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A few thoughts that stand out: 1. If this turns out to be widespread, this could generate a huge amount of negative publicity for Bitcoin. As Krebs pointed o

by nlh 12y ago

A few thoughts that stand out: 1. If this turns out to be widespread, this could generate a huge amount of negative publicity for Bitcoin. As Krebs pointed out in the article, this type of attack is specifically enabled because of Bitcoin -- you can't (easily) send an extortionist untraceable money through other means. If a politician hears about this, a reliable knee-jerk reaction could be: "Look at the evil this Bitcoin is enabling! Targeting poor hardworking small-business owners. Join me to ban this terrible thing and help protect our small-business owners!" That's a pretty easy sell for a politician and hard for people to object to ("Think of the children!") 2. The notice is so blatantly outrageous that I wonder if this isn't a ploy by some anti-Bitcoin party to acheive 1) above. Even the original protection racketeers had some ever-so-slight veil -- "No, no, see, we're your new partners. We're here to protect your business. You pay us, and we protect you. Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't..." This is just as in-your-face as it can possibly be. Seems odd.

jamesaguilar 12y ago
I would say 2) is wishful thinking. Bitcoins have also been used by encryption viruses. Their use in extortion has a precedent -- it's much more likely that this is simply another instance of that, not a conspiracy.
dublinben 12y ago
Whatever the reason, this will just raise the proportion of transactions on the Bitcoin network that are related to criminal activity. It won't take much more for governments to start treating any and all BTC exchanges as facilitating money laundering and other crimes, and shut them down. Without the exchanges, Bitcoin in its current state is dead.
wpietri 12y ago
Traditional protection rackets have a veil (at least in pop culture; I have no idea what they really do) because it's harder to go to the cops with witnesses quoting oblique statements. But if you have anonymous mail in one direction and anonymous cash in the other, it doesn't really matter what witnesses say. There's really no point in being oblique; it'll just reduce your yield.

by nlh 12y ago

jamesaguilar 12y ago

I would say 2) is wishful thinking. Bitcoins have also been used by encryption viruses. Their use in extortion has a precedent -- it's much more likely that this is simply another instance of that, not a conspiracy.

dublinben 12y ago

Whatever the reason, this will just raise the proportion of transactions on the Bitcoin network that are related to criminal activity. It won't take much more for governments to start treating any and all BTC exchanges as facilitating money laundering and other crimes, and shut them down. Without the exchanges, Bitcoin in its current state is dead.

wpietri 12y ago

Traditional protection rackets have a veil (at least in pop culture; I have no idea what they really do) because it's harder to go to the cops with witnesses quoting oblique statements. But if you have anonymous mail in one direction and anonymous cash in the other, it doesn't really matter what witnesses say. There's really no point in being oblique; it'll just reduce your yield.