Topic: Hostile action against the bitcoin infrastracture - page 7. (Read 20693 times)
The US governments could not do that alone, because it can control only its own territory.
Do you think it can convince other countries to track their citizens and prevent them to run the bitcoin client ?
I doubt so. USA's influence is not that strong.
If bitcoins truly become competitors to the US dollar as a global medium of exchange, it is quite certain that the US government will not be too happy about that. I am opening this thread to explore possible scenarios of hostile action by the US government against the bitcoin infrastructure. After all, the US economic supremacy is partly based on the American monopoly on the supply of dollars and their use as a global currency. The status of the dollar as a global reserve currency allows the United States to simply print paper dollars in exchange of real goods and services from the rest of the world - and that ability is something that the government will probably defend at any costs, including through military means. For example, many believe the war in Iraq was provoked by Saddam's decision to sell Iraqi oil in euros, rather than dollars.
If bitcoin were to become sufficiently popular, I think the US government will likely adopt an extremely hostile position against it. The government can use the experience gained from the RIAA and its attacks on p2p file sharers. Agents of the government may simply join the bitcoin p2p network as regular users, and then record the IP addresses of all the peers that connect to them. Once they have those addresses, and proof that the user is using Bitcoin, it will be very easy to persecute the person behind the IP address - charges can range from money laundering to engaging in trade with enemy states (since the bitcoin network will probably have nodes in Iran). Such actions will either devalue the bitcoin currency, or reduce the bitcoin p2p network to such a small size that it will be easily overwhelmed by a brute force attack of government bots.
Do you think I am being overly pessimistic in contemplating such a scenario? Does bitcoin really stand a chance of becoming a major currency competing with the dollar? Or does it always have to stay under the radar to avoid the wrath of the US government?
If bitcoin were to become sufficiently popular, I think the US government will likely adopt an extremely hostile position against it. The government can use the experience gained from the RIAA and its attacks on p2p file sharers. Agents of the government may simply join the bitcoin p2p network as regular users, and then record the IP addresses of all the peers that connect to them. Once they have those addresses, and proof that the user is using Bitcoin, it will be very easy to persecute the person behind the IP address - charges can range from money laundering to engaging in trade with enemy states (since the bitcoin network will probably have nodes in Iran). Such actions will either devalue the bitcoin currency, or reduce the bitcoin p2p network to such a small size that it will be easily overwhelmed by a brute force attack of government bots.
Do you think I am being overly pessimistic in contemplating such a scenario? Does bitcoin really stand a chance of becoming a major currency competing with the dollar? Or does it always have to stay under the radar to avoid the wrath of the US government?
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