What Happens When Anonymous Gets a Bank?

[Magda Hassan]

What Happens When Anonymous Gets a Bank?

Dominic Basulto on May 18, 2011, 9:34 PM



The same people who brought you Wikileaks are back, and this time, they've created a virtual currency called Bitcoin that could destabilize the entire global financial system. Bitcoin is an open-source virtual currency generated by a computer algorithm that is completely beyond the reach of financial intermediaries, central banks and national tax collectors. Bitcoins could be used to purchase anything, at any time, from anyone in the world, in a transaction process that it is almost completely frictionless. Yes, that's right, the hacktivists now have a virtual currency that's untraceable, unhackable, and completely Anonymous.
And that's where things start to get interesting. Veteran tech guru Jason Calacanis recently called Bitcoin the most dangerous open source project he's ever seen. TIME suggested that Bitcoin might be able to bring national governments and global financial institutions to their knees. You see, Bitcoin is as much a political statement as it is a virtual currency. If you think there's a shadow banking system now, wait a few more months. The political part is that, unlike other virtual currencies like Facebook Credits (used to buy virtual sock puppets for your friends), Bitcoins are globally transferrable across borders, making them the perfect instrument to finance any cause or any activity -- even if it's banned by a sovereign government.
You don't need a banking or trading account to buy and trade Bitcoins - all you need is a laptop. They're like bearer bonds combined with the uber-privacy of a Swiss bank account, mixed together with a hacker secret sauce that stores them as 1's and 0's on your computer. They're "regulated" (to use the term lightly) by distributed computers around the world. Most significantly, Bitcoins can not be frozen or blocked or taxed or seized.
Think back to the very peak of the Wikileaks Affair, when financial institutions were blocking payments to and from bank accounts controlled by Julian Assange and Wikileaks. This then precipitated a wave of hacktivist attacks on financial institutions ranging from Bank of America to Mastercard to Visa. Anybody who attempted to stop Wikileaks was slammed with massive denial-of-service attacks that had people seriously concerned about the fate of the world's financial system. That was just the amuse-bouche.
Theoretically, you could start generating Bitcoins right now on your laptop by putting a sophisticated computer algorithm to work. (Watch this video segment from Jason Calacanis for all the details) Right now, there are six million Bitcoins in circulation, trading at an average value of $6.70 each. $40 million is a lot of money, but a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. After all, trillions of dollars trade hands each day in the spot FX markets. However, remember that computer algorithm I mentioned earlier? Well, it controls the value of all those Bitcoins in circulation. The greater the demand, the higher the value of the Bitcoins. Within years, we could be talking about billions of dollars' worth of Bitcoins in circulation. Money might not grow on trees, but now it grows on your laptop.
There are so many fascinating angles to this that even the digitally-savvy folks at Boing Boing have had a hard time wrapping their heads around Bitcoin. Quite frankly, it sounds like something out of a James Bond movie: a group of shadowy individuals attempt to bring the world's financial system to its knees. The founder of the Bitcoin open source project, Satoshi Nakamoto, hasn't been heard from in months, but other leaders of the open source movement have taken over. (People really aren't sure if a Satoshi Nakamoto really exists -- he's more like a Keyser Soze figure right now). What's fascinating is that anybody can download an 8-page PDF explaining this P2P virtual currency system and judge for themselves if it makes sense -- just be prepared to work through some differential calculus and probability theory.
Can any government do anything about Bitcoin? Well, the hacktivists like to point to the example of P2P distributed systems like Bit Torrent or The Pirate Bay. What happened then? Nobody has been able to consistently shut them down. So... back to our original question: What happens when Anonymous gets a bank? Well, it's worth re-reading the final chapter of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, where Swedish hacker Lisbeth Salander single-handedly re-routes hundreds of millions of dollars around the world and brings down a huge billion dollar corporation, all without leaving an electronic fingerprint. Truth, it seems, may soon be stranger than fiction.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/38488

[Peter Lemkin]

It SOUNDS like a good to great idea...but reading on their forum, they've had some people burned by some cheats [likely intel related] and pay pal. I looked around and besides this bit 'o chaos [they feel they can deal with and learn from], they now have invitation only membership....so how does one get invited? :what:

[Magda Hassan]

I can probably invite you. I'm not in Bitcoin but I know people who are. I will be in conversation with them in the next week on other matters.

