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Just like the rest of the cyberlibertarian blue-skying that went on back in the '90s, it was a nice dream, seriously! But in reality it turns out that governmen

Just like the rest of the cyberlibertarian blue-skying that went on back in the '90s, it was a nice dream, seriously! But in reality it turns out that governments can just send some armed men around to beat up the people with the encrypted faxes, email, and digital cash, and that'll largely put an end to it. The extent to which a government is helpless to stop that behavior is purely the extent to which it is reluctant to send, or incapable of sending, the armed men.

haberman 11y ago
See also: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
wyager 11y ago
Except for the fact that this hasn't happened at all. Even with Bitcoin, which isn't as anonymous as zcash claims to be, people making illicit purchases have had very little difficulty evading police or government capture. There are a few notable cases of high-profile Bitcoin users (like DPR) being arrested, but I don't know of any cases where Bitcoin was at fault.
- Retric 11y ago
  There a lot of cases where Bitcoin transsctions are traced back to some crime. The justice system does not make a big deal about this as educating criminals only makes there job harder.
  - wyager 11y ago
    Evidence? In which cases was tracing Bitcoin transactions used?
    - msgilligan 11y ago
      I'm not sure how much (if any) of the investigation into the Carl Force and Shaun Bridges cases used Bitcoin transaction data, but I suspect it played some role: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-silk-road-task-force-agent-pleads-guilty-extortion-money-laundering-and-obstruction http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-silk-road-task-force-ag...