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Meet The New York Superintendant Who Can't Wait To Regulate Bitcoin
Over the weekend, we reported that as Bitcoin's unprecedented, Caracas-like surge continues, legislators are finally starting to pay attention to the digital currency, a process that will culminate with a hearing on November 18 titled "Beyond Silk Road: Potential Risks, Threats, and Promises of Virtual Currencies,” in which witness would be invited to testify about "the challenges facing law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and include views from “non-governmental entities who can discuss the promises of virtual currency for the American and global economies." Which as everyone knows is code word for creeping, smothering regulation, especially since as was reported earlier, the FEC is debating allowing the use of Bitcoin for political donations (trust America's corrupt politicians to always pay attention to anything that appreciates a few thousand percent in one year).
However, one person is not waiting that long: Ben Lawsky, the New York financial services superintendent, is looking to regulate Bitcoin now by issuing BitLicenses for business that conduct transactions in Bitcoin, and to that end he will conduct a public hearing to discuss the "burgeoning world of digital money." Participants will discuss the feasibility of a license that would make the virtual currency market more like those for other forms of money. In other words: it will make BitCoin just like the fiat currency it is trying to replace, at least in the eyes of the government. At which point the primary utility of Bitcoin - as an unregulated medium of exchange- itself disappears.
Ben Lawsky with a Bloomberg terminal featured prominently in the background, photo credit NYT
If the plans go ahead, it would be an important step in bringing bitcoin and other virtual currencies closer to the financial mainstream. In another move in the same direction, the Federal Election Commission held a hearing on Thursday in which it considered whether to legalize campaign donations made in virtual currencies.
Since bitcoin was created in 2009 by anonymous programmers, it has frequently been treated with derision by many financial insiders and authorities, who have described it as a speculative mania. Many authorities still hold to that position, but the currency’s online network, which is not controlled by any centralized authority, has survived several crises.
But the truth behind the scenes is simpler:
Several regulators have been looking at ways to make sure virtual money cannot be used for laundering money or other criminal purposes. In October, the federal authorities arrested the operator of an online marketplace where they said bitcoin could be used to buy drugs and other illegal goods.
“The cloak of anonymity provided by virtual currencies has helped support dangerous criminal activity, such as drug smuggling, money laundering, gun running and child pornography,” Mr. Lawsky said in a letter announcing the hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.
So please everyone think of the children and some such hypocrisy.
And speaking of Hypocrisy, the last sentence of this paragraph has no peers:
"Virtual currencies may have a number of legitimate commercial purposes, including the facilitation of financial transactions," Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of financial services, said in the notice. "That said, NYDFS also believes that it is in the long-term interest of the virtual currency industry to put in place appropriate guardrails that protect consumers, root out illegal activity, and safeguard our national security."
So, shouldn't he be looking at the dollar instead?
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Fuck you , Ben Lawsky. Die in a fire!
Ben Lawsky: Besa mi culo!
Hah ha ha ha ha ha
Hate to say I todja so, but only weeks ago my forecast was that they'd get involved Big Time if Only for Taxes.
Hah ha ha ha ha ha
Resistance Is Futile
You Will Be Assimilated
Who cares if its a crypto currency.
Hell, they don't need to understand it to tax it.
I am therefore I am taxed
Bitcoin is an archaic relic.
Anyone claiming national security interests should automatically be a suspect.
Come at us "Ben Lawsky". Give us your regulations. Give us your legitimacy. Give us your protections.
I cannot wait to see another hapless martyr for the state!
@ Fonestar:
You and I have debated BTC (along with several others), numerous times in the past...I've been admittedly wrong on some counts (ex: saying that BTC would never see $260 again).
One thing I did say, a long time ago, was that the DotGov would definitely move towards regulating it, and would attempt to implement some kind of taxation/wealth transfer scheme.
I made a couple of interesting calls in this thread: (on April Fools' Day):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-01/bitcoin-hits-101-doubles-cyprus?page=1
Quote: "Personally, I feel that Bitcoin should be supported on principle (as central bank competition), however I do not trust it, and no amount of pro-BTC rhetoric will convince me otherwise.
I'm convinced of a few things, where Bitcoin is concerned:
1. DotGov can step in at anytime, and shut it down under the Patriot Act, or some similar law, on the grounds that it's being used to fund terrorist activities/drug running/money laundering/kiddie porn/ illegal downloading.
2. Debating the semantics of whether or not they can shut the BTC exchanges down.....is pointless. They can simply shut down access to the sites. If it were to happen, it would be done at the backbone-level of the net, at all of the ISP's. Guess which agencies in the US have unrestricted access to that part of the net architecture? Out of those, at least 1 is a militarized arm of the legacy central bank establishment.
3. The multinational corporations will NOT adopt Bitcoin en masse, very simply because the revolving-door that exists between big business and politics is a "good old boys club".....and Bitcoin ain't in it."
