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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Bitcoin over Tor is a bad idea? (arxiv.org)

jd writes: Researchers studying Bitcoin have determined that the level of anonymity of the cryptocurrency is low and that using Bitcoin over Tor provides an opportunity for a Man-in-the-Middle attack against Bitcoin users. (I must confess, at this point, that I can certainly see anonymity limitations helping expose what machine is linked to what Bitcoin ID, putting users at risk of exposure, but I don't see how this is a function of Tor, as the paper implies.)

It would seem worthwhile to examine both the Tor and Bitcoin protocols to establish if there is an actual threat there, as it must surely apply to any semi-anonymous protocol over Tor and Bitcoin has limited value as a cryptocurrency if all transactions have to be carried out in plain sight.

What are the opinions of other Slashdottians on this announcement? Should we be working on an entirely new cryptocurrency system? Is this a problem with Tor? Is this a case of the Scarlett Fish (aka: a red herring) or something to take seriously?

Comment Re:May I suggest (Score 1) 334

I want them to have the tools that they might realistically need

I do too. I just don't want them to have those tools be less obtrusive or noticeable.

There's already some statistics on departments that have started using wearable cams for their officers, and the drop in police use of force, and in citizens' complaints about police abuse, are quite remarkable.

If police behave better when there are eyes on them, I don't want to take ears off them.

I realize your argument is more reasonable, by the way. Just so you know I'm aware of that. I'm just still a little raw from a summer with so many examples of the negative results when local municipal police officers become Tommy Tactical. I'm not talking about SWAT teams, I'm talking about regular rank and file officers.

I live two blocks from the Chicago Police Academy - walk the dog around the campus every day - and after decades of seeing the department start to hire more professional men and women, it's disheartening to see ex-Blackwater commandos training them in urban warfare.

Comment Re:May I suggest (Score 1) 334

What makes you believe that?

Well, the main firearm for police is the sidearm. The weight that a suppressor adds makes the gun more difficult to handle. Granted, my only experience is with the old fashioned suppressors with the rubber grommets, but I don't think the new suppressors are that much lighter. Additional weight at the muzzle of a handgun may not matter in target shooting (my forte) but it really matters in tactical situations.

When you hear the evidence that suppressors make a weapon more accurate, it's always in reference to a stationary firing position.

Also, the new types of suppressors are much less effective in quieting a weapon. Even the volume of a suppressed weapon is enough to cause hearing damage (it's the attack portion of the envelope that causes the damage as much as it is the volume).

Of course, this is not viable so long as silencers remain regulated and taxed as heavily as they currently are in US (much more so than guns themselves).

I'm pretty sure the suppressor regulations are local, not national, by the way.

If anything, local police are too eager to go to their weapon to solve a problem as it is. I'm not sure you want to encourage more of it by making gunfire quieter.

Comment Re:hasn't stopped him yet (Score 1) 38

so where was his "strong anti-authoritarian and anti-military streak" when he was rolling over for the NSA **for years**...

That never happened. The NSA tapped Google's fiber without Google's knowledge, but there's no evidence that Google ever willingly participated. As soon as Google found out about the taps, it accelerated a program to get the data on all those fibers encrypted, to lock the NSA out.

Google invades privacy for profit and for decades gave the NSA (and god knows who else) an unaccountable back door to all our data

Google trades the right to target ads to you in exchange for services, and enables you to opt out of the trade if you want, even providing the necessary tools for you to do it. Google has never given the NSA an "unaccountable back door". See David Drummond's numerous public statements on this issue. From my personal perspective as a Google security engineer, I think it would be virtually impossible for such a back door to exist in Google's systems without my having noticed some trace of it. Take that as you will.

You're coming to this question with a whole bunch of inaccurate assumptions, which are seriously skewing your perspective. You should take a breath, look into what really happened (as much as is public information anyway) vis a vis the NSA, PRISM, etc., and then re-evaluate.

Or not, that's your choice. I'll merely point out that time will prove me right with respect to any purported military-focused work by Google X and leave it there.

Comment Re:May I suggest (Score 1) 334

Just FYI, even a single round fired causes permanent hearing damage, which is why wearing hearing protection is required on pretty much any firing range regardless of how many people are there.

They're using silencers on the firing range? What's wrong with regular ear protectors?

It would certainly be a very good thing for police to have and use silencers consistently, in light of the fact that they do occasionally use their firearms in public, and this negatively affects the health of every single person on the scene.

Yes, we have plenty of evidence that police using firearms in public negatively affects the health of people at the scene.

Especially if you happen to be of a certain shade.

But still, both of the main types of suppressors negatively affect both control of the firearm and impact on the target, and some accuracy. Why would you want police to have less control of their firearm, less stopping power, and less accuracy?

Let's not pretend that the DoD equipment being shipped to local police forces has anything to do with improving policing or protecting people's safety.

Comment Re:Is it open source yet? (Score 2) 124

If you want real control, it's ownCloud or no cloud I think...

I've been meaning to ask someone about this. Is OwnCloud something that someone who's kind of a moron could set up on their own server? Asking for a friend.

Maybe not a moron, I mean, I've set up Apache and a media server, and I can read instructions when I'm sober. I just worry that I'll do something wrong and end up syncing my data with some Estonian hackers by mistake.

Comment Re:Good thing Canada's pretty much a "Gun Free" zo (Score 1) 529

and if we don't count gangland violence

And if you don't count death, we all live forever.

Why the hell wouldn't you count "gangland" violence? We've got more people in prison than any other country in the world, so when I hear people talk about how there is really little violent crime (except for the violent crime) in the US, it's kind of a joke.

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