Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 25 Sep 2012 @ 2:01pm
Re: Last I checked
What if they need it to take the bitcoins away from you?
I rob a bank. I take the money and convert it to bitcoins. Only I know the key to the wallet. As far as the bitcoin network is concerned, whoever has the wallet owns the bitcoins - there is nothing the government can do about that.
They convict me of bank robbery, which they don't need me to reveal the key for, and send me to jail. But in order to recover the bitcoins, they still need the key. What if I don't give it to them?
Can I serve out my term, move to some non-extradition country, then decrypt my wallet and redeem my bitcoins for cash and live like a prince?
This is what the government is afraid of - or at least the people that actually understand how bitcoins work. Loss of control - they can't force the bitcoin network to reverse a transaction or freeze an account.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 25 Sep 2012 @ 1:13pm
Speak up
If you don't like either of the major party choices, there are alternatives as well, and those can make an important statement.
This. Vote for a 3rd party or write in someone who you really think should be elected.
When you get those (granted, annoying) political survey calls, answer them. Tell them why you're not voting for either of the major candidates. Tell them what issues matter to you.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 25 Sep 2012 @ 12:17pm
Re: Re: Re: Re:
What pressure? It's not like we invade if they don't sign a trade agreement.
Access to US markets. Foreign aid. Joining the WTO. Not appearing on lists of "problem countries" that don't respect imaginary property rights (even if they do). There's dozens of things used to pressure other countries short of military action.
TPP is a package. Each country needs to decide if that package is a net benefit or not.
Yet what is in the package is negotiated in complete secrecy, while the negotiators are lying and saying they are being completely transparent. At the end, it is a take it or leave it thing - you get it all, or get none. So while 95% might be great things for trade and policy, there's this 5% that is completely horrible and which will lock everyone who signs it into that bit of horribleness for years or decades if they want the good stuff. The other option is to drop the whole thing and admit that all the years and man hours that went into negotiation was a complete waste - which no one wants to do.
Why are you so against the transparency and openness that might let us fix those horrible bits so we don't have to kill the whole thing off?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 25 Sep 2012 @ 11:37am
Re: Re: Re:
If you have two distinct wallets, each has its own set of distinct bitcoins.
Remember that the way Bitcoin works is that when you transfer a bitcoin, the person receiving it publishes that transaction to the public network, and it is verified by peers and recorded in the public transaction record. If it wasn't for this feature, then the currency would be useless as anyone could double-spend the same bitcoin.
If you hand the FBI or IRS your clean wallet, they'll say 'thanks, but where's the other wallet that we tracked this bitcoin to?' It's basically the same as when they're asking about an off-shore account, you can't point them to your domestic checking account and think that will satisfy them.
The only value in having two wallets is to avoid linking yourself to your illegal transactions by way of the legal ones. But if there's enough evidence linking you to an illegal transaction, then every transaction, legal or not, is able to be linked to whatever wallet that bitcoin belongs to - it just requires sufficient data mining of the public transaction register.
This is why using Bitcoins to do something illegal is a pretty damned stupid thing to do. I think Bitcoin is truly disruptive in how it is a decentralized currency not controlled by a government or any other single point of failure. But Bitcoin is not the anonymous currency it is made out to be - it is much easier to trace transactions through the Bitcoin network than it is to trace cash.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 25 Sep 2012 @ 6:44am
Re:
While that may work for a hard drive encryption scheme like TrueCrypt with hidden partitions and multiple keys, it doesn't apply to how encryption is handled with BitCoin. There are no alternate keys.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 24 Sep 2012 @ 8:37am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
My point is that if you want to show the superiority of the noncopyright model, then compete with the copyright model fairly.
Can you define "fair" in economic terms?
Does it include getting governments to pass laws preventing or slowing competition? Does it include forming cartels and trade groups of established companies to stamp out threats to the existing business model?
The status quo is copyright. If you want to prove your side, then prove that free can compete with copyright.