I really don't care if multinational corporations accept it as Bitcoin is a grass-roots phenomenon and not a corporate phenomenon. Also, Bitcoin is a schrodinger cat, it exists as a currency and a protocol. So while the regulators may rail against gravity, carbon, hydrogen, entropy, Bittorrent, Bitcoin, ftp, ssh, whatever they may like..... it is all perfectly acceptable as insane comedy. The objective reality of the world at large should bear no lasting insults or ill feelings.
....which also begs the question if the dullards here danced and proclaimed "the end of rlogin" or "the end of telnet"?
ROFL
You know, there is an entire world outside of the internet and electronic gadgets.
You might like to try visiting it sometime, although I suspect you would recoil in horror without being 'plugged-in' for more than ten seconds.
You techno-narcissistic geeks are SO dull and boring. I shudder to think what the world that you are creating today will be like in 50 years --- most likely, not even worth living in for somebody who did not grow up as a Twitmeister and a Facebook junkie.
I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account. Because a troglodyte cannot understand a great work or art or mathematical genius does not diminish it's greatness.
It is apparent that for the typical ZH reader "real" begins at 380nm and ends at 750nm.
It must suck seeing other people create and use a money better than gold, and seeing them get richer every day. Go pet your shiny rocks. May they comfort you.
I like gold. I love silver. Neither of them can facilitate international transfer the way Bitcoin can.
i dont understand these hard money guys who rag out on bitcoin, the whole protocol is designed around the fundamentals of gold.
moreover if you genuinely are advocating for sound money, you should equally be advocating for a free market in currency, greshams law etc.
i love gold and would marry a bar of silver, and am well long in both, but it is simply ignorant to ignore the potential and genius that bitcoin is.
I understand it. At some level they see technology as being the culprit in a crazy, greedy world they increasingly do not understand. Gold and silver represent "the good 'ol days" in their minds. So the argument is ironically something like the anti-gun crowd's argument that it is the object to blame and not how the person uses it. They've just replaced the gun with technology in general.
Another part of it is fear-based. A Bitcoin victory means severe dislocations and transfer of wealth throughout the globe. So basically, bye-bye American exceptionalism. These people had a cushy ride since WWII both on a gold standard and the petro-dollar standard. That will be all coming to an catastrophic end.
Also, many of them are just fakes. They like to pay lip service to concepts like freedom, liberty and justice until it's their turn to steer the ship. The democratization of money creation puts a hamper on sociopaths like that.
1890 -
You water-closet using people are SO dull and boring. I shudder to think what the world that you are creating today will be like in 50 years -- most likely, not even worth living in for somebody who did not grow up with typhoid and filth outside their windows.
@ All Who Replied:
I've stopped ragging on BTC. I've moved it from the "Just Another Ponzi Scheme" category, to the "Maybe There's Something To It" category. It wouldn't be the first time I was late to the party...
But understand that I'm "cautiously optimistic" (to coin a political-phrase). Does BTC let you move a lot of money around fast? Hell yes. Much better than a lot of things do...including Gold. (Betcha never thought you'd hear that coming from me, did you?)
Dotgov has an impossible time regulating Gold...but therein lies the rub. Because of SilkRoad, DotGov has a "made to order" excuse to regulate BTC, or at least attempt to impose itself...
I still stick to the notion that BTC will ultimately fall under "some kind of law", either current or future. Anything that "can be built", can be "unbuilt", meaning that 'the encryption that's unbreakable' may not be so, tomorrow.
If the encryption were to be broken, I ask that you BTC guys consider this as a real possibility:
Because the blockchain keeps a record of every transaction...suppose for a minute that some of your BTC(s) came from someone who was engaging in "illegal activity"....say a drug dealer, or an arms dealer.
In "DotGov's eyes" you are legally, by computer record, connected to "evidence in a criminal case". "A Potential Suspect", subject to investigation...warrantless wiretap/raids...civil forfeiture laws...frozen bank accounts...etc.
I'm not saying it can, or will happen...I'm not saying anything.
I'm just asking you to consider the possibility.
@Croesus
I appreciate you conceding the point of transport of wealth. I'd like to say that I think gold is still important. I still think silver is important, and anything that can't be directly controlled/interfered with once in your possession is as well.
You are absolutely correct that they'll fight Bitcoin. Every dirty trick in the book. My only counter to that is not every country has the same motives, and there are some conceivably that will even adopt Bitcoin on some level, even if not officially, to enhance their economy.
The only thing I can see the USA doing is shooting itself in the foot, and they've proven to have a rather sad track record of doing exactly that.
Gotta love those fake libertarians always trying to junk fonestar. They obviously don't understand that their old "dollar" of 412 grains of silver was also a fiat construct. And if you were caught trying to counterfeit it you could be imprisoned or executed (so much for that non-aggression shit eh?). Now try and counterfeit the blockchain...
Boot-lickers in sheep's clothing.
fonestar - I'm suspicious of currencies that rely on the internet, but am open to learning more about them.
