary, the police and physical force to take down the players with the most bitcoins quickly and effectively.

Yes. That sound's like a plan. And of course, contrary to James Donald's wishful thinking, governments are pretty efficient at using force to get rid of people who get in their way.

Actually, someone mentioned the fact that they could just do the "think of the children" CP/Drugs line, and that would resolve the problem more or less in the public eye. Especially when you combine that with "proceeds of a crime" laws, arguably turning a bitcoin into a similar object as a stolen stereo. In China and other similar countries they are dealing with it in a more direct manner, essentially telling people that if they continue to use it there will be severe consequences. Hence why the banks in China backed out so quickly. Unfortunately, utopian thinking is commonly wishful thinking, that's why so many bad things happen when utopian extremists start to get their way.

...

On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 7:43 PM, James A. Donald wrote:

...

On 2014-01-22 07:45, Juan Garofalo wrote:

...

I'm asking what practical means would governments use to deal with bitcoin if it becomes a real problem for them.

And I am telling you that they will act in a way that is chaotic, incompetent, corrupt, and disorderly.

-- Kelly John Rose Toronto, ON Phone: +1 647 638-4104 Twitter: @kjrose Skype: kjrose.pr Gtalk: iam@kjro.se MSN: msn@kjro.se

Document contents are confidential between original recipients and sender.

--On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:33 AM +1030 Philip Shaw wrote:

On 22 Jan 2014, at 8:15 , Juan Garofalo wrote:

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I'm asking what practical means would governments use to deal with bitcoin if it becomes a real problem for them.

Obvious solutions:

* declare BTC to be presumptively evidence of drug dealing or trading CP - possession of weakly-related artefacts being declared as sufficient evidence has, IIRC, been ruled legal in NY in the case of a law which made possession by a woman of multiple condoms evidence of prostitution. * require BTC holdings to be declared to the tax authorities, and make explicit that whatever the local tax on investment holdings applies to BTC (I think the current question is not whether growth in value of BTC is taxable but what kind of investment it should be taxed as). * snarl up BTC exchanges with the same reporting requirements as normal banks and trading houses, even though the much smaller scale will make that extremely difficult to comply with. * rule that BTC miners are engaging in banking by building up the record in the block chain, and make them all responsible for reporting the transactions they process

So, those are some possible 'legal' means that can be used to cripple bitcoin. What about requiring people to tie their identities to addresses? If individuals were forced to use addresses known to the government, then surveilling (maybe all) economic transactions would become...rather easy.

Apart from the first, none of those would be very controversial, or even entirely without merit if you accept the validity of the anti-fraud, anti-money-laundering, and anti-tax-evasion laws which require reporting by financial services companies. The trouble is, what is a tolerable imposition on a company handling millions of dollars is a huge and crippling burden on some guy with a couple of hundred dollars worth of BTC. (This is where a "by way of trade" qualifier[0] would come in useful, but it would also be horribly exploitable when it comes to financial trading.)

[0] Typically meaning, taking up a significant portion of one's time or providing a significant portion of one's income - the sort of clause which means that someone driving cross-country with some friends and accepting petrol money from them isn't required to comply with the regulations regarding taxis or minicabs.

--On Sunday, January 26, 2014 2:22 PM -0500 dan@geer.org wrote:

| Obvious solutions: | | * declare BTC to be presumptively evidence of drug dealing or trading CP | - possession of weakly-related artefacts being declared as sufficient | evidence has, IIRC, been ruled legal in NY in the case of a law which | made possession by a woman of multiple condoms evidence of prostitution. | * require BTC holdings to be declared to the tax authorities, and make | explicit that whatever the local tax on investment holdings applies to | BTC (I think the current question is not whether growth in value of BTC | is taxable but what kind of investment it should be taxed as). | * snarl up BTC exchanges with the same reporting requirements as normal | banks and trading houses, even though the much smaller scale will make | that extremely difficult to comply with. | * rule that BTC miners are engaging in banking by building up the record | in the block chain, and make them all responsible for reporting the | transactions they process

We have proof by demonstration of item #2 in the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission driving prediction markets like Intrade and Banc de Binary out of business.

[Those of us who see a regulation as a tax-by-another-name are thus again reminded that the power to tax is the power to destroy.]

The power to tax is the power to destroy the enemies of the Free Democratic Judeo-Christian Western Culture and Civilization. Without the power to tax, the government would lack the means to destroy the enemies of Free World.

--dan