EU Proposes End of Anonymity For Bitcoin and Prepaid Card Users (thestack.com) 158
An anonymous reader writes: In June the European Commission will propose new legislation to effectively end the possibility of anonymous payment, by forcing users of virtual currencies like Bitcoin, and of prepaid credit cards, to provide identity details. Additionally the EC intends to propose monitoring inter-bank transfers within Europe, a measure which had not been implemented with the launch of the EU-US Terrorist Financing Tracking Programme (TFTP). Though the proposed measures are intended to heap new pressure on the financing of terrorism, a report from Interpol last week concluded that terrorist funding methods have not changed substantially in recent years, stating 'Despite third party reporting suggesting the use of anonymous currencies like Bitcoin by terrorists to finance their activities, this has not been confirmed by law enforcement.'
End anonymity for cash (Score:1)
Quit stalling and require a record of every cash transaction made already. It can even be mostly automated, face recognition by the cash register cameras, which no doubt is already done by stores to track their customers.
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Better yet, make cash go away.
Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people really want this, as bad as it sounds. With even the last anonymous payment method gone, the state is happy as it can tax precisely what its worth (of course only those people who can't afford to have all their companies owned by a holding in the crocodile islands), and the banks are happy as they can sell precise data about their customers to various people (perhaps even legally). They are even happier as now they can also introduce negative interests on the money you store at the bank. It can be used to "keep money in movement", to stifle the economy, and fill the purses of the banks: You now rather tend to take loans and pay those back with interest, because collecting the money in advance got more expensive.
All debts, public and private (Score:5, Insightful)
It is inconvenient for your governing authority to have some of your life remain private. Suckks, right?
Not really, as it turns out... we can just unelect politicians like that as fast as the law allows.
Re:All debts, public and private (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Europe. You didn't elect half your politicians to begin with, so why do you think you're going to be able to unelect them. How many Italian administrations consisted of unelected technocrats? What happens when the people actually express an opinion, like when Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty (hint: they made the people vote again until they made the "right" choice) or when Greece decided against austerity (hint: that was just plain ignored)? The EU is even worse of a sham democracy than the US, and that's a pretty high bar to set for hypocrisy.
Re:All debts, public and private (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU is even worse of a sham democracy than the US, and that's a pretty high bar to set for hypocrisy.
Aww, you silver-tongued devil! That is the kindest thing I've ever heard about the US on /..
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It's Europe. You didn't elect half your politicians to begin with, so why do you think you're going to be able to unelect them. How many Italian administrations consisted of unelected technocrats? What happens when the people actually express an opinion, like when Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty (hint: they made the people vote again until they made the "right" choice) or when Greece decided against austerity (hint: that was just plain ignored)? The EU is even worse of a sham democracy than the US, and that's a pretty high bar to set for hypocrisy.
Bring on the fucking referendum I say. That is if Scameron doesn't change his mind because it looks like it might not go his way.
Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:4, Interesting)
Thing is that it's not the tax thing that is the problem. Tax predates electronic, identifiable transactions by a few 1000 years or so, and most people don't really have a problem paying (give or take the disagreements about who pays what percentage and how much should be taken overall, which will never end).
The issue is the creepy and dangerous big brother knowing every last thing you do thing, combined with the just as creepy but probably not quite as dangerous thousands-of-private-companies knowing the same. That's why I use cash whenever humanly possible.
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Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:5, Interesting)
“He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:16-17
Things are getting Biblical round here.
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With even the last anonymous payment method gone, the state is happy as it can tax precisely what its worth (of course only those people who can't afford to have all their companies owned by a holding in the crocodile islands)
But then, if ALL movements are traced, maybe the state will finally be able to tax those movements to the Croc islands. Which would be a GOOD thing.
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HAHAHAHA
As if that would ever apply to what they consider real people.
No, these measures will only affect and impact folks like us.
You can rest assured there will be (or most likely already are) loopholes precisely designed to ensure one can simply bypass all these pesky privacy and taxation issues... so long as you're a Legal Entity or own one.
