Topic: CoinValidation , will it work? The way to "sanitize" bitcoin ! - page 3. (Read 11887 times)

Perhaps in the free world they can't force you to enroll, but in the US 'they' can.
 

I think that your comment about trusting the government is a universal concept.

There may be a way around this which preserves pseudo-anonymity.
Keyhotee for instance allows an individual to have a reputation, be trusted, and remain pseudo-anonymous.

It may be possible to tie a Keyhotee ID pseudo-identity to a real world identity for the purpose of reporting or being verified in such a way that the database owner cannot violate your privacy. If your real name isn't in the database then the information isn't centralized. Instead your public key could be checked and the government could be sent a public key allowing them to know its you when you're under your alias or code name without violating your privacy.

Would most people agree to this? Some but not all would. If I'm using a pseudo-nym but I want to allow the government to verify and check me out without allowing some commercial third party man in the middle "Coinvalidation" company to be in the picture then perhaps there should be a way for me to do that.

If for instance I have a particular Bitcoin address and a public key with contact information and lets say the government also has a public key with their contact information. They could simply put their public key up somewhere and call it the IRS public key and then anyone can encrypt their tax records or whatever directly to that public key. If it's anti-terrorism and the government is trying to deal with that then they can have a public key for the DHS. There are potentially a lot of decentralized ways of doing it without requiring that we trust Coinvalidation company not to abuse our privacy.

It's pretty simple. The government wants certain information from the Bitcoin community. If we want to report our taxes we send it directly to the IRS. If we want to fly on a plane they check us. The problem is that after the whole Facebook outcome now privacy itself is under attack. Facebook does not collect information to fight terrorism or for solving crime but instead collects it to exploit and sell it. The biggest concern I have with coinvalidator is that they might start sharing the database with other corporate entities. And of course how long does this database keep the information? What level of access control does it have? Is it role based?

That database is sensitive information and it's not the kind of information that people would want shared. If someone has a lot of Bitcoins they probably don't want the world to know it when those coins are worth $100,000.

I don't have a problem if I'm required to use a Bitcoin trusted address if we are talking about more than $10,000. It's already like that with banks and anything else and I can understand and accept why they would want to check me if I'm sending $100,000 to Yemen. But if I'm sending $10 to Yemen and they want to check me then I'm going to be completely pissed. If I have to get a trusted address to transact at all then that is completely unacceptable.

When we deal with cash there is a limit that we can deal with before regulations are triggered. We need these sorts of limits to the Bitcoin space as well. We should be able to be anonymous unless we start making large transfers of Bitcoins. If Satoshi for example were to wake up and start sending his Bitcoins to unknown places then I would expect the community to investigate that. I would also expect the intelligence agencies of the world to investigate it because they probably want to know who Satoshi is sending money to if that were to happen because Satoshi has a lot of money.

The majority of the rest of us have relatively little money and there is no good reason to force us to register our coins as if we are criminals. We don't register our dollars unless it's $10,000+ right? The IRS and FBI get called if you put $12,000 in a bank. If you put $500 into a bank you shouldn't have to be trusted because that is just oppressive.


Bitcoin was never truly anonymous. I actually think its critical to have the ability to follow the money because if you want to investigate corruption it's necessary to have that ability. I keep telling people that having the ability to investigate corruption is essential. If one address gives $5 million dollars to a political campaign then perhaps that should be investigated. Maybe an address with $5 million dollars should be validated. I can agree with that.

But the average person isn't going to have millions of dollars and shouldn't have to lose their privacy for their small amounts of money which doesn't make any real difference. If you're in a position to bribe others then its important to be able to investigate that and it has nothing to do with law enforcement and more to do with preserving the democratic process. You cannot have a good functioning society if anonymous donors are bribing everyone.

The ability to investigate the blockchain benefits the Bitcoin community as a form of sousveillance. Coinvalidation on the other hand depending on how its implemented could be a poison pill or trojan horse. It creates a database which cannot be uncreated and we don't know who is in the database or why? We don't know who will be allowed to access the information and why. The rules as for who and what triggers being put into the database must be made clear.

If you're a rich address, in the top 1000 richest then perhaps you should be in a bunch of databases. If I had 10,000 Bitcoins I would expect to be in all sorts of government databases and that is fair game. If I have 5 Bitcoins and I'm in the database then that is wrong and political in nature.

So I suggest there should be a rule in place so that only large holders (people who have coins worth beyond a certain threshold) get put in these databases. If people with 10,000 coins are in there then at least it might make some sense. You have to be a pretty big fish or big criminal to scam people out of that many coins or to get that kind of net worth.

DPR had over 100,000 Bitcoins? If it wee all in a single wallet then perhaps that could trigger the attention of the authorities and should. Who would keep that many Bitcoins in a wallet? Also if there are strange traffic patterns and it looks like its associated with dark net addresses then those addresses can go into the database.

