Topic: Which region of the world has the highest "interest" in bitcoin?... (Read 1411 times)

Here is another tie between bitcoin, utah, and the NSA. Looks like the guy DPR was trying to murder was 31 miles from the NSA data center in Utah.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/11/08/meet-the-silk-road-employee-that-the-dread-pirate-roberts-allegedly-tried-to-murder/

Nah.  Waste of time and resources.  To much going on on the Internet to decrypt (by breaking) except in very high-value arenas.  That is why PRISM just made the tech firms supply keys or plaintext.

The game now is all about real-time.  With appropriate time-stamping much of the analysis made possible by a vast array of listening stations would be possible, yet there is still a focus on real-time.  That is why I am so suspicious that the next phase is active packet filtering.

It will be utterly fascinating to find out in the weeks, months, and years ahead how authentication data is/was handled under PRISM (and likely a family of similar programs) for companies who specialize in doing it.  The data would be unusually high quality for certain things...like positively identifying individuals and linking identities of course.  How and if this data has been being appropriated by the US security apparatus will tell us a lot about what is/was on the horizon.

Or how about an NSA decryption center so they can start peeking inside all the encrypted traffic.

Given the info released by Snowden (the number and placement of backbone network taps and relationships between corporate and various governments players) I believe it is fair to say that Bitcoin is effectively part of the surveillance system.  Just like any other real-time network construct (including possibly TOR.)

I (seemingly alone) feel that there is either more to the Utah datacenter than simply a storage repository, or that there are others which have been kept more private.  I expect that the next shoe to drop will be a centralized location where actual packet filtering based on near real-time analysis will be taking place.  Kind of a 'mothership' where tough decisions about filtering are made when the edge filters lack information.  Sounds crazy, yes, but my (and others) warnings about widespread collection and relationship link analysis was whacked tinfoil-hat material not long ago as well.  Now not so much.

What of the situation of these three Bitcoin related entities being so close to the Utah datacenter?  My initial gut feeling is that it is probably coincidence.  But interesting enough to log for further analysis.

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One last thought.  The idea that this data collected by the NSA is necessary to 'fight terrorism' is absurd.  Like many other similar systems throughout history, a large part of it's usefulness is in intimidating people.  But how effective is that going to be if it is kept secret?  (Much the same question Dr. Strangelove raised about the doomsday device...)  The system needed to be uncovered at some point...and it is now pretty clear that it has been running for long enough to have collected a bunch of goodies on just about anyone who had anything worth collecting.

Some have suggested that there is more to Snowden than meets the eye, and I've read some interesting analysis of the documents he's leaked.  At this point I consider these hypothesis that the Snowden operation was staged to be weaker than the hypothesis that he is the real McCoy, but they remains alive and worthy of continued exploration.  It is likely that a fair amount of subterfuge was going to surround this spy network throughout it's life-cycle. 

Snowden described the surveillance network best:  A turn-key system for tyranny.  How the likes of Gavin can retain confidence that Bitcoin will receive a fair shake from the corp/gov state on the basis that Bitcoin is a constitutional and legal system boggles my mind...although I am not him and cannot say positively that that is the basis for his confidence.

Only marginally more than Europe. And since there are way more people living in Europe..

Looks like Oregon is back on top again.

That couple that plan on living on bitcoin for 90 days live in Utah. Maybe there's been a lot of local press about their stunt.

...Utah! Surprised?

According to google trends The United States has the highest "regional interest" in the world. Inside the U.S., Utah has the highest "regional interest".
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin&date=1/2009+55m&cmpt=q&geo=US

Utah is home to the following:

• Life on Bitcoin
• Casascius.com
• CoinedBits.com

Am I missing any other notable Bitcoin operations taking place in Utah?

...And, all three of these Utah bitcoin operations are within 20 miles of the NSA evesdropping data center. 

What's up with Utah?