Anonymous transactions are done by politicians (Score:2)
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Better yet, make cash go away.
There are times when I prefer to take a road trip and be anonymous. Paying with cash reminds me of my youth and early adult life. Money cannot buy happiness but is can finance good memories.
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yes that will teach the terrorists to not bank with HSBC... o wait.
Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:4, Insightful)
To do that would require an equivalent to cash that didn't loose 2.7% of its value every time it was transfered and it would need to be unfreezeable like cash and as anonymous as possible without compromising the ability to verify the currency as valid and be easy to transfer without much knowledge.
Bitcoin actually has most of that covered.
With the exception of ease of transfer.
While not anonymous it is still good enough for casual use.
I think its best points are no loss on transfer and that your funds can't be frozen *looking at you paypal*
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And the funny thing is that Bitcoin is actually incredibly easy to monitor since the entire blockchain containing all transactions is public. I would imagine intelligence agencies actually love bitcoin. It gives the impression of anonimity (anyone can just make a new wallet without needing any kind of identification) but the money flows can easily be followed and as soon as someone uses the wallet to order a pizza, all the previous "anonymous" transactions for that wallet suddenly become tied to you.
The onl
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That is one of the reasons why the Bitcoin exchanges are treated as money laundering services.... because that is precisely what is going on there.
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While the USD reliably looses a bit of value every year due to inflation bitcoin can halve, quarter, double or quadruple its value in the same time its neither stable or consistent.
This doesn't make it unusable but I sure wouldn't want my savings in bitcoin at this point in time.
Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet, make cash go away.
I remember speaking with an economist years ago who said if you wanted to eliminate crime nearly overnight just make the largest bill $10. Very difficult for Tony Soprano to transact crime if $50,000 was a half-a-million pieces of paper.
Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:5, Interesting)
The largest bill is now $100. This is equivalent to $10 in 1948 according to the CPI inflation indicator. [bls.gov].
As time goes on, I doubt ( barring runaway inflation ), the US will print larger bills, so the $100 will become less and less.
During the Iraq war, the US airlifted $12 billion of $100 bills, which weighed in at 363 tons [theguardian.com]. This shows that cash is no longer useful for large transactions already.
As a side note: most of it was untracked, and melted away. I know of a distant relative who worded as contractor and returned home to Turkey with suitcases full of cash.
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Better yet, make cash go away.
I remember speaking with an economist years ago who said if you wanted to eliminate crime nearly overnight just make the largest bill $10. Very difficult for Tony Soprano to transact crime if $50,000 was a half-a-million pieces of paper.
I guess that's why there was no crime in all those countries where the currency was devalued so much people would burn their paycheck for heat because it was cheaper than buying coal.
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Typical, the economist is an idiot who can't think outside the small box his teaching has kept him in.
In the absence of cash, an alternative untraceable currency will simply take its place. Necessity is the mother of all invention.
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Typical, the economist is an idiot who can't think outside the small box his teaching has kept him in. In the absence of cash, an alternative untraceable currency will simply take its place. Necessity is the mother of all invention.
Economists come in many forms, from student to BA to MA to PhD to professor. When speaking with the later in say a graduate level microeconomics class one will spend a lot of time investigating adaptation of individuals and unexpected consequences. Personally I don't consider people who took some econ classes or even have a BA in economics to be economists. Although they may play one on TV.
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We already have one, that worked well for millennia: gold and silver. And actually anything that has a high value density and doesn't rot away in time can be used as a currency.
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Gold and Silver have a number of flaws, not the least of which is that they can be devalued by new sources of those commodities. The other huge issue is that they have considerable bulk when trying to engage in high value transactions, thus engaging significant costs when trying to execute those kind of transactions. Indeed it was that issue of transferring gold & silver which resulted in the concept of bank notes in the first place where certificates of possession of gold were exchanged instead of th
David Bowie beats your economist ... (Score:2)
Better yet, make cash go away.