[Peter Lemkin]

I'm sure that will put me on yet one more list....I'm already on quite a few...what the hell...one more list of the bad guys.... No hurry, but you can tell whomever. On their discussion forum they seem now to be in a bit of chaos. Most were using paypal to get in/out of the bits to realworld currency and paypal allowed [or helped] some persons [if they were persons] make 'deals' in which persons lost their funds and pay pal wouldn't help....that's pay pal/eBay [big business] for you. My few paypal transactions I was cheated with the blessing of paypal, about half of the times. I don't use it - also for their political stands. Obviously, there are just plain cheats who think bitcurrency is an easy 'mark' - and there are BIG bankers who would like to crush them before they get off the ground. I remember how the FBI, Police, and CIA hit hard on the Berkeley Barter Collective...they felt it was a threat to the stability of the American monetary system. It was, in fact, only a few hundred people who had opted out of the capitalist tyranny. That is not allowed in the USA - you will be a slave of the system, or you will be eliminated. That simple. :nono: Despite this, some smaller communities, mostly, have dared to challenge that, lately....

Re: List of community currencies in the United States Tue, June 21, 2005 - 8:53 AM
http://www.explore-money.com/currenc...tes.html

Flagstaff Neighbor Notes http://www.flagteaparty.org/Subject...ome.html Flagstaff, Arizona
Humboldt Local Currency Project Arcata, California
Berkeley Barter Network Berkeley, California
Berkeley Bread Berkeley, California
Sand Dollars Bolinas, California
Humboldt Hours Eureka, California
Mendocino SEED Fort Bragg, California
Sequoia Hours Garberville, California
Area Bucks Palo Alto, California
Santa Barbara Hours Santa Barbara, California
San Luis Obispo Hours San Luis Obispo, California
Santa Monica Hours Santa Monica, California
Sonoma County Community Cash Santa Rosa, California
Ukiah Hours http://www.greenmac.com/hours/ Ukiah, California
Carbondale Spuds Carbondale, Colorado
Community Cash Durango, Colorado
NOCO Hours http://www.fortnet.org/nclcbpFort Collins/Greeley/Loveland, Colorado]
North Fork Helping Hands [[Paonia, Colorado]]
Thread City Bread [[Willimantic, Connecticut
Atlanta Hours Atlanta, Georgia
Kauai Barter and Trade Network http://www.realkauai.net/Barter/Coconut.php Kilauea, Hawaii
Boise Hours Boise, Idaho
BloomingHours http://www.bloomington.in.us/~blmghour/ Bloomington, Indiana
Barter Bucks Indianapolis, Indiana
REAL Dollars lto.lawrence.ks.us/ Lawrence, Kansas
Berea Bucks Berea, Kentucky
Mo' Money members.aol.com/ALinNOLA/MoMoney.html New Orleans, Louisiana
Amesbury Hours Amesbury, Massachusetts
Cape Anne Dollars Gloucester, Massachusetts
Valley Dollars Greenfield, Massachusetts
Baltimore Hours http://www.geocities.com/baltimorehours/ Baltimore, Maryland
P.E.N. Neighborhood Exchange Takoma Park, Maryland
Waldo Hours Unity, Maine
Great Lakes Hours Detroit, Michigan
Hero dollar Minneapolis, Minnesota
Columbia Hours Columbia, Missouri
Kansas City Barter Bucks Kansas City, Missouri
Missoula Hours Missoula, Montana
Bull City Bucks Durham, North Carolina
Mountain Money http://www.main.nc.us/BarterNetwork/ Mars Hill, North Carolina
Brattleboro Hours Chesterfield, New Hampshire
Santa Fe Hours Santa Fe, New Mexico
Capitol Area Self-Sustaining Hours Albany, New York
Brooklyn Greenbacks Brooklyn, New York
Ithaca Hours Ithaca, New York
Buffalo Hours Buffalo, New York
Stoneridge Hours Kerhonkson, New York
Columbia County Hours Philmont, New York
Chenango Hours New Berlin, New York
Summit Hours Akron, Ohio
Wooster Hours Apple Creek, Ohio
Cuyahoga Hours Cleveland, Ohio
Simply Hours Columbus, Ohio
Portage Hours Kent, Ohio
Tulsa Hours Tulsa, Oklahoma
Lehigh Valley Barter Hours Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Dillo Hours Austin, Texas
Houston Hours Houston, Texas
Floyd Hours Floyd, Virginia
Blue Money Brattleboro, Vermont
Buffalo Mountain Hours Hardwick, Vermont
Time Bucks http://www.timebucks.org/ Seattle, Washington
Bainbridge Island Bucks Bainbridge Island, Washington
Kitsap Hours Bremerton, Washington
Kettle River Hours Kettle Falls, Washington
Lopez Island Hours Lopez Island, Washington
Skagit Dollars Mount Vernon, Washington
Milwaukee Hours Milwaukee, Wisconsin

