What's to stop the same thing happening if the ALT-COIN you've switched to becomes the de-facto ?
The government will just go after that one.
There is, in my mind, ONLY ONE SOLUTION..
The PROTOCOL.. The thing that utterly defines the coin, CANNOT CHANGE. (You can change the client and update code etc etc.. but NOT THE UNDERLYING PROTOCOL)
the bitcoin-qt IS the protocol.(well technically bitcoind.exe is the protocol) EG version 0.1-0.7 did not have a 1mb per block limit, it was smaller. that was one of the rules of the protocol. and people decided that upgrading the protocol to allow upto 1MB was a positive change to the protocol, so everyone followed suite. what mike hearn wants to do is make a change to the protocol that makes the txid be marked in some manner as to be red-listed. this would have to happen in a new version of the protocol as with any other change or update to the protocol. so we simply choose to avoid that update.
I don't understand how people are overlooking this. Redlisting, cointracking, address monitoring, whitelisting, blacklisting, and any other term you can think of for tracking data in the blockchain does not require any change to the bitcoin protocol. Anyone can do. You can do. I can do it.
If a group of people want to setup a business that tracks coins and white/blacklists addresses/coins, they can do it...right now...exactly as the protocol exists today. It could have been done from day 1 of bitcoin's existence. This is possible with all distributed blockchain based cryptocurrencies.
i do not worry too much about coinvalidations "service" as its not a threat to individuals personal identity, but is 'possibly' a threat to underground businesses and the usability of blackmarket customers. and as you said its not a protocol change, its a outside service. but i do find mike hearns protocol change to make it the protocols responsibility to red-list transactions.
i personally dont do anything notorious, but what i do hate is when bureaucracy plays around with my money, either risking me losing some or costing me time in doing the simplest of tasks as sending money from one place to another. third party services can be ignored. but the important things like protocol changes cant be ignored and require people to choose. stick with bitcoinqt0.8 or allow the altered protocol of a future bitcoin-qt. if the majority population were sheep hearded into upgrading the bitcoin-qt client with the protocol change that makes coins red-listed. then imagine all the faucets filling up with red-listed coins. which then merge in with peoples clean coins. making their whole stash red-listed.
EG have 1BTC non redlisted, receive 0.0001 from a faucet that is redlisted. send the 1.0001 to someone else. their client flags up my transaction is red-listed... no thankyou!!!!
if this mike-heard protocol became the popular fork. i am moving to litecoin permenently. so lets all ensure that OUR bitcoin protocol stays the same as it is now, dont allow bitcoin updates containing mike-hearn red-listing protocol changes. and when this 'update' comes along EG if it were bitcoin 0.956(random number).. we call that client update the USGov coin.. and warn people about what they are truly downloading