I remember speaking with an economist years ago who said if you wanted to eliminate crime nearly overnight just make the largest bill $10. Very difficult for Tony Soprano to transact crime if $50,000 was a half-a-million pieces of paper.
I recently watched The Man Who Fell to Earth staring David Bowie. This alien visitor had a stash of hundreds of gold wedding rings that he bartered/pawned as needed. I suppose we'll have to serialize, register and track all sorts of highly portable valuable items too.
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They'll just reinstitute the gold reserve act and take it all away from us.
I don't think they banned possession or sale of gold wedding rings. Coins, bullion, sure ... but keep in mind that we are discussing what **criminals** will do so the effectiveness of that act would be debatable.
By the way, in the movie the rings were traded/pawned one at a time as if the ring were the alien's one and only.
Look into Chinese currency (Score:3)
In China, the largest bill is 100 RMB, which is about 15 US$. Have they eliminated crime overnight?
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Better yet, make cash go away.
I remember speaking with an economist years ago who said if you wanted to eliminate crime nearly overnight just make the largest bill $10. Very difficult for Tony Soprano to transact crime if $50,000 was a half-a-million pieces of paper.
Yes. Absolutely. Because criminals immediately give up crime altogether if you make one aspect of it more difficult.
Sorry bud, but that's not how it works in real life. What happens when you close a loophole for crime is that the criminals move on to the next weakest link in the system.
Wherever there is a system with money involved, there will be a way of gaming that system for personal gain. It doesn't matter how many loopholes you close, there will always be ways for dishonest people to make money from it
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I see what you did there. :-)
Re:End anonymity for cash (Score:4, Insightful)
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Cash transactions over a certain amount are already prohibited. Here in Belgium, you're not allowed to use cash to buy a new car, for example. There's a maximum amount in euros, and a maximum percentage of the total price that can be paid in cash.
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Same way cellphones do?
Extended outage? You may have more problems with the rioters but yes that's an issue. I don't believe its a insurmountable problem with a digital currency but afaik offline transactions are beyond the capability of blockchain based currency.
Re: End anonymity for cash (Score:2)
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Iirc after sandy people were looting the grocery stores of canned goods and perishables not that there was anyone there to pay.... But if offline transactions can be made that should be able to handle it even after a hurricane there should be no shortage of cars or car cellphone chargers.
Now if we're talking a emp then yeah you best be using a non digital currency.
Like I said earlier afaik offline transactions cannot be done with any of the current digital currency's but some commercial services do allow of
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That's the first I hear about it and I've been buying pre-paid credit cards every few months for the last four years. Nobody ever asked for my social insurance number.
And PI == 3 (Score:4, Insightful)
How does EU legislation have any effect on Bitcoin? Just ignore them, same as those who legislate the value of PI.
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Usage of bitcoin as a payment method is subject to the same oversight as all payments. This legislation just fills a hole in previously approved monitoring.
Re:And PI == 3 (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's next on the agenda... but they're having problems finding a good enough 'sell' for doing it...
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In fact, German government has suggested exactly that - a law that disallows cash transactions above 5000 EUR. [reuters.com]
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For a reasonable amount of other-people's-money, they could execute a 51% attack. Or, flood the network with transactions so that the transaction time becomes impractically long, effectively DDOSing it. Or, imprison the core developers (for tax evasion or whatever) with a strong warning that anyone working on such a system will get the same. Or, forbid converting Euros or other currency to bitcoins, and punish any person/business that does so or uses a 3rd party to do so. Or, instruct all ISPs to block the
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It has no impact on Bitcoin. But it can certainly affect European businesses who handle bitcoin and their European customers.
If you can't spend them... (Score:2)
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Re: And PI == 3 (Score:1)
Can't even deanonymize the USD transactions (Score:5, Interesting)
There was literally something on some TV news program yesterday about how easy it is to set up shell companies in the US for the purposes of money laundering. It was hilarious how many lawyers were busted telling the undercover reporter how to do it. Only one lawyer they interviewed said no.