Your statement about the silver dollar being a fiat construct is false. Yes, that quantity of silver in that form was standardized as a matter of convenience (rather than having to measure out the quantity of metal of a particular purity. At some times/places precious metal dust was weighed and used as money). It was given the name 'dollar'. But that does not make it 'fiat'.
As for counterfeiting - that refers to purity of precious metal content. In America they used US coinage and the Spanish reale on which the dollar was patterned as money. They also used fractions of these silver coins for smaller transactions (the source for the terms 'pieces of eight' and 'two bits', for example.) It doesn't matter - its about the actual precious metal content.
You have quite a few incorrect statements in your post.
I was actually referring to the fact that there were requirements by law as to weight and purity. But people seem to somehow bungle the meanings of "fiat", "intrinsic value", etc, etc. As I understand it the name dollar came from the Austrian "Thaler" (monetary theorists didn't have any real new ideas for a few millenia...)
With Bitcoin there are no such laws. You may do as you please (but most likely the other nodes will ignore you).
Why are you speaking of yourself in the third person?
virtualized persona
for a minute there looked like u had just got mixed up using another account to back yourself up, not accusing but it did look that way there for a bit.
Reminds me of the movie Hopscotch (1980), where the protagonist (a rogue CIA agent) rents his boss's house and sets up a confrontation with the FBI. When his boss arrives on scene, the lead FBI agent asks:
"What secrets did he steal?"
"That's on a need-to-know basis. A matter of national security."
"Yeah. That's a phrase that's lost a good deal of meaning lately."
A great movie for those who want to laugh at the CIA/NSA again some 33 years later.
Hear you, knukles, + 1
But while there's time:
"Fun with Bitcoin for Beginners"
http://tinyurl.com/lh7kt5y
not to mention:1P11zA1GaJcyjc7oVt1jVQvWcPoW12sv5R
You can't tax Bitcoin. It's impossible.
Re: You can't tax Bitcoin. It's impossible.
Oh man, I think you just jinxed it. That's a challenge that every political sociopath in the entire Universe is gonna take up now!
Okay, so either Bitcoin survives or their "laws" survive.
Care to wager?
"Several regulators have been looking at ways to make sure virtual money cannot be used for laundering money or other criminal purposes."
Which is to say, it will affect ongoing operations. They want their cut.
I'm not too concerned.
Jesters may jest.
You should be concerned! Lawsky has been on a licensing war path lately. Just look at his road kill from earlier this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HTFI_TYu8E
"Systems" survive?
Care to wager?
Oh, I LOVE this!!! Bitcoin is the divine comedy that keeps looping!
The nameless and stateless in an epic final death-match against "LAWSKY"!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! GIVE ME MOAR!!!!
They want to regulate 'legit' exchange points i.e. when you turn coins into cash and vice versa any 'legit' business they will get their cut on the transaction like government always does if you want to operate 'legitimately'. No surprises here. The usual do for the children and national security excuses for the rubes aside. You can beat the tax man with bitcoin if you really want to. They are just going to make it hard to do it with large sums of money is all.
If I transferred $1000 into a Bitcoin account from my bank when they were $10, nobody would really care. If I transferred $40k back into my bank account someone would notice.
It doesn't matter what currency the transaction is in if the transaction itself is taxed.
Agreed. I think if taxing happens people will just stay in the Bitcoin world; once they go in they don't come out, which means we should see a great deal of businesses with anonymous owners who will accept only Bitcoin. One might start taking his paycheck, converting as much as will be feasable to use for regular purchases into BTC, and saving a whole lot of money on sales tax and lack of inflation.
I know many would disagree and I've read numerous great points in opposition to Bitcoin but I don't think they can stop this. You can't put toothpaste back in the tube...and all that.
Bitcoin and Dollars are non-relational systems. They tax at their own peril as by acknowledging it, taxing it only serves to legitimize it as "real" in the minds of the sheepulace.
The more heavy-handed the hearing at the US federal level on Monday, the more I expect bitcoin to skyrocket that day.
For the same reason it's time to pull your money out of a bank the day they reassure you it's safe.
What is your take on the recent movement called Coinvalidate or something. Where there will be a government database of coins that are suspected of being used in illegal activity, and vendors and/or wallet client is alerted to the tainted money. Something like blacklisting dirty bitcoins making them worth(less)?
Some of the core developers are concerned, so I am concerned. It is a huge deal on Reddit right now. Technological protections are being looked into. If those do not pan out to be 100% satisfactory, might have to basically cut USA/Coinvalidate off from the rest of Bitcoin. It is an attack on the fungibility of BTC.
It doesn't matter what currency the transaction is in if the transaction itself is taxed.
That is the point. The other half of the regulation game is to keep the great unwashed from thinking it can be used without them knowing what you are doing hence the licensing deal for businesses and such. They can't allow that idea that they really can't control it to pervade into the matrix so they have to assimilate it once it takes on a life of it's own and before it becomes a real threat to the powers that be. Just like what the Romans did with Christianity and subsequently when Christianity became the state religion they did the same with the pagan holiday Saturnalia which later became Christmas.
