Censorship attempts to limit the dissemination of ideas, while copyright attempts to promote it. Big difference. And do you really think that those who practice actual censorship aren't motivated by personal profit?
Nothing funny about it. I'm stating my opinion and trying to get to the bottom of things. Obviously you're just trolling and trying to take me down a notch. I guess you don't have anything intelligent to add to the conversation. I feel sorry for you.
The fact is, those things are used for crimes like drug dealing and money laundering. I'm not making some broad argument that anything that can be used for crime should be banned. In fact, I stated that I like digital currencies, TOR, and encryption. I like them for their legal purposes. I'm not going to downplay their illegal uses like some others are.
Still a much bigger hassle than most people are willing to deal with. Most people don't want to do that.
Most people, probably. But possibly enough people that it's a significant problem. I'm all for digital currencies, TOR, and encryption because I believe in privacy and anonymity, but I do see also that those things are obviously attractive to lawbreakers.
1. The site apparently had 28 transactions in March. This is not flooding anything.
I think March was the first month they were public. My concern was that connections made on that site could be established, bulk deals could be arranged, and possibly streets could be flooded, whatever that means. I'm focusing more on the bigger problem of what to do about drug dealers who use sites like these. If these sites really are untouchable, then I think their popularity will grow exponentially.
2. Please look up the definition of grandstanding. I am not doing that.
You're right, it depends upon definition. Perhaps we use the term differently.
3. I can state my opinion and the reasons for why it makes sense, and it is not "faith-based." It is based on knowledge.
Agreed, but only sort of. If what you're saying is simply opinion and not based on known facts, then it is faith-based. At least the way I use the word.
4. Stop spreading FUD until you change your name.
I'm just trying to cut through the FUD. You should appreciate that.
Do you mean "liability" and not "viability"? Wikipedia is not a party to the lawsuit, so their liability isn't really an issue. They are only the potential recipient of a subpoena.
The sender of the cash is the receiver of the drugs. Since they give their address to the drug dealer, it's not that hard to track them down. The dealer, on the other hand, never gives out his address.
Is buying drugs with bitcoin money laundering? Not by my definition. I'm not sure what the legal definition is though.
Digital currencies can be used to launder money, though. As I recall, that was the "downfall" of e-gold.
I'm just stating my own opinion. That's allowed here, right?
Mike said: "In another report he claims that Silk Road and other drug sites are "flooding our streets" with drugs. Except... they're not." That's stated as if it's fact, but as you noted, it's opinion.
I just think Mike is trying to play the whole thing down by saying it's hard to use Tor hidden services, they're not flooding the market, Bitcoin isn't anonymous, etc. I think it's easy to use Tor hidden services, we don't know what kind of drug deals are happening there, and if used properly, digital currencies are anonymous.
Am I saying that this is intolerable? No. I like digital currencies, and I dislike drug laws. I think drug abuse is a medical condition and it should be treated as such.
This doesn't really bother me that much. But, I'm not going to pretend like people can't easily buy drugs on the internet and have it delivered to their mailbox.
My point still stands. We don't know if Silk Road is flooding the streets with drugs, and we don't know if it's not. We can guess all we want, but it's not really helpful to do so, IMO.
I think the headline of this article is quite misleading. It's not accurate to say that the conditions listed in Dendrite form "standard anonymity protections." The court here is NOT compelled to use the conditions set forth in that case since it's not binding precedent. It's wishful thinking to suggest otherwise.
You are correct. I was able to get to the site with only minutes of setup.
I checked it out to. Being so open about things is perhaps not the smartest move on their part.\
For the prices they are charging on Silk Road, I gather no one will be "flooding the street" with anything. Not being familiar with the street price of drugs myself, I have heard it said that the Silk Road offerings have a healthy markup (no doubt a premium charge due to the security of it all), which would make it quite difficult to then flip the stuff on the street and still turn a profit. It seems to be tailored towards retail, not wholesale.
Those prices looked like they were geared to the end user. I'm sure you could work out bulk pricing will a dealer there if you tried. But still, my point was that Mike did not appear to have any data to back up his statement.
That is quite incorrect and shows your lack of understanding how BitCoin works.
The whole point of BitCoin is a currency that no central authority (ie governments) can control or devalue.
And if done right, it's anonymous. That's what I said. Not sure how you are showing that what I said is wrong.
Actually, the difference between cash is that unlike cash, anyone can observe BitCoin transactions in near real-time and view/monitor the entire chain of transactions for particular bitcoins.
Right, but if the dealers on Silk Road were receiving cash in the mail, it would be much simpler to discover who the dealers are.
To be honest, the story sounds a little too good, and too "Hollywood" to be real, but perhaps it is real. I find it a little difficult to believe that it has all that many users, given the complex nature of getting it to work.
You are downplaying this. Download the Tor Browser Bundle, unpack it, and you could be on that site in seconds. It's not that difficult at all.
There are probably a small handful of people using things like Silk Road today, and they're almost certainly doing it for home use, rather than to "flood the streets." But, that doesn't make for as good a form of grandstanding.
Probably? That's a faith-based assumption. I take it you have no data. If not, then you're grandstanding too, you know.
Blaming the semi-anonymous nature of Bitcoin is severely misplaced. In fact, in the original Gawker article, there's an update at the end (perhaps Schumer didn't get that far, or never reloaded) where it points out that Bitcoin really isn't quite that anonymous, and quotes a Bitcoin developer as noting that trying to buy drugs via Bitcoin "is pretty damned dumb."