When the status quo can write the rules, sometimes the only option for competition is to break the rules.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 24 Sep 2012 @ 6:37am
Re: Re:
It's trivially easy to kill someone, yet the laws against murder serve as a deterrent. It's trivially easy to speed, yet laws against speeding serve as a deterrent.
Citation, please. Can you show that laws are the deterrents?
I don't kill people - not because of the law, but because it is wrong from a moral and ethical standpoint.
On the other hand, I was driving faster than the speed limit on most of my morning commute. I was going 40 in a 35 zone, and went 65 in a 55 zone. I wasn't driving dangerously by any reasonable definition. I stopped for the school buses and slowed to the limit in the school zone. I didn't run any lights. Not for fear of the law - but because those would endanger myself and others.
So, AJ, where's the actual proof that laws are the reason that people don't break laws?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 21 Sep 2012 @ 9:29am
Re: Re:
Actually, what is funny is that Ben makes the case why collection societies are much more efficient than having each individual company / publisher / songwriter trying to strike deals and make collection arrangements. It's all about effeciency.
Efficiency isn't everything.
Sure, it's more efficient for a business to deal with a few collection societies instead of thousands of artists.
It's also more efficient for a collection society to take in millions of dollars and then only distribute it to the biggest artists while giving nothing to the smaller artists. It's more efficient for the collection society to have a completly opaque distribution system where millions of dollars can disappear with no accountability.
Funny that you keep harping on respect for the artists as you promote the system that outright steals actual money from nearly all of them.
I may copy movies and music unauthorized by the copyright holder, gaining no profit to myself except for the enjoyment of the artists work. Work I would be happy to pay for if given an option to get my money directly to the artists, when given a convenient manner to enjoy the work for a reasonable price. But I don't outright steal a thing from the artists - thats for the collection societies and major labels to do. We all know who the real thieves are in this story.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 21 Sep 2012 @ 6:43am
Re: I smell a lawsuit
They could just put trackers in many candy bars, then decide who gets to win. Unless you regularly scan your candy bars for RFID tags or GPS signals, you'd never know it was there.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 20 Sep 2012 @ 8:58am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
A limitation on someone's ability to speak freely is not the same thing as a violation of their First Amendment rights. For example, if Mike were to block your IP address and not let you post on Techdirt, that's his right to do since it's his website. Your ability to speak freely on Techdirt is taken away, but your First Amendment rights have not been implicated.
I agree that if Mike chooses to block someone of his own free will, without undue pressure being applied by the government, that is not a violation of free speech.
But that isn't what happened here or in other DMCA takedowns or automated content bots mishaps.
Do you think that Google/Youtube/Facebook or other sites wanted to takedown the legal content? Of course they didn't. They were compelled to take it down or implement the bots under threat of liability from a third party holding a copyright.
The government is involved here in two ways:
1) The DMCA is a law that lays out specific steps for a service provider to avoid liability from what the users of their service use it for (something no one with a bit of common sense would think they were liable for in the first place), and those steps say to take the content down first - before it is determined to be infringing.
2) Copyright is a government granted monopoly over an expression.
If the government gets to hand out monopolies over expressions, there is a duty to insure that those monopolies are not being used to censor protected speech - and writing a law to encourage them to be used to do so (often by unwilling parties) is not the right way to do it.
On the post: A New Issue For Bitcoin: Crypto Key Disclosure
Re: Last I checked
I rob a bank. I take the money and convert it to bitcoins. Only I know the key to the wallet. As far as the bitcoin network is concerned, whoever has the wallet owns the bitcoins - there is nothing the government can do about that.
They convict me of bank robbery, which they don't need me to reveal the key for, and send me to jail. But in order to recover the bitcoins, they still need the key. What if I don't give it to them?
Can I serve out my term, move to some non-extradition country, then decrypt my wallet and redeem my bitcoins for cash and live like a prince?
This is what the government is afraid of - or at least the people that actually understand how bitcoins work. Loss of control - they can't force the bitcoin network to reverse a transaction or freeze an account.
On the post: Can 'The Internet Vote' Be The Next Important Voting Bloc?