[Peter Lemkin]

The Wikileaks of Money
Posted on June 24, 2011 by stacyherbert| 63 Comments
The Wikileaks of Money

My first response to hearing about Bitcoins was a curiosity in the peer to peer, decentralised nature of the currency. And thank god! perhaps a replacement to having to use Paypal!!?

For something that few had heard of a month ago, the online currency Bitcoin tends to elicit pretty strong responses. Depending on whom you ask, Bitcoin is the "future of money," a "crypto-geek Ponzi scheme," an "online form of money laundering," or a tool for "libertarian hipsters and criminals."

What I was not expecting at all was the violent response to even the very idea of Bitcoins. The reaction has been more violent than any other single topic we have ever discussed. This power of Bitcoin to inspire so much passion, however, made me even more curious to know more about it. Perhaps I would have forgotten about it after our interview with Jon Matonis, but I want to find the source of the terror the crypto-currency inspires.

The publicity has not been kind to Bitcoin, which has faced attacks from law enforcement, hackers, and cybercriminals alike. The currency's value has seen several sharp fluctuations. Early supporters appear to have lost confidence, and U.S. lawmakers are starting to ask tough questions. But shutting down Bitcoin may prove more difficult than its critics hope. And whether or not the experiment succeeds, its rise may herald the emergence of a new form of decentralized currency trading.

Most gold and silver bugs claim to be Libertarians and yet here they are on the side of Schumer and law enforcement doing all they can in a Salem Witch Hunt like manner to keep others from freely choosing their own currency. What could so unite goldbugs and Wall Street's man in the Senate, Chuck Schumer? Or silverbugs with law enforcement?

As a gold and silver bug myself with 98% of my savings in both of the metals, I experienced none of this violent reaction to bitcoin. I didn't see it as an existential threat as apparently others do. Nor did I have a violent desire to stop others from transacting in this new currency. On the contrary, I watch people like Rick Falkvinge with fascination waiting to see whether or not the currency succeeds. If people want to speculate in it (or cabbage patch dolls, or dotcom shares, or McMansions) and lose all their wealth, well then that's their own (stupid) choice. If bitcoins succeed or fail, I don't see how that is a threat to my own personal savings or existence. It's just another currency among hundreds, if not thousands, currently operating in the world.

So what to make of this unique terror that Bitcoin inspires? Over dinner in Paris last week, we talked a bit to Steve Keen about bitcoins. Based on just my description, his biggest problem with it was that deflation is built into the model and this can't be a good thing on which to run an economy. When I described to him the violent response I've seen against it, he said that anything can be a currency if the two parties to a transaction agree that unit to be a currency. Whether bellybutton lint in ancient China or paper dollars or euros today. Or the WAT system, the p2p currency system in Japan. Or Switzerland's WIR Bank, which has operated since 1934 and continues to operate to this day, transacting the equivalent of CHF 1.65 billion annually.

But even if Bitcoin fails, it would probably be a mistake to discount its 15 minutes of fame as a complete fluke. Just as Napster begat BitTorrent and MediaFire, Bitcoin has demonstrated a model for how a non-state-sanctioned, peer-to-peer electronic currency system could work. It may not be "the one," as its advocates hoped, but other innovators are sure to tinker with the formula, improving security and usability.