But I shouldn't have to worry about my address going into the database if I have nothing to do with it. Worst of all if I receive some tainted coin I shouldn't have my entire address locked. And no government should have the power to stop the flow of money like that anyway. What if it were China doing that or North Korea?

Why will it kill bitcoin?
Most people will get a bitcoin trusted address like they do now with paypal or a cc card and get over it.
All the advantages bitcoin was suppose to have (small fees , easy to use , fast trasactions) are going to be forgotten because the merchants request an id in order to buy from them?

The ones who don't want it... they don't want it and that's it. Nothing you can do about it.


If McDonalds embraces this idea i bet that in 1 month we'll have at least 20k verified addresses.

...or they just use dollars.

If businesses will accept this STUPID idea, for example McDonald etc....i am sorry, but this will be end of bitcoin because you will have not single store where you can use it as now

I'm sure it would immediately bring many more people into Bitcoin, but at what cost? Frankly, it would undermine most of what Bitcoin offers: relative anonymity, decentralization, and loose if any regulation.

Yup , this is where it's going...
And the result .. people will get their salary in bitcoins and when they want to do naughty things they go online , buy litecoins and.....
I have the feeling I have seen this once ,:DDDD

Okay, I get it, you mean a black market will keep existing. That's correct. But there will be much more monitoring, and that makes it much more difficult. For example, suppose your salary is payed in BTC. They know exactly how much you have, because your salary is whitelisted. Now you want to buy something they don't approve or donate money to wikileaks, whatever. You know you can't use your whitelisted addresses because they can link them to you. You'd need to exchange your coins against "free coins". But that would leave a trace... you see the problem? By controlling your money, they control you.

This is also my point , they don't want to go after the coins or the paper bills. They go after the owner of the address or the bank account.
It's far more simple and more efficient.

I kind of see their point, and what they are trying to do. To be fair, their sales pitch will probably go a long way towards making bitcoin acceptable in the big-brothers perspective, and thus, us much more rich.

That said however, there will still be far too many addresses out there in the world. And many countries where to spend your bitcoin, and many jurisdictions. Just like Switzerland treats their finance different from the US, so will it be with Bitcoin.

I think we have to wait and see what they are really talking about to get a better idea of what they are trying to do. However you have to keep in mind, that whatever they are up to- shunning them won't make it go away. Even if they dissapear there will be others trying the same thing. Eventually it will be Experian itself. So what then?

There are orders of magnitude , like stupid , moron , insane...
I think we have the most corrupt and plain stupid government in the whole EU. They just steal like a petty thief everything they can put their hands on.
It's come to a point when it's disgusting to read the news.

Is there a country where it doesn't? (rhetorical question)

I was ironic but that's not the point.
The thing is that they CAN'T force you to enroll.

You go and buy from people not in the program spend your bitcoin on dice or porn or drugs and they can't do anything.
And nobody said that you can't have a trusted address and an untrusted one at the same time.

Also , i live in a country in which trusting my government means you're mentally ill.

You really believe that? You really believe the idea is for it to remain truly voluntary?

Why would any business even bother requesting only white-listed addresses, if it wasn't due to coercive regulations?


Yes. It seems you still trust governments.

I need to update this:

I DON'T SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO!
It's just a topic where you can debate if it viable , or if it's gonna be embraced.
Hold your carrots!


It all started with :
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/13/sanitizing-bitcoin-coin-validation/

And next moment we have the reactions :
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/boycott-all-businesses-associated-to-alex-waters-matt-mellon-and-yifu-guo-332918

Well , I went to :
https://coinvalidation.com/ , downloaded the pdf, for users , saw page with 3 rows and 100 words and nothing solid.

I think that we're got the wrong impression here. I saw the word "addresses" to many times in the forbes article and then this  paragraph in the pdf files:
"We have developed tools and relationships that provide Bitcoin businesses with a full “know your customer” compliance suite. "

From my point of view I think the word Coin is misleading. My opinion is that the project is aimed at the addresses.
And I see a way it might actually work , but first let's assume those guys have a plan , and they have an ace in their hand.
Something like a big company wanting to start accepting bitcoins but concerned about the mess around it.

So , Walmart is announcing:
 "We accept bitcoins""From cointrusted addresses only"

Most of the people will jump in ,and how can I get and use a cointrusted address?
It's simple ,

1) Go to any trusted exchangers , verify your identity and buy bitcoins which will be sent to a new address you specify
The address has to have a 0 balance and no previous history.

2) Now , you can go to Walmart and buy with bitcoins ,  from that address , because Walmart has a white list common with those exchangers and only people on that list can make purchases.
Nothing new from "we only accept Visa and Mastercard , not AE"

The results will be something like:
-Walmart knows that you are a verified customers (they can have your id)
-People when exchanging bitcoins know that this guy has some verified papers.
-You know that you actually have some kind of ownership on that address and can prove in court that "You John , on 11/1/12013 sent to Michael 245 Bitcoins"

And on the surface everybody is happy , right?
People who don't want to enroll , are () not forced to enroll.

And I have that BIGGGG feeling I'm missing something right?