Speak up
This. Vote for a 3rd party or write in someone who you really think should be elected.
When you get those (granted, annoying) political survey calls, answer them. Tell them why you're not voting for either of the major candidates. Tell them what issues matter to you.
If you want to be heard, speak up!
(Also, write in Ron Wyden for president 2012!)
On the post: Entertainment Industry Flips Out At The Good Parts Of Canada's New Copyright Law, Demands Changes Via TPP
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Access to US markets. Foreign aid. Joining the WTO. Not appearing on lists of "problem countries" that don't respect imaginary property rights (even if they do). There's dozens of things used to pressure other countries short of military action.
TPP is a package. Each country needs to decide if that package is a net benefit or not.
Yet what is in the package is negotiated in complete secrecy, while the negotiators are lying and saying they are being completely transparent. At the end, it is a take it or leave it thing - you get it all, or get none. So while 95% might be great things for trade and policy, there's this 5% that is completely horrible and which will lock everyone who signs it into that bit of horribleness for years or decades if they want the good stuff. The other option is to drop the whole thing and admit that all the years and man hours that went into negotiation was a complete waste - which no one wants to do.
Why are you so against the transparency and openness that might let us fix those horrible bits so we don't have to kill the whole thing off?
On the post: A New Issue For Bitcoin: Crypto Key Disclosure
Re: Re: Re:
Remember that the way Bitcoin works is that when you transfer a bitcoin, the person receiving it publishes that transaction to the public network, and it is verified by peers and recorded in the public transaction record. If it wasn't for this feature, then the currency would be useless as anyone could double-spend the same bitcoin.
If you hand the FBI or IRS your clean wallet, they'll say 'thanks, but where's the other wallet that we tracked this bitcoin to?' It's basically the same as when they're asking about an off-shore account, you can't point them to your domestic checking account and think that will satisfy them.
The only value in having two wallets is to avoid linking yourself to your illegal transactions by way of the legal ones. But if there's enough evidence linking you to an illegal transaction, then every transaction, legal or not, is able to be linked to whatever wallet that bitcoin belongs to - it just requires sufficient data mining of the public transaction register.
This is why using Bitcoins to do something illegal is a pretty damned stupid thing to do. I think Bitcoin is truly disruptive in how it is a decentralized currency not controlled by a government or any other single point of failure. But Bitcoin is not the anonymous currency it is made out to be - it is much easier to trace transactions through the Bitcoin network than it is to trace cash.
On the post: Entertainment Industry Flips Out At The Good Parts Of Canada's New Copyright Law, Demands Changes Via TPP
Re: Re:
On the post: A New Issue For Bitcoin: Crypto Key Disclosure
Re:
On the post: Apple Accused Of 'Violating The Rights' Of Iconic Swiss Railway Clock
Re: Re: Re: Re: Not defending but really...
While this might be true, I think you're missing the forest for the trees.
Apple is aggressive in protecting their trademarks. Yet they are also guilty of infringing on other's trademarks.
Either Apple is being hypocritical, or there's some problems with how trademark law is being used, or both.
On the post: The Return Of Dumb Ideas: A Broadband Tax To Save Failing Newspapers
Re: Starting a newspaper myself now
On the post: Apple Accused Of 'Violating The Rights' Of Iconic Swiss Railway Clock
Re: Not defending but really...
They're nearly as aggressive as Monster Cable.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081006/1207552465.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/arti cles/20091005/0028486413.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100312/0001058527.shtml
http ://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110607/10430514593/apple-threatens-wireless-industry-group-daring-to- list-out-other-app-stores.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110308/16490713406/apple-tries -to-convince-trademark-board-that-app-store-really-means-apple-store.shtml
http://www.techdirt.co m/articles/20110907/13240615842/apple-still-seems-to-think-that-only-it-could-possibly-have-apple-sh aped-logo.shtml
On the post: Publishers Can't Seem To Celebrate The Ebook Boom Without Slipping In Odes To Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Can you define "fair" in economic terms?