After 5000 years of others trying, you can be certain it will never be a replacement for gold and silver, which, yes, is still going to $500. But for all those who do not wish to be slaves to paypal and visa (as apparently many gold and silver bugs are evidently happy to be) well you should all hope this seed of an idea for a genuinely decentralised, non state sanctioned, command and control currency takes root and gives birth to a true online free currency in which it doesn't cost 5% to transact.

[Peter Lemkin]

Top 5 Places NOT To Be When The Dollar Collapses

The dollar collapse will be the single largest event in human history. This will be the first event that will touch every single living person in the world. All human activity is controlled by money. Our wealth,our work,our food,our government,even our relationships are affected by money. No money in human history has had as much reach in both breadth and depth as the dollar. It is the de facto world currency. All other currency collapses will pale in comparison to this big one. All other currency crises have been regional and there were other currencies for people to grasp on to. This collapse will be global and it will bring down not only the dollar but all other fiat currencies,as they are fundamentally no different. The collapse of currencies will lead to the collapse of ALL paper assets. The repercussions to this will have incredible results worldwide.

Thanks to the globalization and the giant vampire squids of the Anglo-American Empire,the dollar is the world's reserve currency. It supports the global economy in settling foreign trade,most importantly the Petro Dollar trade. This money is recycled through the City of London (not to be confused with London) and New York. This fuels our corporate vampires that acquires and harvests the wealth of the world. The corporate powers suppress REAL assets like natural resources and labor to provide themselves massive profits. This Fascist,Statist,Collectivist model provides the money into the economy to fund an ever increasing federal government. That government then grows larger and larger enriching its minions with jobs to control their fellow citizens. Finally,to come full circle,the government then controls other nations through the Military Industrial Complex.

This cycle will be cut when the mathematically and inevitable collapse of the dollar occurs. In order for our debt based money to function we MUST increase the debt every year in excess of the debt AND interest accrued the year before or we will enter a deflationary death spiral. When debt is created,money is created. When debt is paid off,money is destroyed. There is never enough to pay off the debt,because there would be not one dollar in existence.

We are at a point where we either default on the debt,willingly or unwillingly,or create more money/debt to keep the cycle moving. The problem is if you understand anything about compounding interest,we are reaching the hockey stick moment where the more debt that is incurred,the less effective it is and this leads us to hyper inflation. There are only two actors needed for this hyper inflation,the Lender of Last Resort,the Fed,and the Spender of Last Resort,the government. These two can,and will,blow up the system. I believe they will wait until the next crisis and the whiff of deflationary depression before they fire up the printing presses. That crisis is coming very soon at the end of this summer or fall. The money and emergency measures are worn out. The fact that NONE of the underlying problems that caused the 2008 crisis have been resolved. The only thing that has happened is that instead of corporate problems,we now have nation problems. In this movie Greece will play the role of Lehman Brothers and the United States will play the role of AIG. The problem is there is nowhere to kick the can down the road and there is no world government to absorb the debt,yet…(Problem,Reaction,Solution.)

So this leads me to the Top 5 Places Not To Be When the Dollar Collapses.

1. Israel- This Anglo-American beach head into the Middle East was first conceived by the most powerful family in the world,the Rothschilds,in 1917. The Balfour Declaration said that there will be a Zionist Israel years before World War two and the eventual establishment of Israel. Israel has not been a good neighbor to its Muslim nations and has always had the two biggest bullies on the block at it's back. When the dollar collapses,the United States will have much to much on its plate both domestically and internationally to worry about such a non-strategic piece of land. This will leave Israel very weak at a time when tensions will be high. This very thin strip of desert land will not be able to with stand the economic reality of importing its food and fuel or the political reality of being surrounded by Muslims.

2. Southern California- The land of Fruits and Nuts turns into Battlefield Los Angeles. 20 million people packed into an area that has no water and thus food is not good to say the least. Throw on top of the huge wealth disparities and the proximity to a narco state and this does not bode well. We have seen riots for Rodney King,what will happen when the dollar is destroyed and food an fuel stop coming into this area. People will get desperate and do crazy things,especially when a huge proportion of its citizens are on anti depressants. If food and fuel cannot get in,what about Zolfot? At a time when people's world are falling apart they lack the ability to deal with this new paradigm. If people come off of these drugs too fast they suffer psychotic breaks and you will have thousands of shootings or suicides.

