Topic: Bitcoin FBI Report April 2012 - page 5. (Read 14393 times)

Really? a well written 20 page document is the laziest troll?

+ 1

The material also matches my own legal research in large part.

Not very exciting, nothing new.

Honestly Matt, have you really read through it?

The report does not introduce any new laws, just clarifies old ones in more detail.

In fact, it is 100% on par with the clarifications I spent thousands of dollars on from lawyers.

Wether or not its legit or not, the material is accurate.

Because it is?

Or are you about to admit that you created it, in a spergy fit of madness due to the full moon?

That begs to ask the question-- why would one dissect it if it's not legitimate?

What a waste of 3 pages of forum threads.

We should be dissecting this report and going over it, not debating its legitimacy.

In fact, its extreme accuracy speaks for itself, I think its real.

I'll do that in the Legal subforum. 

Firstly, that's not my role at the magazine. That'd be like telling you to make the beds where you work.

Secondly, Matonis is the bomb. If he wants to investigate into the true source of this PDF file, I encourage him to.

Thirdly, has anyone caught that full moon? It's been full and huge for over 3 days now.

What, if anything, does this say about the legitimacy of this Bitcoin document?  It's hard to imagine someone would go to such great effort to produce a fake that doesn't even have anything terribly controversial in it.  We certainly know the government agencies are well aware of Bitcoin and it's hard for me to imagine the FBI hasn't produced reports such as this.

Hey Matthew, maybe you should learn with Matonis ^^ how the real press works...

I'll help him a bit and start with:
1st lesson: Don't just talk out of your ass, investigate.

Yes.........but do they know what they don't know?

FYI, here's an actual FBI leaked document on 'Legal Aspects of Online Gaming Financial Transactions' (20 June 2011) that also cites the 'Cyber Criminals Exploitation of Real-Money Trading' (8 June 2011) mentioned in page 3 of OP's Scribd document.
http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/attach/10/10400_FBI%20Cleveland%20.pdf

You might try doing a round or two of deblurring/deconvolution on the image, first.  Richardson-Lucy is a great algorithm if you can give a reasonable estimate of the blur function (which may not be too bad just assuming very simple blurring).  Do 2-4 passes of Richardson-Lucy, it might sharpen it just the right amount.  (I speak as if you would be manually processing the image with custom algorithms... I'm sure photoshop/gimp has some canned algorithms for this).

Well, there's also "sharpening", but I've never been very impressed with the sharpening algorithms out there...

Breaking news! Guy on forum claims unmarked PDF comes from FBI with no proof whatsoever!

I'll leave that kind of garbage to the tabloids.

Why do you guys care so much?

Dunno if it's real or not, but I'd assume it is, since a troll would be wasting his time producing a paper of medium quality that doesn't really make any statement. Apart from the obvious, anyway.

Basing forecasts on the 2011 price fluctuations alone suggests economic cluelessness. But one way or the other, this text thingy makes no difference. Government is gonna govern its own paperwork as always, lots of blabla will be had, bad events will be given fancy names with an evil ring to them, business as usual. If there weren't a multi-page-thread on the topic, I'd not feel any urge to comment.

If they'd go rampage and attack us screaming "OMG THOUSANDS OF ANARCHIST MONEY LAUNDERING CYBERCRIMINALS," admittedly there'd be reason to think of something. Not the case though.

Yup, when the scan is that bad, usually the fastest/easiest thing to do is get someone in a low-wage country to just re-type it for you.  It's like trying to OCR 20 pages of CAPTCHAs.

Yeah that is what I figured.  It is going to take a lot of work to get it into a usable format. 

I was already working on this when I saw you post this, because I started to try to read it and my eyeballs started bleeding.

Unfortunately, I think any OCR program is going to struggle hard with this blurry low-res text.  Here's the best my meager offering could come up with.  Is this any better?     Here's a sample of the first page:

-------------------------

(U) ExecutlveSununary

{U/IFOUO) Bitooin-a det:enJra/ized, 1 peer-to-peer {P2P) network-􀄎d t•irfllill currencypro\'
ides a venue for indi \'idual􀁤 to generate, transfer, launder, and steal illicit funds with some
anony1nity. Bitooin offers rnany of the sarne challenges associated with other \'irtual currencies,
such as Wehr\•loney, and adds unique complexit ies for investigators because of iL� decemrali7..ed
nature.
{U/IFOUO) The FBI a􀁥sesses with nlt!diUin confidence1 that, in the near tenn, cyber cri•ninals
will treat Bitooin a􀁥 another p.ay1nem option alongside 1nore traditional and established \'irtual
currencies which they have little reason to abandon. This a􀁥sessmem i.�; ba..􀄏ed on Ouctuations in
the bitcoin exchange rate in 2011 and li.n.ited reponing indicating bitcoi1lS are being accepted a􀁕
p.ay1nem by so1nt cyber criminal􀄒.
{U/IFOUO) The FBI assesses with low confidence, based on current user and vendor acceptance,
thatrnalicious actors will exploi1 Bitcoi n to launder money. This assessment is based on
observed cri1ninal acti vi1ies, investi􀄐tions, and prosecutions of individual􀁤 exploiting other
vir!Ual currencies, such a􀁕 e....Qold and Webf\·loney. A lack of current .eponingspecific to Bi1coin
restricts the confidence level.
(U/IFOUO) Even though there is no oentral Bitooi n server to compro1ni.􀂎e, the FBI a􀁕sesses wi1h
high confi dence, ba..􀄑ed on reliable industry and FBI reponing, that cri.n.inals intending to steal
bi1coins can target and e:f\•lalicious actors can comprom.ise personal co1nputers and accounts using ma/waw and hacking
techniques to steal useJS' bitooins and use b{U/IFOUO) Bi1ooin will li kely continue to attract cybercri1ninal􀁤 who view i1 as a means to
.nove or steal funds a􀁕 well a� a 1neans of making donations to illici1 groups. If Bi1coin stabili?"..es
and grows in popularily, it will beco m e an increasingly useful tool for various i !legal acti vi lies
beyond the cyber .eal1n. Since Bitooin does not have a oentrali7..td authority, law enforoe.nent
facesdifficuhies detectingsuspicious activily, identifying users, and obtaining transaction
recon:ls-proble.n.� that m.ight attract •n.alicious actors to Bitooi n. Bi1coin m.ight also log ically
attractrnoney launderers and other criminals who avoid traditional financial systems b y using the
Internet to conduct global 1nonetary transfers.
{U/IFOUO) Although Bitooin does not have aoentrali7..td authority, the FBI as..�esses with
medium confidence that law enforce1nem can identify, or di.􀂎cover more information about
1n.alicious actors i f the actors conven their bilcoins into a fiat currency. Third-p.any bi1coin
services 1nay require customers to subm.it valid identification or bank infonn.ation to co.nplete
transactions. Furlhennore, any third-p.any service that qualifies as a mbney transm.iuer 1n.ust
register a� a mbney services busine.u with the Financial C1i1tleS Enforoe1nem Netwo•·k {FinCEf\1')
and i•nple�tll!'nt an anti-nlOney laundering program.

That troll pwned you with the fake survey at the end.  The extra hour that took was SOOOO worth it. 

I like the survey at the end. It seems to be scraped from a webpage accessible by run-of-the-mill LEO.