How the hell do they think this can be deanonymize crypto currencies when they can't even keep people from setting up anonymous businesses?
Re:Can't even deanonymize the USD transactions (Score:5, Insightful)
When already prosecuting someone they aren't fond of, it's kind of hard to have a bunch of extra add-on charges when you don't have laws like this on the books.
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Figures, it seems terrorism funding hasn't decreased or changed according to this, yet I as a poor working slob can't cash a $1100 paycheck from ADP as it is over a grand, and I can't open a new checking account as I don't have TWO forms of government issued picture IDs.
Thanks Obama, or something :/
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Paycheck? In Europe? Checks have been extinct here for a long time because the banking system works less bad here than in the US. I can only get my salary on a bank account, they won't even pay cash if I asked.
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as I don't have TWO forms of government issued picture IDs.
In Sweden you can no longer take out a drivers license licensed by someone in your family with a valid ID.
However you can get a passport (and ID I think) that way and use that to get the drivers license. Don't ask me how the logic are there.
Anyway that additional "security" regarding a drivers license (guess the difference may be that it also allow you to drive on top of just identifying yourself) seem like such a joke when 90%? of the people who come here claim to not have or have lost their passport and c
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Literally?
Re:Can't even deanonymize the USD transactions (Score:5, Funny)
Literally?
Word.
Re: Can't even deanonymize the USD transactions (Score:2)
As a opposed to figuratively yesterday.
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Bitcoin isn't really anonymous anyway. It's pseudo anonymous in that with enough resources and time you can eventually mine your own, but for most practical purposes you need to get real money changed to/from BTC or exchange real goods and services for it. There isn't much you can do anonymously with BTC.
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And what about cash?
For some reason we just got new bills in Sweden, a country where the majority by fair pay with their cards. Why not scrap cash altogether? But oh no, stupid new bills and coins for some idiotic reason, likely just to remove our kings from them so they become more multicultural and anonymous.
(They put a boat and some runes on one of them, but no Arabic text! That's racist!)
Anyway, of course they can demand identity for a cash payment but what if someone ignore that demand if nothing else?
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(.. and when they have removed the bills what protection do they have from sending a piece of gold instead?)
Also what about the black market regarding jobs?
The state is the problem itself. Here in Sweden it didn't used to be like that but by now it is because it's their free gifts and lack of border control and relativism and giving the country away and risking their people and so on which is all that's bad with Sweden.
Terrorism! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Terrorism! (Score:5, Informative)
Funny how these "Terrorist tracking programs" fail to track the US government, the Saudi government and a bunch of other western governments when these happily finance terrorism. But god forbid you try to rent a US movie with a foreign credit card to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime, you terrorist you.
whether one agrees with him/her or not, who the hell marked this as a troll ?
There is a great deal of evidence that the US and SA funded terrorists.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I thought Slashdot was here to encourage exchange of opinions, even if unpopular with people living in the US or Saudia Arabia...
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just ahead with the full monty (Score:2)
Okay, let's play Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
In a hypothetical (impossible) universe where you could actually prove that certain levels of encryption cost certain levels of lives in crime and terrorism, I wonder how many lives are worth protecting your emails...how many lives are worth transactional security...etc.
Though if you open things up too much I guess it goes the other way, since if people can't hide anything you wind up with a ton of political prisoners, and way more crimes of opportunity.
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Just like the annual dollar cost of such-and-such can be estimated, such a thing could be expressed in lives per year lost due to X. However, lives lost due to encryption is indirect, as encryption doesn't directly kill people. I'd say that informants being exposed due to inadequate encryption kills more people than successful encryption leading to successful execution of deadly plots; so arguably, we need more and better encryption rather than less, if we want to minimize deaths.
Perhaps someday software wi
How is Bitcoin different from Shell Companies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah - bitcoins are used by individuals to hide their transactions from advertisers, malware vendors, and parasitic financial services companies, while networks of shell companies are reserved for our ruling elite to hide their transactions from the unwashed masses (and tax authorities)... Tell ya what, you make your public, and I'll make mine public...