The whole point of using these digital currencies is because they're untraceable if done right. The difference between bitcoin and cash is that for cash, you'd have to have a mailing address to send the cash to.
I should have said: "If the vast majority of bullets were used for crime, then you could rightly say that a bullet is probably used for crime." Sorry if it wasn't clear.
The point is that all the court was saying is that if a site has "torrent" in the domain name, chances are the site is used for infringement. I don't think that's really a controversial statement.
On the post: Censorship vs. Copyright
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On the post: Censorship vs. Copyright
On the post: French Court Says Merely Having The Word 'Torrent' In Your Domain Means You Are Encouraging Infringement
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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Most people, probably. But possibly enough people that it's a significant problem. I'm all for digital currencies, TOR, and encryption because I believe in privacy and anonymity, but I do see also that those things are obviously attractive to lawbreakers.
1. The site apparently had 28 transactions in March. This is not flooding anything.
I think March was the first month they were public. My concern was that connections made on that site could be established, bulk deals could be arranged, and possibly streets could be flooded, whatever that means. I'm focusing more on the bigger problem of what to do about drug dealers who use sites like these. If these sites really are untouchable, then I think their popularity will grow exponentially.
2. Please look up the definition of grandstanding. I am not doing that.
You're right, it depends upon definition. Perhaps we use the term differently.
3. I can state my opinion and the reasons for why it makes sense, and it is not "faith-based." It is based on knowledge.
Agreed, but only sort of. If what you're saying is simply opinion and not based on known facts, then it is faith-based. At least the way I use the word.
4. Stop spreading FUD until you change your name.
I'm just trying to cut through the FUD. You should appreciate that.
On the post: Judge Orders Unmasking Of Wikipedia Users; Fails To Follow Standard Anonymity Protections
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I was just reading your piece on Forever21 and thinking the same thing. Must be opposites day.
On the post: Judge Orders Unmasking Of Wikipedia Users; Fails To Follow Standard Anonymity Protections
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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Is buying drugs with bitcoin money laundering? Not by my definition. I'm not sure what the legal definition is though.
Digital currencies can be used to launder money, though. As I recall, that was the "downfall" of e-gold.
On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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Mike said: "In another report he claims that Silk Road and other drug sites are "flooding our streets" with drugs. Except... they're not." That's stated as if it's fact, but as you noted, it's opinion.
I just think Mike is trying to play the whole thing down by saying it's hard to use Tor hidden services, they're not flooding the market, Bitcoin isn't anonymous, etc. I think it's easy to use Tor hidden services, we don't know what kind of drug deals are happening there, and if used properly, digital currencies are anonymous.
Am I saying that this is intolerable? No. I like digital currencies, and I dislike drug laws. I think drug abuse is a medical condition and it should be treated as such.
This doesn't really bother me that much. But, I'm not going to pretend like people can't easily buy drugs on the internet and have it delivered to their mailbox.
On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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On the post: Judge Orders Unmasking Of Wikipedia Users; Fails To Follow Standard Anonymity Protections
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On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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I checked it out to. Being so open about things is perhaps not the smartest move on their part.\
For the prices they are charging on Silk Road, I gather no one will be "flooding the street" with anything. Not being familiar with the street price of drugs myself, I have heard it said that the Silk Road offerings have a healthy markup (no doubt a premium charge due to the security of it all), which would make it quite difficult to then flip the stuff on the street and still turn a profit. It seems to be tailored towards retail, not wholesale.
Those prices looked like they were geared to the end user. I'm sure you could work out bulk pricing will a dealer there if you tried. But still, my point was that Mike did not appear to have any data to back up his statement.
On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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The whole point of BitCoin is a currency that no central authority (ie governments) can control or devalue.
And if done right, it's anonymous. That's what I said. Not sure how you are showing that what I said is wrong.
Actually, the difference between cash is that unlike cash, anyone can observe BitCoin transactions in near real-time and view/monitor the entire chain of transactions for particular bitcoins.
Right, but if the dealers on Silk Road were receiving cash in the mail, it would be much simpler to discover who the dealers are.
On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
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Not at all. I'm a fan of digital currencies and Tor.
On the post: Senator Schumer Says Bitcoin Is Money Laundering
You are downplaying this. Download the Tor Browser Bundle, unpack it, and you could be on that site in seconds. It's not that difficult at all.
There are probably a small handful of people using things like Silk Road today, and they're almost certainly doing it for home use, rather than to "flood the streets." But, that doesn't make for as good a form of grandstanding.
Probably? That's a faith-based assumption. I take it you have no data. If not, then you're grandstanding too, you know.
Blaming the semi-anonymous nature of Bitcoin is severely misplaced. In fact, in the original Gawker article, there's an update at the end (perhaps Schumer didn't get that far, or never reloaded) where it points out that Bitcoin really isn't quite that anonymous, and quotes a Bitcoin developer as noting that trying to buy drugs via Bitcoin "is pretty damned dumb."
The whole point of using these digital currencies is because they're untraceable if done right. The difference between bitcoin and cash is that for cash, you'd have to have a mailing address to send the cash to.
On the post: French Court Says Merely Having The Word 'Torrent' In Your Domain Means You Are Encouraging Infringement
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The court here isn't talking about the .torrent file extension. They're talking about having "torrent" in a domain name.
Do you agree with the court that if a site has "torrent" in the domain name, then chances are that site is used for infringement?
On the post: French Court Says Merely Having The Word 'Torrent' In Your Domain Means You Are Encouraging Infringement
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The point is that all the court was saying is that if a site has "torrent" in the domain name, chances are the site is used for infringement. I don't think that's really a controversial statement.
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