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> This is like saying Henry Ford designed the modern automobile to be used in bank robberies, drunk driving murders, hit-and-run maimings, and kidnapping. That

> This is like saying Henry Ford designed the modern automobile to be used in bank robberies, drunk driving murders, hit-and-run maimings, and kidnapping. That analogy might be valid if 50-90% of Model-Ts were used for bank robberies, and all those other things, and exclusively. At some point it crosses the lines of being a legitimate business and becomes a caterer for criminal enterprises. Having 1 legitimate customer does not excuse you from willingly servicing the needs of 9 criminals. LR went out of their way to hide the tracks of money transactions.

lmg643 13y ago
In order for a this analogy to work, we'd also need to imagine henry ford launching the model T into a market that was dominated by a monopolist whose product was carefully manipulated to serve as the basis for all of their society and much of the world, who had a track record of carefully and aggressively guarding that role for decades, and who had the nukes to back them up. basically - I don't think the US gov't is going to cede the digital currency space quietly. more important than the anonymity issue facilitating money laundering (which is a consideration) - is preserving the sanctity of the US dollar in world trade. to give one example - most oil is priced in US dollars, around the world. the dollar, including all the manipulative tricks we can pull with the fed, is the basis for our economic power and likely a key driver in all the shenanigans we pull around the world so the government would be complete fools to allow bitcoin or similar to turn into anything other than a science project.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Not to mention, if your product has theoretical legal uses but is exclusively used for criminal purposes, that doesn't get a pass either.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Yes But apparently if you signed up to them and put as a reason "to buy cocaine" this was fine by them
meowface 13y ago
It's a very tricky situation. It sounds like there's considerable evidence that the owners were fine with supporting illegal transactions. So, no one really contests their arrests. The problem is that the service they created is/was used by many people to store and transfer legitimately earned money. The end result is that many cybercriminals are no longer able to access the money they illicitly earned, yet many regular working people, often in foreign countries where they can't use Paypal or otherwise, can't access their actual funds. Those people had nothing to do with LR's management, nor the criminals who were using the service.

lmg643 13y ago

In order for a this analogy to work, we'd also need to imagine henry ford launching the model T into a market that was dominated by a monopolist whose product was carefully manipulated to serve as the basis for all of their society and much of the world, who had a track record of carefully and aggressively guarding that role for decades, and who had the nukes to back them up. basically - I don't think the US gov't is going to cede the digital currency space quietly. more important than the anonymity issue facilitating money laundering (which is a consideration) - is preserving the sanctity of the US dollar in world trade. to give one example - most oil is priced in US dollars, around the world. the dollar, including all the manipulative tricks we can pull with the fed, is the basis for our economic power and likely a key driver in all the shenanigans we pull around the world so the government would be complete fools to allow bitcoin or similar to turn into anything other than a science project.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Not to mention, if your product has theoretical legal uses but is exclusively used for criminal purposes, that doesn't get a pass either.

raverbashing 13y ago
Yes But apparently if you signed up to them and put as a reason "to buy cocaine" this was fine by them

meowface 13y ago

It's a very tricky situation. It sounds like there's considerable evidence that the owners were fine with supporting illegal transactions. So, no one really contests their arrests. The problem is that the service they created is/was used by many people to store and transfer legitimately earned money. The end result is that many cybercriminals are no longer able to access the money they illicitly earned, yet many regular working people, often in foreign countries where they can't use Paypal or otherwise, can't access their actual funds. Those people had nothing to do with LR's management, nor the criminals who were using the service.