It could have been created by the UN or by multiple governments. Does it even matter just so long as the code is released, it works, and it solves problems? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Intel agencies utilize Bitcoin nor would it surprise me if operatives helped to develop it. It does not change the utility of Bitcoin for me just because of it’s origins.
Does it even matter just so long as the code is released, it works, and it solves problems?
Yes. It tells us information about currently unknown or uncertain variables. Having the source code and seeing that it works by no means screens off any inferences from its origin, any more than reading carefully a paper on smoking should make you not care that it was sponsored by the tobacco industry.
future (ab)uses of the <1m bitcoins Satoshi is believed to have mined based on the minimal initial uptake by other miners and leaked nonce information; the orderbook on MtG implies that if all 1m were dumped, that could take Bitcoin down well into the <$1 range and could destroy Bitcoin as a currency and possibly destroy the prospects of any future currencies
backdoors
in the source code itself (the Underhanded C Contest, and the history of cryptography, demonstrating that backdoors or weaknesses can persist for a long time, despite review by very talented people—in Bitcoin’s case, Kaminsky and others—and note that the coding style of Bitcoin has been described as very weird and Bitcoin is also an implementation-defined standard, ‘whatever the Satoshi client does or accepts’)
in the primitives it uses (canonical example: NSA & DES)
likelihood of future government crackdown or crackdowns based on blockchain movements
future government uses of Bitcoin (mandatory public transactions, eg. using the colored coins mechanism, leading to a complete loss of all financial privacy?)
a) Future abuses via Satoshi having too many Bitcoin or from a Bitcoin elite can be countered right here and right now by supporting alt-cryptocurrencies. If one government backed Bitcoin then back the alts so that that one government competes with all those other government backed alt currencies. My attitude and behavior remains unchanged regardless of who backed Bitcoin initially or who Satoshi is.
b) Backdoors should be assumed to be in Bitcoin already. If you run it on Windows and you didn’t compile it yourself then assume the NSA and FBi backdoor is already there in the code you either didn’t compile yourself or you ran on a closed source operation system which once again you didn’t compile yourself. If your behavior would be the same whether the backdoor exists or not then you’re okay, and in my case my behavior would be exactly the same whether a backdoor exists or not so I don’t fear the possibility.
c) The government crackdown possibility is real but the best way to defend against it is to actually support many cryptocurrencies knowing that some governments are possibly going to benefit from them. When enough governments stand to benefit from the technology in general, then sort of like the Internet it’s here to stay and for the same reasons.
d) Even if the government designed Bitcoin it does not control it, and it’s highly unlikely that any single government could maintain control of cryptocurrencies as a technology let alone control Bitcoin. So in a way Bitcoin is decentralized enough that no single government can dominate it but I’m sure many governments are involved at the clandestine level.
No. You’re not getting it. This is about information, not your vague issues of ‘I feel this is a large enough danger to worry about or I can come up with some vague ways to limit the fallout’. The question was: does learning the government did Bitcoin change our beliefs about anything else at all? The answer remains, for all you’ve said: yes, it does.
a) Future abuses via Satoshi having too many Bitcoin or from a Bitcoin elite can be countered right here and right now by supporting alt-cryptocurrencies.
These tactics are not guaranteed to work, therefore on learning the government did Bitcoin you will be more worried about abuse then before; Satoshi as technoidealist is far less likely to abuse or use the mined coins than Satoshi as calculated government project and public manipulation.
b) Backdoors should be assumed to be in Bitcoin already.
No, they shouldn’t. Only some software is ever backdoored, which means you should make no ‘assumptions’. If we learn Bitcoin was done by the government, do any of our beliefs change at all? Yes, the odds of backdooring go up since the US government has, as a matter of historical record, advocated backdoors and sought to build in backdoors (eg. the Clipper chip), and the possibility of NSA involvement that much higher.
c) The government crackdown possibility is real but the best way to defend...
Is completely irrelevant, because you’re not getting the point, and actually getting it backwards: if we learned the government did Bitcoin, would this affect our predictions about future crackdowns at all? Yes, it would: we would worry less about a crackdown, because that would render developing & releasing Bitcoin a complete waste of effort and accomplish no apparent goal which was not already accomplished by actions like crushing e-gold. The obvious continuing example of this is Tor, developed by the US government and still supported and not cracked down upon, because cracking down would defeat the point of making it, which was to enable its servants to browse anonymously and also help out its enemies’ critics & foes.
d) Even if the government designed Bitcoin it does not control it,
Something which you cannot know, and which flies in the face of points #1 and #2.
but I’m sure many governments are involved at the clandestine level.
No doubt you are as sure of this as anyone can be sure of something in the complete absence of any evidence.
The obvious continuing example of this is Tor, developed by the US government and still supported and not cracked down upon, because cracking down would defeat the point of making it, which was to enable its servants to browse anonymously and also help out its enemies’ critics & foes.