While completely true, they can box users in by controlling conversion to/from other currencies, which it appears is exactly what they're trying to do.
The counter to this is to develop the native bitcoin economy (e.g. independent of banks and other currencies.) The counter to that is to make it illegal for businesses to transact in bitcoin.
So there's two big "tells" in bitcoin -- controlling/taxes exchanges, and banning its use at the business level. The exchange part is already here -- they all need to comply with Know Your Customer requirements and I'm sure one of the outcomes of the upcoming hearings will be requirements for the exchanges to report sales to the IRS. Like banning gold, banning bitcoin will be one of those end-game signals that will be hard to miss and not last very long.
One upside is it would take getting every country with internet access on the planet to cooperate to actually stop bitcoin, so it won't be going away any time soon, even is the US does try to mess with it.
Funny how just sending some numbers back and forth over a computer network makes governments nervous. I thought it lacked "intrinsic value"? ;)
Never before in human history has it been more clear that taxation and inflation are just censorship.
The integrity of the US Dollar must be protected at all costs against online math puzzles!
BITCOIN IS ALREADY TAXED. Currency isn't taxed, income and gains are (regardless of the currency). Even barter transactions are taxable*.
That very few comply, and the laws are not strictly enforced, is a different issue.
However, they can seize your property (and/or throw you in jail) if they find evidence that you haven't complied with the tax code.
*Canada may be different
+1 for truthiness
Why not? If you were paid by your boss in bitcoin, there could be income tax.
Otherwise, if you were to buy something in bitcoin, you could be charged extra for taxation as well.
Ok the 17th nail in the coffin for poor young Bitcoin. Maybe just maybe no one gives a fuck what America thinks, Bitcoin is being driven extenally. While America has been staring at it own reflection the rest of the world has moved on. The NSA and Obama have made Putin the gobal poster child and China the global economy.
No wonder he is trying to torpedo BitCoin, it's against his religion
Benjamin Meier Lawsky
Jessica Ann Roth, a daughter of Ellen and Paul N. Roth of New York, is to be married today to Benjamin Meier Lawsky , the son of Vivian Plaut Lawsky and Dr. Alan R. Lawsky of Pittsburgh. Cantor Richard Botton is to perform the ceremony at Central Synagogue in New York.
Mr. Lawsky, 32, is an assistant United States attorney in New York. He was until November the chief counsel, in Washington, to Senator Charles E. Schumer. , Democrat of New York. He graduated cum laude and received his law degree from Columbia. His mother retired as a computer systems analyst for the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh. His father, a retired radiologist, practiced in Pittsburgh.
Ms. Roth, 31, will keep her name. She is an associate in the New York law offices of Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione; she also supervises those participating in the firm's John J. Gibbons fellowship in public interest and constitutional law. She graduated magna cum laude and received a law degree cum laude from Harvard. Her father is a founding partner in Schulte Roth & Zabel , the New York law firm. Her mother, a psychotherapist, has a private practice in New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/style/weddings-jessica-roth-benjamin-l...
No law school for young Lawsky without his filthy usura!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aba1dVLVSFg
By the 3rd century, acute currency problems in the Roman Empire drove them (early micro-lending banks) into decline. The rich who were in a position to take advantage of the situation became the money-lenders when the ever-increasing tax demands in the last declining days of the Empire crippled and eventually destroyed the peasant class by reducing tenant-farmers to serfdom. It was evident that usury meant exploitation of the poor.-wiki
Whocouldanode?
You had to research it? The beady eyes and yarmulke impression in his hair plugs didn't give it away? Motherfucker should have been called Lansky instead of Lawsky. Two-bit gangster POS.
Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran..... anyone using anything other than US dollars will be bombed, period. First, you'll be labeled a tyrant inflicting humanitarian pain, but death will come, that's for certain. Gold, silver, Bitcoin... they all need to be managed and publicly defamed, and they will be until the end.
God bless America!
Bombs need targets. Try hitting Bitcoin with anything oher than the Kill Switch.
how about making it felony to use or accept bitcon. that would do the trick for most people.
Try hitting Gold with a bomb. I don't get your point. The fact of the matter is that the US currency falling is a national crisis, and will be defended at all costs.
So since Bitcoin is a virtual currency and Gold is a hard currency, is one better? Is one safer? To an empire in demise, BOTH are the enemy regardless of physical nature. They'll both be slammed as long as the USD remains a reserve currency.
As per below.... the US can't bomb Russia or China, which is why I believe the US has dug their own grave.
Gold and Bitcoin aren't competitors; they're complementary defenses against government fiat and government itself.
Hold both as part of your overall preparedness — http://readynutrition.com/resources/52-weeks-to-preparedness-an-introduc... — and otherwise go about your business.
Maybe seeing political leaders ignoring the rule of law is motivating the people to go ahead and do the same.
My children don't listen to what I say, they watch what I do.
Do you think the US is going to bomb Russia and China?
Agreed, but the end seems to be getting closer and closer. ;)
why so eager to end his suffering?
FIFY!
