Alan C. Posted March 20, 2013 Posted March 20, 2013 US regulator: Bitcoin exchanges must comply with money-laundering laws The federal agency charged with enforcing the nation's laws against money laundering has issued new guidelines suggesting that several parties in the Bitcoin economy qualify as Money Services Businesses under US law. Money Services Businesses (MSBs) must register with the federal government, collect information about their customers, and take steps to combat money laundering by their customers. The new guidelines do not mention Bitcoin by name, but there's little doubt which "de-centralized virtual currency" the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had in mind when it drafted the new guidelines. A FinCEN spokesman told Bank Technology News last year that "we are aware of Bitcoin and other similar operations, and we are studying the mechanism behind Bitcoin." America's anti-money-laundering laws require financial institutions to collect information on potentially suspicious transactions by their customers and report these to the federal government. Among the institutions subject to these regulatory requirements are "money services businesses," including "money transmitters." Until now, it wasn't clear who in the Bitcoin network qualified as a money transmitter under the law. For a centralized virtual currency like Facebook credits, the issuer of the currency (in this case, Facebook) must register as an MSB, because the act of buying the virtual currency transfers value from one location (the user's conventional bank account) to another (the user's virtual currency account). The same logic would apply to Bitcoin exchanges such as Mt. Gox. Allowing people to buy and sell bitcoins for dollars constitutes money transmission and therefore makes these businesses subject to federal regulation. Good luck with that.
RestoringGuy Posted March 21, 2013 Posted March 21, 2013 I am not as concerned with Bitcoin specifically nor do I know much about it. But it seems the devices needed to interface to the Internet are being more and more walled off and centrally controlled (iPad and Windows 8 come to mind). It will seem easy for the government to plant back doors inside the system just as they did with Carnivore in the 90's. Most computer/mobile systems I am aware of being sold today either accept automated updates from a centralized source, or are too closed to accept arbitrary software installation that does not pass through a corporate gatekeeper. The fact that we now see UEFI on PCs will mean something sigificant. We are used to the idea that many printers store essentially forever what they print. With UEFI there will be no keystoke that the goverment cannot recall, either by confiscation or remote recall using iAMT / vPRO that is irreversably built into the chips. Few people are paying attention to hardware, and Bitcoin seems like a clue that we are all succumbing to a sense of false security.
Alan C. Posted March 21, 2013 Author Posted March 21, 2013 I don't know much about BC either, and I'm still very skeptical about it. The opinions expressed in this YT video articulate some of my concerns. After encountering some users with Windows 8, I seriously considered Linux (specifically Ubuntu). Although I messed around with Red Hat in the late 90s, I never considered using it in a production environment until now. Microsoft also put the Metro interface on Server 2012 which is unbelievable.
NumberSix Posted March 21, 2013 Posted March 21, 2013 A pretty good article: Could Bitcoin Become the Currency of System D? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/03/19/could-bitcoin-become-the-currency-of-system-d/
RestoringGuy Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 After encountering some users with Windows 8, I seriously considered Linux (specifically Ubuntu). Although I messed around with Red Hat in the late 90s, I never considered using it in a production environment until now. Microsoft also put the Metro interface on Server 2012 which is unbelievable. From what I've read about Bitcoin, it is a work of genius from a software standpoint. I think it is a good concept as long as it does not remain the only such service which would make it a target. I have previously gone the Ubuntu route and found it frustratingly bundled with auto-updates and the new "Unity" interface which is heavily keyboard-driven and every key search is logged even if you search for how to change your screen colors. I switched to Linux Mint and found it much less troubling. Still the Linux designers have gone to the dark side and (like Microsoft/Apple/Google) plant hidden programs, and they like change for no reason despite obvious drawbacks (attitude of "make the interface most unlike Windows because Windows is bad"). For Bitcoin or things like it, I feel that security of the hardware should be considered and there are some Linux people concerned about UEFI. Those people usually just say turn it off, block it, buy something else,etc. I have no doubt you'll be able to buy and/or build computers without UEFI/vPro/iAMT/auto-updates,etc, for a long time. That is not a problem, but most people simply won't and Bitcoin will bend to accommodate them either at the user or server end of things. I would be crazy if I told people 30 years ago that everyone in 2013 will carry little GPS-chipped phones in their pockets that transmit 24/7 and store their geopositional data on a corporate server mandated by the government. Same for OnStar, SYNC, MayDay, etc. The hardware vulnerabilities are tough to convince people about until it's too late.
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