[ExI] bitcoin used for nefarious purposes: was RE: quote for the day

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Henry Rivera
…

 

>…Your position implies are you anti-encryption as well now. It can facilitate concealment of crimes in addition to dick pics, you know. 

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/john-oliver-why-the-apple-fbi-fight-extends-way-past-dick-pics-20160314

 

>…-Henry 

 

Ja, my position is filled with cognitive dissonance, a very uncomfortable place to be.  By opposing crypto-currency, or even acknowledging the threat, we enable crime at the enforcement level.

 

Consider three cases: 

 

Case 1: both parties in a transaction are overt

Case 2: one party is overt, the other covert

Case 3: both parties are covert

 

 

Most of our transactions are case 1.  We buy stuff with credit cards, there is a record made of what we bought, how much spent, etc.  Neither party is trying to hide.  We have a mechanism for that exchange: credit cards.

 

Case 3: Both parties want to hide.  Good chance this is how you pay a harlot.  I have no expertise in that transaction, but would assume that is done with cash.  So we have a mechanism in place for that.

 

Case 2: now this becomes an adversarial transaction.  There are two subcases: A) where the payee wants to be covert and the payer wants everything known, and B) the payer wants to be covert and the paid person is open.  Case 2B example perhaps someone buying porno or a guy paying off a victim of a sex crime.  We don’t care about that.  Almost nobody cares about that case 2B.  

 

Kidnapping is a case 2A.  That’s definitely the kind of crime we don’t want.  It looks to me like the hospital ransom caper is a bad case 2A.  Ja?

 

spike   

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