Lawsky, FOAD you fucking Pollock! With apologies to Pollocks.
Oh, wait, you're not a Pollock, are you?
What does any of this have to do with abstract expressionism?
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Homeland Security hearings on Bitcoin begins at 2:30 pm Eastern on Monday, Nov. 18th.
Banking Committee hearings on Bitcoin begins at 3:30 pm Eastern on Tuesday, Nov. 19th.
what do those tards hope to accomplish?
they dont own shit, its beyond their reach.
If they're anything like us, they won't agree whether to Short it or Long it.
So they'll compromise and try to figure out how to control or manipulate it.
FWIW:
Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked and up to 4,000 user wallets emptied
Czech Republic-based bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz has been hacked and up to 4,000 customers’ wallets have been emptied.
The company’s site is currently down, showing only a message informing of the hack, which took place on 11th November.
http://www.coindesk.com/czech-bitcoin-exchange-bitcash-cz-hacked-4000-us...
Wasn't it mere days ago when many here were going on and on about how precisely such a thing was "impossible"?
And how is it that ZH manages to post (and in fact even seemingly celebrate) every uptick of bitcoin, yet fails to mention this rather painful breach of their "unbreakable" encryption?
Post about something you know some more about. Bitcoin encryption was not broken, LOL. Some cheesy Czech guy didn't do basic security on his website.
Can't have it both ways. If the security of Bitcoin is dependent upon website security, it is Shitcoin.
Re: If the security of Bitcoin is dependent upon website security, it is Shitcoin
It's more like YOUR Visa credit-card number getting stolen from an online shopping site YOU use because the online shopping site got hacked.
That doesn't mean ALL the credit-card numbers of Visa were stolen.
But hackers, or the NSA, can steal every Visa credit card number if they so desire. Thus, if the security of Bitcoin is dependent upon website security, it is Shitcoin.
They are motivated and have the ability so they can and will destroy it.
Re: Thus, if the security of Bitcoin is dependent upon website security, it is Shitcoin.
There are two different security "things" here.
Think of BitCoin security as the "ability to create NEW bitcoins". That (so far) hasn't be stolen. Just because somebody steals your credit card doesn't mean they can create new credit card numbers.
But, they can steal your credit card and use it OR the individual BitCoin and use it OR your silver coin and use it.
Enable two-factor authentication if offered (it should be or look for a different service). Diversify into different clients on different OS's and virtual machines.
Too complex for Bubba. :-)
For fucks sake go to learn a bit about something before you bullshit about it here.
It is a valid point. If Bitcoin were just a P2P crypto currency, it wouldn't need centralized exchanges to regulate its price. Those active in the exchange would set the terms of the exchange. Items have different value to different people.
I seriously doubt Bitcoin would have increased exponentially in value if it were a true peer to peer system. Instead it has become a virtual pyramid scheme where those who hold Bitcoins hope others will continually bid higher for smaller and smaller pieces, making the value of a complete Bitcoin soar in value.
The volume of Bitcoins traded per day is still very small. One person selling 1000 Bitcoins can move the price substantially. The price seems to be extremely manipulated.
On the contrary, BTC exchange is the least manipulated market in the world. How can you push something down when public demand grows every day, and you are not able to naked short or redirect the incoming funds into false vehicles that you control (ie brokerage accounts, GLD, etc...)?
The smackdowns, which can only be executed with actual long holdings that previously moved the price up, are quickly dip-bought and the advance continues.
Read the terms and conditions on physical Bitcoins. Plenty of risk involved taking delivery.
https://www.casascius.com/TandC.aspx
Bitcoin security is 100% not dependent on website security. Websites are trying to value-add by handling user wallets online and make themselves targets. Given the regular breaches of websites (bitcoin and not), one would have to be fool to use an online wallet for any meaningful amount of money.
The most secure bitcoin wallets are completely offline, and could only be breached by breaking the encryption used for bitcoin itself.
The problem is that Bitcoin requires websites for anything useful.
If you are planning on buying $1000 worth of Bitcoins in the hopes that in a year they are worth $100k, then yes making a couple copies of your wallet on thumb drives and putting them somewhere safe works great.
If you plan on using Bitcoin for commerce, then you are going to need to use a website and an exchange. Even if you go to a coffee shop that takes Bitcoins, the transaction must be added to the blockchain.
The same can be said for using VISA. And it has ample fraud as well, from the same lack of web security. This is an e-commerce issue, not a bitcoin issue, and the value at risk is well below the total value of bitcoin. The anti-bitcoin hystrionics are trying to paint common security flaws as flaws with bitcoin itself and currency killers. If that were true, e-commerce wouldn't exist at all.
But the Visa hack is simply deleted from my bill.
The issue isn't going to be the bitcoin encryption, or the encryption of the bitcoin through cyberspace. The issue will be the USA knocking down every website that transacts in bitcoins to get their customer lists and then go after the end user. So, if you live outside the USA, big deal, unless TPTB all want to outlaw it across the globe.