The US government made Tor? Awesome. I wonder which part of the government did it. The intelligence agencies could be expect to oppose it because they effectively lose power.
See this (somewhat unreasonable) speculation from Paul Graham that bitcoin was created by a government. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547423
It could have been created by the UN or by multiple governments. Does it even matter just so long as the code is released, it works, and it solves problems? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Intel agencies utilize Bitcoin nor would it surprise me if operatives helped to develop it. It does not change the utility of Bitcoin for me just because of it’s origins.
Yes. It tells us information about currently unknown or uncertain variables. Having the source code and seeing that it works by no means screens off any inferences from its origin, any more than reading carefully a paper on smoking should make you not care that it was sponsored by the tobacco industry.
In the spirit of ‘name three examples’, here are 4 off the top of my head:
future (ab)uses of the <1m bitcoins Satoshi is believed to have mined based on the minimal initial uptake by other miners and leaked nonce information; the orderbook on MtG implies that if all 1m were dumped, that could take Bitcoin down well into the <$1 range and could destroy Bitcoin as a currency and possibly destroy the prospects of any future currencies
backdoors
in the source code itself (the Underhanded C Contest, and the history of cryptography, demonstrating that backdoors or weaknesses can persist for a long time, despite review by very talented people—in Bitcoin’s case, Kaminsky and others—and note that the coding style of Bitcoin has been described as very weird and Bitcoin is also an implementation-defined standard, ‘whatever the Satoshi client does or accepts’)
in the primitives it uses (canonical example: NSA & DES)
likelihood of future government crackdown or crackdowns based on blockchain movements
future government uses of Bitcoin (mandatory public transactions, eg. using the colored coins mechanism, leading to a complete loss of all financial privacy?)
a) Future abuses via Satoshi having too many Bitcoin or from a Bitcoin elite can be countered right here and right now by supporting alt-cryptocurrencies. If one government backed Bitcoin then back the alts so that that one government competes with all those other government backed alt currencies. My attitude and behavior remains unchanged regardless of who backed Bitcoin initially or who Satoshi is.
b) Backdoors should be assumed to be in Bitcoin already. If you run it on Windows and you didn’t compile it yourself then assume the NSA and FBi backdoor is already there in the code you either didn’t compile yourself or you ran on a closed source operation system which once again you didn’t compile yourself. If your behavior would be the same whether the backdoor exists or not then you’re okay, and in my case my behavior would be exactly the same whether a backdoor exists or not so I don’t fear the possibility.
c) The government crackdown possibility is real but the best way to defend against it is to actually support many cryptocurrencies knowing that some governments are possibly going to benefit from them. When enough governments stand to benefit from the technology in general, then sort of like the Internet it’s here to stay and for the same reasons.
d) Even if the government designed Bitcoin it does not control it, and it’s highly unlikely that any single government could maintain control of cryptocurrencies as a technology let alone control Bitcoin. So in a way Bitcoin is decentralized enough that no single government can dominate it but I’m sure many governments are involved at the clandestine level.
No. You’re not getting it. This is about information, not your vague issues of ‘I feel this is a large enough danger to worry about or I can come up with some vague ways to limit the fallout’. The question was: does learning the government did Bitcoin change our beliefs about anything else at all? The answer remains, for all you’ve said: yes, it does.
These tactics are not guaranteed to work, therefore on learning the government did Bitcoin you will be more worried about abuse then before; Satoshi as technoidealist is far less likely to abuse or use the mined coins than Satoshi as calculated government project and public manipulation.
No, they shouldn’t. Only some software is ever backdoored, which means you should make no ‘assumptions’. If we learn Bitcoin was done by the government, do any of our beliefs change at all? Yes, the odds of backdooring go up since the US government has, as a matter of historical record, advocated backdoors and sought to build in backdoors (eg. the Clipper chip), and the possibility of NSA involvement that much higher.
Is completely irrelevant, because you’re not getting the point, and actually getting it backwards: if we learned the government did Bitcoin, would this affect our predictions about future crackdowns at all? Yes, it would: we would worry less about a crackdown, because that would render developing & releasing Bitcoin a complete waste of effort and accomplish no apparent goal which was not already accomplished by actions like crushing e-gold. The obvious continuing example of this is Tor, developed by the US government and still supported and not cracked down upon, because cracking down would defeat the point of making it, which was to enable its servants to browse anonymously and also help out its enemies’ critics & foes.
Something which you cannot know, and which flies in the face of points #1 and #2.
No doubt you are as sure of this as anyone can be sure of something in the complete absence of any evidence.
The US government made Tor? Awesome. I wonder which part of the government did it. The intelligence agencies could be expect to oppose it because they effectively lose power.
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
Only 90s kids will remember Triangle Boy.