3. England- The Land of the Big Brother and former Empire of world wide slave and drug trade will suffer heavily. The stiff upper lip that their the British Elite ingrained into their sheeple will not work anymore as the British population explodes. The human character will sacrifice and unite for a foreign enemy,but not if the enemy has always been the Elite. The Anglo-American Empire may pull off another false flag to distract it's population on another Emmanuel Goldstein like in 1984,but I feel this collapse will happen before they pull it off. This will make all eyes point at the British Elite as solely responsible for this catastrophe. We have seen massive riots for soccer matches with hooligans. What will happen when this island with very little food and fuel gets cut off?

4. New York City- Another large urban area living too high on the dollar hog. NYC is the area I moved out of in 2008. There is little doubt that all of the wealth in New York,New Jersey and Connecticut is derivative off of Wall Street wealth. The savings and investments of the whole nation and much of the world flows through this financial capital. As the world wakes up to the massive financial fraud,this will lead to the destruction of capital like we have never seen before. This will have tremendous effects on the regional economy as people driving in Mercedes suddenly wonder where their next meal is coming from.

5. Washington D.C.- The political collapse of the Federal Government will wreck havoc on the hugely inflated local economy. As more and more states find it necessary to assert their natural control,the Federal Government will suddenly loose power and importance as the whole world suffers from a Global Hurricane Katrina. The money that they create and spend,will become worthless and the government minions pensions will evaporate. Millions that once relied on the ability to force others to send their money to them,will learn that the real power has always been at the most local level. Massive decentralization will be the answer to globalization gone mad. Local families and communities will forgo sending money and power out of their community,as they will care about their next meal and keeping warm.

[Peter Lemkin]

Having become interested in the idea, I've studied up quite a bit on it and had even installed some software...currently removed from my computer..... I think the idea is good in concept, but not yet in practice...the reasons are complex and can detail - or point toward advanced [some heavy reading!] details. One has to be pretty computer and numerically saavy to understand the principles. I signed up on the main web Forum for bitcoin and while I don't yet have privileges to post in the main area, see there is a growing 'problems' section. Some outsiders who really know their math and computer technology also have entered the discussion and published some interesting papers. I do not suspect those who started the Project had anything dark in mind - likely quite the opposite; however it now seems that anyone with access to a very large computer [like a supercomputer or company computer network], could quite easily and quickly steal most or all of the current 'wealth' of bitcoins, now valued at US$20/each. I'll watch and wait. Some good ideas have been proposed to prevent such problems from happening - but have NOT yet been instituted. As I'm sure bitcoins are a threat to the very kinds who could buy or have a supercomputer to do exactly that, at the 'right' time, it seems a risk greater than most now realize. There are already private 'miners' with many [one admitted 20 dedicated and VERY powerful] home computers; dedicated just to doing the computer-intensive mining [that is one way to create bitcoins and thus wealth from pure electricity and computer energy expended]. Another person who worked on a corporate computer, secretly set it up to work on HIS own bitcoin mining. Others have invented netbots to enter the bitcoin network or turned 'professional miners', etc.

When the 'Big BAD Boys' with super-computers enter.....be careful!

I believe the original [naive] idea assumed each person involved would only be using their single computer. While there are other problems involved, the simplest way to beat the pack or steal from the pack is with enormous computer power! There are other ways to defraud people that have already happened and others that have been mentioned that have not - yet! I hope they fix the system and get it up, running, secure, and fair! :mexican: As several persons have already lost large sums to fraudsters and the price recently fell, after those events from $30 to $20, one can see that the model has not yet quite been perfected.....and a bit more caution as to 'human nature' - and deep political nature needs to be taken into account! It is a great idea, but a few months before 'its time' IMHO.

