Topic: Bitcoin is money laundering... according to some (Read 5587 times)

Given that the source for this is just a dodgy virtual server provider trying to make up some excuse why they can terminate an account. I wouldn't be too worried just yet.

Does anyone have any proof of this allegation that the UK Serious Fraud Office (I was SURE that was a fake name until I looked it up) is investigating bitcoin?

The connotation is some sort of "serious fraud" investigation. By "bitcoin"? Who is bitcoin? Who has been defrauded?

Dosen't work exactly like that. Bitcoinplus uses any overhead of the CPU that's not being used. Because I wasn't using the server at the time, it was using 100% of my share.

Point is, they can't handle the load, plain and simple. Pretty sad.

Hmm perhaps a Bitcoin generation client could be written that works like those screen saver programs that do things like calculate protein folding while the computer is idle.  So basically the client is only blasting away at the CPU when it's not being used by something else.  Seems like a good solution for shared hosting space to me.  Just let the company know ahead of time how your program is going to behave.

The hosting company advertises UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH for the 7 day trial. As I said in the email to them, could you have imagined if I loaded up a file sharing site (legal) that used massive bandwidth? Guess what, they would have called that illegal so they could kill that too.

Many of my server CPU's are running high. If I'm in the market for cloud hosting, you better believe I'm going to max them out under real world circumstances.

We shouldn't be paying to be overlapped so there aren't enough resources at peak times.

Me too. The UK usually beats the USA to new forms and extents of nanny statism, but other than that the USA is on the cutting edge of politically acceptable tyranny.

I love the part about, "using our _special powers_" the most in the fraud investigation office details. lmao

The UK leading the investigations/reactions to bitcoin is not good. I was kinda counting on the americans to go crazy about it first...

I would say that's what makes Linode awesome... but they unfortunately don't let you run a Tor exit node.

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TheOnionRouter/GoodBadISPs

When I asked linode about maxing out my CPU they responded with something along the lines of: max it out, thats what you paid for.

If anything the hosting plans have not been priced properly and the disconnect is proof that the host does not have things under control in terms of how much they need to charge.

I'm not sure what the problem is.  I'm a huge fan of Bitcoin (obviously), but I side with the provider on this one.  CPU in a VM hosting environment is a shared resource, if I'm running a VM hosting facility, no customer has the right to max out my CPU unless they are paying me for the privilege, like, they better be selling lots of alpaca socks or something to help pay the fees I'm going to charge for the excessive usage.  And you would have to be kidding me if you'd expect me to let a free trial account to monopolize CPU.  Most legitimate free trials in the ordinary course of business should use an average of well under 1% of a single CPU core, because the typical usage scenario for a free trial is a website still under development with no or minimal real traffic that's not testing.

CPU increases power load by a significant factor, and power in a data center costs a lot.  There's the power, and then there's the air conditioning to take out the heat, and then there's capacity on the UPS's to keep that power reliable, and there's capacity on the generators to keep the power safe from outages, and then the air conditioning needs redundant power too so the whole place doesn't melt down in a power failure.  Way more than the cost of mining at home.  All this so someone can generate tiny fractions of a cent?  I don't think so.

Think of what Vladimir charges for his mining contracts.  That's a fair estimation of the resource cost being imposed upon this provider, without the benefit of GPU-scale mining output.

The reason this account got booted, in my estimation, has little to do with money laundering or their fear of alternate currency, and really everything to do with excessive resource consumption.

According to some, advocating peace and free trade makes a person a "terrorist". Some can go to hell.

*Chuckle*. Came to see this, was not dissapoint, will visit new threads again. A++++

Seriously OP, don't be mad, they're just using their CPUs for their own bitcoin mining and you were just biting into their prophets

LOL

Omg that website is just great!

And can they actually disrupt the bitcoin exchange? Doesn't sound like it...

I have found 2 other Atlanta Bitcoiners. So currently there are at least 4 of us. http://atlantabitcoin.com

I think that's what it ultimately is going to come down to. And it's whether or not we can keep our exchanges open and running despite obviously being attacked with money laundering, illegal trade facilitating, ect charges.

I'm sure them seeing Bitcoin as a potential threat to the Pound would give them every reason (in their own minds) to seize every bitcoin they find in the UK.