Crypto-Anarchism

Reporting from Bitcoin Conference 2013

"All attending the first Bitcoin 2013 conference in Silicon Valley are considering it a success. There are more than 1,000 attendees and the entrance fee to the event is $350.00. At one booth, Bitcoins were being sold for cash with no ID checks. Walk up to the booth lay down your money and buy your bitcoins. The money was piling up. The less 'corporate,' the more renegade seemed to be the operators and the more willing these operators seemed to be willing to challenge the government. One corporate type said to me that virtual currencies are in their infancy and that lawsuits, fighting and jail time for some will occur before the crypto-currency world becomes more defined." Continue reading →

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Making Sense of Bitcoin

"Despite the various opinions on Bitcoin, there is no question as to its ultimate value: the ability to bypass government restrictions, including economic embargoes and capital controls, to transmit money quasi-anonymously to anyone anywhere virtually instantaneously irrespective of geopolitical restrictions. While virtually all digital currencies can more or less do the same, no other currency offers an equal combination of peer-to-peer transactions, strong encryption, anonymity, and liquidity that Bitcoin has possessed up to this point." Continue reading →

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IRS Takes A Bite Out Of Bitcoin

"Bitcoin is virtual currency much in the news these days. It’s peer-to-peer so there’s no central bank or government. But if you think that means the IRS won’t get a piece, think again. The IRS already gets a piece where you swap one product or service for another, as the IRS explains at its Bartering Tax Center. Soon the IRS may have a Bitcoin Center too. The Treasury unit called FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, already has rules about Bitcoin and the IRS is likely to follow. In the meantime, the tax rules seem pretty clear. If you provide services or sell goods for Bitcoin, you have income." Continue reading →

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Collected Quotations Of The Dread Pirate Roberts, Silk Road Founder

"In public, the pseudonymous Internet drug czar known as the Dread Pirate Roberts doesn’t say much. But within the community that the Dread Pirate Roberts has created, Silk Road’s founder is hardly so shy. On the Tor-hidden online forums associated with Silk Road, Roberts posts long manifestos, philosophical and political musings, love letters to Silk Road’s users, and even hosts the Dread Pirate Roberts Book Club, a reading and discussion group devoted to 'agorism, counter-economics, anarcho-capitalism, Austrian economics, political philosophy, freedom issues and related topics.'" Continue reading →

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Japanese police ask ISPs to block Tor

"Japanese citizens who want to use Tor for whistleblowing or simply to stay invisible don't have to worry quite yet about the agency's desire to crack down on Web freedom. One industry insider told The Mainichi that 'Communication privacy is our lifeline. We won't be able to accept such a request,' and with any luck, an industry backlash could force the agency to look at more sensible ways to combat cybercrime and piracy -- or they could simply go back to chasing cats." Continue reading →

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Encryption and Privacy: Goodbye Copyright Laws

"Kim Dotcom really is his name these days. He had it legally changed. The federal government shut down his enormously profitable file-sharing business in 2011. It won’t shut down his latest version of file-sharing. His new company, Mega, offers 100% encryption. His company can’t crack it. The U.S. government can’t crack it — not at a price it can afford, anyway. So people can post movies, songs, or anything else on his site. You get 50 megabytes of free storage to start out. His lawyers can now say this: 'Our company will cooperate with the governments of the world. But, sorry, we have no idea what people are putting into their accounts.'" Continue reading →

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Encryption and Privacy: Goodbye Copyright Laws

"Kim Dotcom really is his name these days. He had it legally changed. The federal government shut down his enormously profitable file-sharing business in 2011. It won’t shut down his latest version of file-sharing. His new company, Mega, offers 100% encryption. His company can’t crack it. The U.S. government can’t crack it — not at a price it can afford, anyway. So people can post movies, songs, or anything else on his site. You get 50 megabytes of free storage to start out. His lawyers can now say this: 'Our company will cooperate with the governments of the world. But, sorry, we have no idea what people are putting into their accounts.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEncryption and Privacy: Goodbye Copyright Laws

Encryption and Privacy: Goodbye Copyright Laws

"Kim Dotcom really is his name these days. He had it legally changed. The federal government shut down his enormously profitable file-sharing business in 2011. It won’t shut down his latest version of file-sharing. His new company, Mega, offers 100% encryption. His company can’t crack it. The U.S. government can’t crack it — not at a price it can afford, anyway. So people can post movies, songs, or anything else on his site. You get 50 megabytes of free storage to start out. His lawyers can now say this: 'Our company will cooperate with the governments of the world. But, sorry, we have no idea what people are putting into their accounts.'" Continue reading →

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Bitcoin Should Get Ready for an Attack

"The coming attacks will be publicized rapidly – with stories and releases prepared ahead of time – and will paint the worst possible picture. Afterwards it will be seen that the first loss estimates were wildly high, but that won't matter to the people who see the headlines on the evening news. Joe and Jane Obedient will believe the worst. This is all manipulation, obviously, since people are being ripped-off in government money, on gigantic scales: millions of thefts at once. But, such is the state of the West at this sad moment: The large abusers are sanctified and the innovators are demonized." Continue reading →

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Bloomberg: Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy’s Last Safe Haven

"One of the oddest bits of news to emerge from the economic collapse of Cyprus is a corresponding rise in the value of Bitcoin, the Internet’s favorite, media-friendly, anarchist crypto-currency. Bitcoin thrives where people would prefer to throw in their lot with anonymous strangers instead of the world economy. It’s gold-bug thinking reinvented for an age of fluid transparency and instantaneous transactions. And as such it’s an excellent indicator of anxiety. Where you see Bitcoins in action you find a weird and heady mix of speculative angst, a fear of being left behind, and people who appear to have lost faith in institutions, who feel most left behind." Continue reading →

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