Hear, hear. The real problem is, that Bubba can't think more than one move ahead.
If he did, he'd keep the offline wallet on a PC that will NEVER be connected to the 'internets'. BTW, Bubba, lemme make it easy on ya: You use a memory stick to port the data between a bare PC for surfing only, and the real PC, where you keep the REAL programs and data offline. Forever.
Shitcoin? You must mean this:
http://www.oleviashow.com/eWebEditor/UploadFile/2012522182753541.jpg
Hacking a website is not hacking bitcoin. This has been repeated ad nauseum. Web based wallets are horrifically insecure and not a week ago when asked about creating a wallet I (and others) emphasized not using web wallets.
If bitcoin were hacked, someone would have access to $4 billion, not a handful of user accounts.
This isn't news. I feel bad for people that lost their coin, but online wallets and exchanges are getting hacked weekly. Using them is akin to storing cash in a coffee can on top of your refrigerator in a bad neighborhood where 70% of your neighbors do the same thing, and they've all had their cash stolen before.
I finally got a friend to get a BTC wallet. I will send him something when I get home (Multibit on just ONE computer). (and I am interested in a buck & a quarter...)
If you ever get past the buck and quarter stage... Look into offline wallets to be extra safe.
Even without one, a typical PC is going to be much less of a target than an online site with 1000s of bitcoins waiting to be stolen.
Given how often the basics on BTC have to be repeated here, you have to suspect that some are either 'slow', lazy or trolls.
Reminds me of a saying: Arguing with a fool I'd a bit like mud-wrestling with a pig. Pretty soon you realize that the pig is enjoying himself.
I don't think you understand what is going on here. Keeping a BTC wallet with a service is the height of stupidity. This is a case where due diligence was not done, and some idiots lost money as a result. Only a fool would keep his bitcoin on a wallet that was generated by such a service.
People who know anything about BTC would have moved their money away from the exchange generated wallets to secure ones. I'm a BTC newb and even I could see that.
I'm guessing most of these "hacked" sites are really corrupt workers and admins making off with their client's wallets.
Yes, and as Bitcoin grows and expands in use and price, those scams and thefts will get worse, not better.
People will try anything to steal your money.
Dumb and gullible people always get robbed. So what?
Especially those who claim you can buy Bitcoins without downloading the block chain. Tell me how that works again?
Stop. Just stop. Unfortunately you do not have the first clue how Bitcoin works. It's very unflattering to post any further on the subject.
The same way you can buy gold without being a subatomic physicist
I had this dream where tmosley crept away from the TF metals circle jerk, joined a Bitcoin thread made a thoughtful comment and didn,t mention AU or Ag once. naw
You see extremely ass-devestated. One wonders why?
What "breach" of Bitcoin encryption? Go fucking read something....
Bitcash.cz
hmmm. They were more of a payment processor than an exchange, actually sort of a competitor on a side-business I'm working on. My model uses a master key that clients keep offline while still being able to feed fresh addresses to customers for payment. No real target for hackers but no real profit angle for me, so its on the back burner.
Tears shed for seeing their idoicy get punished: 0
LOL regulate Bitcoin. Worked so well for other P2P like BitTorrent, now 40% of all internet traffic (ALL web surfing is just 13%). They finally decided they couldn't jail everybody's teen kid in the country unless they put barbed wire around Oklahona and put them all in there.
They can make it illegal to hold...I want to be long that day.
They shut down The Pirate Bay and many other sites. Many of the torrent distribution sites are NSA nodes. It doesn't matter how hard you try to transfer files if the trackers no longer work.
If 40% of web traffic is porn, 40% is torrents, and 20% is Netflix that doesn't leave much room for Facebook and Twitter.
.
what..a.. douchetard! Just look at him! Laa heeuu saaheer!
Cheesepope fiat defender/insider.
One day he will "guvorn".
Junk away.
"safeguard our national security"
Bitcoin is nation-less.
The rebel Bitcoin cry....
Vires in Numeris!!
"With a rebel yell he cried 4 0 4"
" . . . and safeguard our national security"
There's the tell.
Terrorists! muuhhhhhahaha.
Dudes going to force everyone into the Deep Web. lol.
Over.
What he means is "safeguard the security of government from which all good things flow"
Addendum: "safeguard the security of benevolent government from which all good things flow".
"National Security" is actually true, if you make the necessary translation:
National Interest refers to the interests of the small group (1%) that effectively control and own the country.
When you make this mental translation every time you hear someone using that term, you'll realize whose "interests" are being threatened.
Alas, as is so often the case, the masses don't actually get it that two sets of messages are being transmitted. The real message often hides in plain sight & sound.
Can he earn a lifetime of money by owning BitCoin ahead of his decisions or does he look like the guy that is going to pass at such an opportunity.
BTFBATH
Judging by the BitCoin volume graph I would say he made his purchases on October 24th.
Superintendent*.
I don't see people using Bitcoin to kill brown people in the Middle East, or destroy the value of a mans labor, or enslave the next generation of Americans. Your attempts at regulation and control are futile.........
