Topic: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? - page 2. (Read 17432 times)

Bitcoin is cash. Expect the negative consequences.

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Practically speaking, there are many powerful adversaries of Silk Road and if we are to survive, we must not take them all on at once. Additionally, if you try to please everyone, you will wind up pleasing no one. So certain things are restricted just so we don't scare too many off.

On a moral level, we take the high road, pun intended . Those who seek to control the behavior of their neighbors through force are immoral. Silk Road exists to circumvent that force and provide a safe-haven where civilized people can come together in peace for mutual benefit. To allow listings of items designed to defraud or harm innocent people would be to stoop to the level of the very people we are standing up to.

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If they can show a direct association between an address and the suspect, then yes.

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how do u earn btc anonymously? ...

To say it more generally, anonymity requires that you not transfer or spend bitcoins in any way that attaches your identity to them; it is thus far better a tracking tool than cash but less effective a tracking tool than credit cards, ACH, SWIFT, and so on.

If you earn bitcoins anonymously, you can maintain anonymity as long as you properly hold the money (in the way Creighto was describing) and as long as, when you eventually transfer it to others, you either (1) avoid attaching your (non-pseudonymous) identity to that transaction or (2) deal with an intermediary (or set of intermediaries) to whom you disclose your identity but whom you trust not to disclose it to others.  As an example of (1), you might simply purchase a subscription to a website using a pseudonym and access it through Tor.  As an example of (2), you might convert bitcoin-denominated funds to USD using a bank that you believe will not choose (and cannot be coerced by those you wish to maintain anonymity from) to disclose your identity, or you might attempt to use a series of intermediate exchangers that mix and "launder" coins, hoping that the chain will not be compromised (and that its components haven't maintained logs if they are).

Whether it will in practice be feasible for a criminal to transfer large amounts of money in bitcoins anonymously in the ways they desire remains to be seen (and I would personally hope not and would support regulation to make it less likely), but it is already possible for criminals to transfer large amounts of cash.  Except to the extent that the physical limitations of cash provide opportunities for the detection of criminal activity (e.g., it has to be in a truck or on a plane for some amount of time), it ought to be strictly less likely for a wrongdoer to avoid detection using bitcoins.

clarify something for me Creighto;  is it anonymous or not?  just how easy would it be to trace tx's?

If they can show a direct association between an address and the suspect, then yes.

@BitterTea I've read the article.  That "incidental feature" was important enough to name the concept after, so I hardly see the difference.

The simple counter to the "Bitcoins are being used for illegal activities and should be banned" argument is that, since bitcoins have a transaction record easily available on the public net, without even needing a search warrant or anything, bitcoins are actually *more* traceable than cash.  You don't need to set someone up with marked bills.  *Every* bill is marked.  When the politicians finally get around to trumpeting about how it's a haven for criminals, be sure to point that out.  It's no worse than bank transfers between numbered accounts, and it's considerably easier for law enforcement to follow any trail that gets left behind.

But I am still curious about pracfical ways to deal with assasination markets, given the existence of bitcoin.  They are inevitable now.  So I think preventing money laundering and trying to prevent assasination markets is foolish now, unless one wants to eliminate bitcoin.  What we can do is study block chains and internet patterns to identify these things and then possibly take action against them, not prevent.

The available data leads me to believe that BitCoin enables more good than bad.  Neither BitCoin nor cash "promote anarchism"--at best any implications for a political ideology like anarchism are peripheral to their broader significance.

Try to step back for a moment.  BitCoin is technologically superior to and more efficient than any existing currency or payment provider.  Particularly exciting are its applications in the developing world, in enabling microtransactions, in creating the possibility for digital contracts, and in facilitating the emergence of a tipping economy.  It seems very narrowminded to me to think that BitCoin's primary relevance is political.  I'm sure there were people who thought the same of the internet, and while they were right that the internet has political consequences, it's had kind of a lot of other ones as well.

And most importantly, I'm not naive.  BitCoin is ultimately mathematics--there are plenty of drug lords and covert organisations that have the finances to run their own BitCoin-like network regardless of whether BitCoin itself succeeds or fails.  I cannot control what they do--but I canA help to make BitCoin an effective counterpart to that possibility.  So that's what I try and do--think ahead, and act appropriately.

Assasins are only assasins if they target public officials? I thought they were simply executioners for hire...


Regarding money laundry, it doesn't need to be just for dealing with state laws, a subordinate to a crimelord could be doing some protection service on the side and not reporting the earnings to the boss, in order to be able to enjoy his money, he would have to for example buy a bunch of lottery tickets and only mention the winning ones and say he's on a lucky streak, since this doesn't cut into the crime org's busyness he might be able to keep what he wins on the lotto; or a store cashier could invest a little bit in his brother's bakery and each month go there as a customer and slip the acumulated change he swiped from the registrer and slip to his brother, who later would give him a similar amount back pretending it's his share of the monthly earnings.

Need some kind of state though. Doesn't assassination mean killing public official? And isn't money laundering just transfer designed to get around laws?

What if the CIA put hit out on Ghaddafi in bitcoins?

Where would that leave all you holier than thous?

How did they pay to have Saddsam Hussein offed anyway, your taxes, in USD to hired guns most likely. FFS how sanctimonious are you going to get on us.

as a non hacker investor in BTC, i am tired of hearing laughing and joking about how drug dealers and gangs will most definitely use BTC to move money around the world to facilitate their illegal activities.  Hive 45 had 2 jokers laughing and joking about using BTC for assasinations.  i'm sorry, civilized ppl just don't talk like that.  if this becomes the case, BTC may be doomed in the long run to function as a new currency to replace the USD which is what i presume most of the ppl on this forum want.  i know i sure do and now i have an invested interest in making this so.  i would like to use this thread to develop ideas about how this activity might be prevented.  i don't want to hear comments about how it is inevitable, can't stop it, its gonna happen no matter what type comments that are often accompanied by a veneer of glee.  this is serious business and i have BTC to protect; so i'd like to hear productive ideas about how this can be accomplished.  if everyone believes its impossible then fine, i get an empty thread.