Does it include getting governments to pass laws preventing or slowing competition? Does it include forming cartels and trade groups of established companies to stamp out threats to the existing business model?
The status quo is copyright. If you want to prove your side, then prove that free can compete with copyright.
When the status quo can write the rules, sometimes the only option for competition is to break the rules.
On the post: Publishers Can't Seem To Celebrate The Ebook Boom Without Slipping In Odes To Copyright
Re: Re:
Citation, please. Can you show that laws are the deterrents?
I don't kill people - not because of the law, but because it is wrong from a moral and ethical standpoint.
On the other hand, I was driving faster than the speed limit on most of my morning commute. I was going 40 in a 35 zone, and went 65 in a 55 zone. I wasn't driving dangerously by any reasonable definition. I stopped for the school buses and slowed to the limit in the school zone. I didn't run any lights. Not for fear of the law - but because those would endanger myself and others.
So, AJ, where's the actual proof that laws are the reason that people don't break laws?
On the post: David Byrne: One Of My Albums Sat On The Shelf For A Year Because Label Wanted DRM And I Didn't
On the post: Amanda Palmer Destroys/Saves Musicians; Chances Of 'Hitting It Big' As An Artist Remain Unchanged
Re:
On the post: Amazon Has A Long Way To Go In Europe For Streaming
Re: Re:
Efficiency isn't everything.
Sure, it's more efficient for a business to deal with a few collection societies instead of thousands of artists.
It's also more efficient for a collection society to take in millions of dollars and then only distribute it to the biggest artists while giving nothing to the smaller artists. It's more efficient for the collection society to have a completly opaque distribution system where millions of dollars can disappear with no accountability.
Funny that you keep harping on respect for the artists as you promote the system that outright steals actual money from nearly all of them.
I may copy movies and music unauthorized by the copyright holder, gaining no profit to myself except for the enjoyment of the artists work. Work I would be happy to pay for if given an option to get my money directly to the artists, when given a convenient manner to enjoy the work for a reasonable price. But I don't outright steal a thing from the artists - thats for the collection societies and major labels to do. We all know who the real thieves are in this story.
On the post: Fixing Software Patents By Actually Applying Existing Patent Law
Re: Falling WAY too short
Its not just software patents that are the problem. Why should software be special? Software patents are just a symptom of the whole.
Fix the entire damn system - which is what this idea is about.
On the post: Nestle: Buy Our Candy So We Can Hunt You Down
Re: I smell a lawsuit
On the post: Dreamforce Official Livestream... Shut Down By 'Content' Bots
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I agree that if Mike chooses to block someone of his own free will, without undue pressure being applied by the government, that is not a violation of free speech.
But that isn't what happened here or in other DMCA takedowns or automated content bots mishaps.
Do you think that Google/Youtube/Facebook or other sites wanted to takedown the legal content? Of course they didn't. They were compelled to take it down or implement the bots under threat of liability from a third party holding a copyright.
The government is involved here in two ways:
1) The DMCA is a law that lays out specific steps for a service provider to avoid liability from what the users of their service use it for (something no one with a bit of common sense would think they were liable for in the first place), and those steps say to take the content down first - before it is determined to be infringing.
2) Copyright is a government granted monopoly over an expression.
If the government gets to hand out monopolies over expressions, there is a duty to insure that those monopolies are not being used to censor protected speech - and writing a law to encourage them to be used to do so (often by unwilling parties) is not the right way to do it.
On the post: Overeager Patent Troll Can't Tell Github From Its Web Host
Re:
On the post: French Court Detaches Itself From Reality, Demands Tabloid Turn Over 'Original' Topless Kate Middleton Photos
Re: Maybe...
On the post: Anyone Who Says Copyright Cannot Be Used For Censorship Has No Credibility
Re: Re: Re: Thinking about copyrighted works
Can the government block an individual from recieving speech which is not infringing?
More specifically, can the government compell one party to block non-infringing speech to another party?
What if the government is not compelling through use of force, but through the threat of financial ruin, or potentially ruinous liability?
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