If you're a lunatic, then I'm an ass-kisser.
The best superintendent a central bank looking to preserve their monopoly can buy.
Clearly he doesn't understand that bitcoin is used as payment processor by most shops, and not an investment. Their Bitcoin sales are immediately converted into USD at the point of sale. They accept Bitcoin but they never hold it. It is like licensing people to accept USD.
Found out something interesting about taking physical delivery of Bitcoins today. H/T to poster Random_Robert for the info.
"Casascius Coins (“Coins” or “Coin Products”) are collectibles produced by Casascius LLC, a Utah limited liability company (“Company”), intended to serve as functional containers of digital virtual currency, as well as an abstract demonstrable representation of digital virtual currency in tangible form.
Casascius Coins, LLC:
2901 Little Cottonwood Road , Sandy, UT, 84092
10 miles from the Bluffdale NSA datacenter... coincidence? I think not. Just as it was no coincidence when Utah was the first to pass legislation officially re-recognizing Gold and Silver a legal tender."
According to Sheikh Imran, Isreal is preparing to roll out gold and silver backed currency... which makes sense, why you recall that Israel was founded by the central bankers, who probably hold untold amounts of gold on and off the books, and will not hesitate to cheat in any event.
Lawsky...looks like a guy who uses medium price hookers and makes them gag...
Easy to create a scandal on this bozo in time..
Definitely keeps his socks on.
Lawksy...looks like Tim Geitner.
NATIONAL SECURITY!!!
Mr President, we must not allow... a bit-coin gap!
Dr. Strangecoin?
That guy is a dweeb.
Hey Lawsky, this is the Super across the street, let me speak to Brett Weir....
...get Brett Weir I said!
Don't make me have to come down for you tough guy!
@.."So, shouldn't he be looking at the dollar instead?"
yes.
monopolists despise as intolerable markets, competition
and diversity and embrace murder, fascism and terrorism
as exclusive tools of the monopoly every time.
the horror!
What kind of a loser grows up thinking..
"When I grow up, I want to be the New York financial services superintendent?"
Every business that plays along with the regulators should expect to see a non-regulated competitor appear. The market shall decide if this is an important distinction. Possibly "the market" won't give a fuck, but that is yet to be seen. Abiding by regulations usually increases the cost of doing business (for small businesses, not monopolists)...
The government will get involved wave it's magic wand and presto changeo! Bitcoin turns to shitcoin!
The government will get involved wave it's magic wand...
Yeah, that wand worked really well to get rid of pot.
Plenty of people getting shity deals over pot right now.
Worked really well on gold, too.
Didn't take the fatbottoms long to double cross the folks in Denver.
Denver recently approved pot legal; despite a 25% set of taxes---of course , "for the children". The game, Colorado has aquired a "nose-alyzer" that they paid $1500 for said devise--passing for now the $3500 model and it is obstensively to detect legal and illegal folks smoking some grin medicine. This "nose-a-lyzer" is used by the police to scent out any pot being smoked. If it turns out that the smell of the villian's cigarette is 7 times the volume in air then this becomes a new aroma that is odious to the general public and can cost you up to $2,000.
If I'm lyin I'm dyin---I don't think I've ever been so smacked as to dream up some thing like this. Was on the front page of the English TELEGRAPH tonite the 14th. Milestones
benjamin lawsky
der fella above
der one looks like he his hiding some perversion from his wifey.
lawsky is he polish jewi ish.
no anti semenism
no racialismo
just askin.
Always those fucking Jooz
Let us consider:
The fiat money enforced by governments has an army of militarized police, not to mention an abundance of weapons of mass destruction to back them up, behind that fiat money ... While Bitcoin has nothing by the quality of its programming to back it up.
The militarized police are paid to keep the established systems of legalized lies going with their legalized violence. Those militarized police get paid relatively well, and are typically able to retire with good pensions, as long as their replacements also keep the organized social systems of fraud and robbery going.
Bitcoin can only count on that system as a whole not imploding, which would take down the network with it, while Bitcoin itself does not pay any mercenaries to back up the value of Bitcoin, but rather can only hope to keep on cruising on the original quality of its programming code, within the already established Internet. (Meanwhile, enough real advances in computing power, or programming skill, might eventually overwhelm that basis of value that Bitcoin was built on?)
Sorry, folks, I know that most of the readers of Zero Hedge do not like this radical truth, while the vast majority of people have never thought about it, but nevertheless, MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER.
The government's fiat money is promoted by the government being the biggest organized crime gang, which is effectively controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, the banksters, who have a significant stake in their near monopoly over issuing the public money supply. The government's fiat money has an army of trained killers to back it up. They are paid by the established social robbery systems to keep them going.
Bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, is a potential threat to the systems run by the bankster controlled governments. Therefore, I see no rational reasons to believe that Bitcoin will not end up being destroyed by the powers of governments. Bitcoin can only hope to survive by being able to still hide in the established networks, as long as its programming enables it to do that.