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Tell ya what, you make your public, and I'll make mine public...
uh... well... ok. here goes! *drops pants* i'm fully public!
Germans (Score:2)
Re:Germans (Score:4, Insightful)
Germans are also attacking those same immigrants. There's a bit of a gap between the utopia the liberal media pretends that Europe is and how things really are. This includes beatings, arson, and political views that are supposed to be forbidden. Push the system or a little bit, or the population and the classic bits of nastiness come seeping out.
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They never give back emergency powers. (Score:5, Informative)
We The People are creating these things for convenience's sake, not for government to track our every purchase as part of their growing panopticon.
One of the natural benefits of cash for time immemorial was the ultimate anonymity. We should not give this up for a power grab by government. ISIS, for example, sells millions in oil every day. Go kill them and interrupt this massive physical operation instead of stripping our long-term freedoms.
They will lie and say it is only for terrorists then instantaneously start using it for mundane crime. They have done this before.
In the late 90s under Clinton they requested additional spy power because terrorists! They then used it on drug sellers. When questioned, they did not even bother with the sophistry that drug selling is kinda sorta terrorism. The baldfaced liars stated, "Whelp, the law doesn't actuay say terrorism only."
Captital Controls. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Nonsense. Capital flight is trivial to a rich person, via countless methods: wire transfer, more obscure forms of electronic bank transfers, bearer bonds, stocks, hundreds of obscure financial instruments even the expert regulators have never heard of and won't for decades, precious metals, antiques and artwork, investing in a foreign business that you control, and on and on... Of course, each of those options has countless permutations which are unlikely to be broadly prohibited. Freezing bank accounts can
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I think it's more sinister for a number of reasons. Ben Bernanke openly admitted that his goal at The Federal Reserve was to destroy rates of return available on "safe" investments like certificates-of-deposit, money markets, etc. His motivation being to encourage consumption and to coerce people into riskier assets like stocks. i.e. force risk-averse savers into the Wall St. gambling casino to serve as more prey for people with HFT capabilities and inside information. If we are forced to go cashless, w
A more effective terrorism financing deterrant: (Score:5, Insightful)
Require all Euro-bank involved expenditures above 100 EUR by members of the Saudi royal family to require tracking and approval.
Oh, shit, did I say that out loud?
A more effective whisper (Score:1)
Yes you did.
And it should be repeated.
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Require all Euro-bank involved expenditures above 100 EUR by members of the Saudi royal family to require tracking and approval.
Oh, shit, did I say that out loud?
Not like there are large banks in the Middle East or anything they could use to bypass European banks.
NOT about the story, but about /. Positive (Score:1)
Welcome fellows,,
I am here to state that, since the takeover of /. by the "others". It seems the quality of articles has risen significantly. I hope this is an on going trend, as I have been a faithful slashdotter for 20+ years, and would enjoy remaining to do so.
Good job peoples,, keep it up..
and Thank YOU!!!!!
too late (Score:1)
Europe doesn't have any privacy for at last ten years now.
It's all being monitored and logged, weighed and used against you in the court that is our society.
Since when ... (Score:4)
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It hasn't. Hence the end of the summary where an Interpol report said the same thing.
Send in more suspicious activity reports? (Score:2)
Even with very advanced tracking, small populations and reconciling every account, nothing seems to stop, find, track or block or slow the activities of interest to law enforcement.
Are the interesting accounts are so large in amount and so numerous in banking products that all gov fines can be seen as a fraction of the cost of doing business?
Will people showing photo ID to import a few books online really help?
Counter flow drug money (Score:3)
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I Propose End of EU. (Score:1)
I Propose End of EU.
TFTP? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah Right (Score:1)
this is about taxation, not terrorism (Score:1)
There's a good reason for something, and there's the real reason.
This is about taxation. It's about knowing where everyone has all their money, so the state has full and complete power to take it.
poor Criminals! (Score:2)