[Magda Hassan]

Canadian man to sell house for Bitcoin virtual currency

Mr More says that a Bitcoin payment would help a new venture he is planning

[/url]

A Canadian man is hoping to be the first person to sell his house for virtual currency Bitcoins.
Entrepreneur Taylor More listed his two-bedroom Alberta bungalow, asking 405,000 Canadian dollars (£261,000; $395,000) - or the equivalent in Bitcoins.
He says the first reaction of his family was that of a shock.
Bitcoins are now a widely used alternative payments system and one Bitcoin is currently worth about £37.
"Bitcoins are really hard to get your hands on if you want to get them in large quantities," Mr More told the BBC.
"I have a couple projects that I want to get started, and they will take a lot of Bitcoins."
He did not get into detail on his new venture, only saying that it should "get Bitcoins more mainstream".
Privacy for users Unlike other currencies, Bitcoins are not issued by a central bank or other centralised authority.
They first appeared in 2009 and are closely linked to the global network of computers which supports the currency and its users.
People generate or "mine" Bitcoins by participating in that network - for instance, by solving a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.
A growing number of web stores and online firms accept Bitcoins as payment.
Bitcoins can be exchanged for "real" money, and they can be used to make transactions that are difficult to trace, offering privacy to their users.
The currency has been adopted by Wikileaks and other sites to receive donations.
"It's an instant form of payment, and there's very low cost transfer fees," said Mr More.
"When you send money internationally it takes a week or more to do and costs hundreds of dollars, so I see this as something we've needed, an online virtual currency to make payments fast and easy."
The use of Bitcoins has been slowly spilling from the online into the physical world - for example, it is now possible to [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21427505]use the currency to buy pizza.

[Peter Lemkin]

Will be interesting to see.....somehow I doubt hell get an offer in bitcoins...but who knows. I installed one of the several varients of bitcoin generators on my computer, but have not really used it. It has potential, but favors those with more powerful computers and this I find unfair. When they change it so that everyone is on an equal footing, I think it may really work. The few scam/thefts of bitcoins were not huge, but troublesome. I hope they solved that 'loophole''. Remember this was started by white hackers, but there are also black hackers - some of which work for the government and banks [if there is a distinction?] I'd like to see this model - or some varient of it work. To date, it has been operational for small items [some restaurants will accept bitcoin payments, etc...but I've not heard of large purchases or transfers, but maybe they have happened. I haven't investigated what the 'story' is in a while. I stopped when I saw that those with the most powerful and expensive computers were able to build up bitcoins faster than others.....and this upset me. Maybe things have changed.

[David Guyatt]

Cyber Currency Surge Amid Eurozone Crisis

By © Sky News 2013 | Sky News Sat, Mar 30, 2013 20:05 GMT

As the eurozone is rocked by the crisis in Cyprus, a cyber currency called Bitcoin has seen a surge in popularity from people looking for an alternative place to invest their money.
Bitcoins are basically virtual money which can be earned or bought. They were created four years ago by a hacker who remains anonymous.
There are no banks to control them, people just exchange them directly with each other over the internet. That makes them difficult to tax, trace or freeze.
In the last month, the Bitcoin has more than doubled in value.
It is claimed the surge is partly down to people in cash-strapped countries including Spain and Greece turning to Bitcoins in the hope of protecting their money.
Amir Taaki, who has helped to develop it in the UK, told Sky News he believes it is a purer alternative to traditional banks.
"There are so many things that are wrong and broken with banks. Primarily, the biggest problem is I have to trust them and I have no other option.
"Bitcoin is a basic system where I can choose how much trust I put in other people.
"There is no central bank or central authority controlling it. Everyone that participates in the network is upholding the network and it's not a theoretical concept but a billion dollar market with charts and graphs and people are using it.
"Because it's decentralised and runs off a mathematical algorithm it means it can't be corrupted."
The huge spike in value makes it an attractive investment for some, but currency experts like Simon Smith from FxPro warns against that.
"It's totally unsafe. They might as well burn their money in a pile as far as I'm concerned. Yes, Bitcoin has doubled in value over the last month but it has every sign of being a bubble."
Bitcoin has reached an all-time high, trading at almost £60. Its market value is now more than £500m.
Some restaurants and shops already accept Bitcoin as payment and its supporters claim that in the future it will be dispensed from ATMs like pounds and euros.

**

But is it a case of out of the fire and into the frying pan? If Bitcoin gets really popular, even conman and cheat in Christendom - and then some - will take advantage of it.
[URL="http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/cyber-currency-surge-amid-eurozone-060412900.html"]


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