In the end, we are terminally screwed, trillions of times worse than can be comprehended, by there being a globalized system of electronic money, backed by atomic bombs. IF Bitcoin had its own atomic bombs, then it might be considered to be a serious competitor to the fiat money systems run by governments for the benefit of the banksters that control those governments. However, otherwise, Bitcoin is not remotely close to being in the league of the international bankers, which are collectively a group of trillionaire mass murders.
Day dreams that precious metals, and/or cryptocurrencies, are somehow going to provide real solutions to our real problems are nostalgic nonsense. Our real problems are trillions of times worse now than ever before in human history, and there is nothing that I am aware of that comes within light years of providing any coherent resolutions of those problems.
Well at least die trying, pilgrim..........
Yes, I too am A Lunatic, who expects to do that.
Re: and there is nothing that I am aware of that comes within light years of providing any coherent resolutions of those problems.
Not even the Rightous Sword of Libertanian Justice held by Ayn Rand herself?
Well that was depressingly true.
Honey, where are the razor blades?!
This guy looks like a refined douche.
Technical members of the Bitcoin community have cautioned that strong anonymity is not a prominent design goal of the Bitcoin system.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.4524.pdf
Secret backdoor
Anyone believe the NSA would release SHA-256 into the wild without a backdoor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:SHA-2#Secret_backdoor
If I was a government, and had to design a hash, I would almost certainly want a back door in it. If I was a mathematician, and I had to put a back door in something, I would head straight to prime numbers. It's beautifully easy to use prime moduloarithmetic to "scramble" one number into some other number, in a way that cannot be reversed easily. It's even got a name: asymmetric cryptography. Of course, if you know the secret key, then you *can* reverse it: so there's your back door. If you look into how RSA gets programmed, it boils down to simply a stack of binary operations, carried out in some order determined by the keys. If you look at how SHA gets programmed, it boils down to simply a stack of binary operations, carried out in some interesting order. So the challenge for the mathematician: how to write the SHA algorithm so that nobody suspects it's really an alternative representation of a particular pre-chosen public key hard coded into an asymmetric cipher.
The dead giveaway here is "prime numbers". SHA is initialized with a whole stack of carefully chosen constants that are all derived from prime numbers. This smells to me like it was designed from the start to have a secret inverse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.151.160.158 (talk) 04:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
The SHA hash algorithms have been and are continuously analyzed by cryptographers all over the world. If there really was a basis for backdoor concerns, you would have something more concrete to rely on than "if I was a government"
I disagree. The financial value of exploiting a backdoor may well outweigh the esteem value of publishing the find, and, this is an arms race: for as long as the government was better than researchers, nobody's going to find it - and lets face it - they *have* got more resources ($28bn, 20 years ago[1]).120.151.160.158 (talk) 22:00, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Look at Dual EC DRBG for an example how a certain government tried to push a backdoored algorithm and how the cryptography community reacted -- the backdoor was uncovered and researchers complained very loudly.
It is also incorrect to call RSA "simply a stack of binary operations". RSA and other asymmetric algorithms have simple and neat mathematical descriptions. In RSA that's
-- basically describes the whole algorithm.
I disagree. I have hand-coded RSA in assembly language from first principals. If you were to use a fixed key, you could optimise the code into something that looks similar to a hash with preconceived constants.120.151.160.158 (talk) 22:00, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
In contrast, symmetric algorithms such as SHA, AES etc, do not have a simple mathematical form -- they are indeed just binary operations (Confusion and diffusion).
About the "prime numbers" argument, see nothing up my sleeve number. SHA-2 doesn't use plain prime numbers, it uses square roots of very small prime numbers (and nowhere in the algorithm are these numbers squared up again). For these numbers to be useful for asymmetric cryptography, they would have to be very large primes (e.g. which are used for RSA). -- intgr [talk] 08:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
This only fuels my suspicion - picking constants that are deliberately non-random numbers with interesting potential mathematical properties? They should have announced their intention in advance to pick the results of unpredictable events in future, and used those (eg: lotto, weather, exchange data, whatever).120.151.160.158 (talk) 22:00, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:SHA-2#Secret_backdoor
Cryptography researcher Matthew D. Green of Johns Hopkins University said, “If you assume that the NSA did something to SHA-256, which no outside researcher has detected, what you get is the ability, with credible and detectable action, they would be able to forge transactions. The really scary thing is somebody finds a way to find collisions in SHA-256 really fast without brute-forcing it or using lots of hardware and then they take control of the network.”
Bitcoin developer Gregory Maxwell: “Problems with SHA-256 would be potentially more problematic as we cannot replace it in a backwards compatible way.”
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-do-the-latest-nsa-leaks-mean-for-b...
Whatever.
A lame conspiracy theory of zero practical consequence.
P.S. Fuck you Lawsky.
And fuck you Bernanke!
Let me repeat, SHA-256 can be swapped out, albeit messy and damaging to bitcoins credibility i'm sure. There's already lots of talk about "what would happen if..." in the bitcoin forums.