Slashdot Mirror
Russia Bans Bitcoin
mask.of.sanity writes "Russia has banned digital currency Bitcoin under existing laws and dubbed use of the crypto-currency as 'suspicious'. The Central Bank of Russia considers Bitcoin as a form of 'money substitute' or 'money surrogate' (statement in Russian) which is restricted under Russian law. However, unlike use of restricted foreign currencies, Bitcoin has been outright banned. The US Library of Congress has issued a report examining the regulatory approaches national financial authorities have taken to the currency."
Finally a refreshing alternative to the old green theme. A fresh look and feel.
...if they catch you running an illegal operation using Bitcoins, the necessary bribe to the authorities just got bigger.
May she rest in peace. Slashdot 09-1997 - 02-2015
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
The introduction of Beta is like a nuclear power plant disaster where the site is currently a ghost town with no real discussion anymore but lamenting souls crying out the pain.
I mean, err, Fuck Beta
Russia declares BitCoin Gay!! Who's going to pull out of the Olympics over this one?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
And that's why someone like Bruce Perens would be the one with the ability to save us. I would gladly donate some money for a Technocrat account.
The more you tighten your grip, the more the Slashdot community will fall through your fingers.
(BTW, we are a community and not "a audience".)
Well, guess I'd better use my mods points before they're worthless, huh? Anyway, Russia banning Bitcoin should remind all the Obama-haters and Putin-lovers that Russia still somewhat on the authoritarian side. I've never gotten the mindset that just because Putin likes to stick his finger in the American Empire's eye, that he's a strong supporter for human rights, liberty, etc. I will say that America probably has surpassed Russia in lack of real liberty in recent years (yeah, they'll throw you in jail for exercising free speech, but we're drowning in laws that we often don't know we're breaking until we get arrested and our lives ruined; they have an incarceration rate that is half of ours, etc), but that just means we're worse, not that they're better.
hi bruce
Well, it's not over until the fat lady sings. I wouldn't set a death date yet. But I have to say the site is quite messed up right now with all the comments talking only about the suckiness of Beta.
I do see two problematic things:
1) They already asked feedback Oct 1, 2013 and didn't listen us. Why would they this time? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
2) As you said, the Beta site is currently so far from something usable that they will have a lot of work ahead if they actually want to make it function properly.
In the '80s Reagan banned Soviet Russia
of the beta. The only thing the two of them have ever agreed on....
The Central Bank of Russia considers Bitcoin as a form of 'money substitute'
That is an insult. Regular money can be made "at will" by banks and the fact that it is only handed to society for usury ("interest") and some real-value things (like houses) as security, makes it drain any society at no cost to the banks themselves. The funny thing is that all banks can create money, but private persons are criminals when they do exactly the same.
Bitcoins do not come with built-in usury and cannot be made infinitely. Bitcoins do not have built-in discrimination about who can abuse who. Bitcoins are more than a money substitute: Bitcoins make sense. Our current money system does not.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
They've also banned /. beta. Not everything His Shirtlessness does is terrible.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Seems like every day or so, Slashdot has to remind me how I severely underestimating the stupidity of people when I first found out about Bitcoin. "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, who would actually be stupid enough to pay real money for digital coins?", I thought to myself.
Of course, a metric fuckton of people listen to Justin Bieber, too, so I should've realized a lot of people would fall for this moronic ponzi scam. I'm not sure of Bieber's popularity when Bitcoin was announced, so perhaps that's why it didn't dawn on me at the time.
But anyway, I'm not making the same mistake twice. I bet the Slashdot beta will be a fucking smash. No, not with the current crowd crowd of users, but with the Bitcoin loving, Justin Bieber listening crowd. Dice will make bank, I'm sure of it. Now, if only there was a way to cash in on this knowledge...
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Honestly its been two days can we stop bitching about the fucking beta?
If the answers to these questions are "yes", there is a need to continue our picketing.
This better continue until the site is improved by scrapping Beta as the failed project it has proven itself to be, and until Shravan Goli has been replaced with someone who understands this particular business and why people (and thus advertisers) come here.
I care about Slashdot. A great deal. So much so that I don't want to see it run into the ground. Which is exactly what will happen with the Beta - it is broken by design, and cannot be "incrementally improved" until it works as well as the flawed system I use now.
As long as the managers are unwilling to see this, shout it. Shout it louder. Don't let Slashdot die due to someone's pride and a vision of "unified" experience from someone who doesn't even understand that this is a contributor site, not an audience site, and the fundamental difference between the two.
You have the power to change the site.
You do not have the power to change the contributors.
When the two clash, keep in mind what people come here for, which attracts advertisers. Hint: It's not to look at the design or headlines.
No
... whatever
www.slashdottersinexile.org
... whatever
Honestly its been two days can we stop bitching about the [expletive] beta?
Bitching about the beta actually still serves a useful purpose. It demonstrates that the primary use of the moderation system here is to push personal agendas rather than to objectively rate comments. Objectively speaking, your comment either should be left alone, because your point is obvious, or it should be promoted to +1, because it's valid. However, in terms of the prevailing agenda, your comment actually deserves its demotion from 0 to -1.
Moderators, thanks demonstrating the enforcement of Slashorthodoxy. I'm not sure whether or not my own comment is orthodox, but if you disagree with me that moderators here push their own agenda, feel free to demote it.
Apparently you don't get it. Ps: Fuck Beta.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
For very small values of ready, no doubt.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
No, bitcoin is the new Dollar. Soviet Russia had (at times) a full maximum sentence penalty (15 year was the maximum sentence in SU) for private Dollar trading. They are Ok with people holding dollars now. Now they can dilute the rubles in sync with diluting dollars. You can't dilute bitcoin, so you can expect both countries (and eventually Europe) to start having harsher and harsher penalties for it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Yeah I got points and I'm going to dump them all on posts like this. To hell with you Dice bastards voting everything down.
Smart. Encourage Dice to get rid of the Karma and point system. That will benefit everyone.
If you feel so strongly about this, why do you hide behind the anonymous coward?
I believe he would say, "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this beta."
#IamSlashdot
There is a serious benefit of Beta you are all ignoring. Productivity around the world is increasing due to people preferring to work instead of reading Slashdot.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
If you can't get "Close and don't show me again" right, then you shouldn't be coding a whole new Slashdot. I see that fucking notice every time I come here and click "DON'T SHOW ME AGAIN" each time. Oh, yeah: FUCK BETA.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Betas all get banned in Mother Russia
The attention span of a goldfish is already catered to ubiquitously on the internet. There is no end to mono-brow entertainment.
High brow, intelligent forum discussion is the endangered species here.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
... cigarettes?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If it's against the law, then sure, go ahead and ban Bitcoin. What they're missing is that anything can be turned into a currency. Take Valve Software's Team Fortress 2 for example. It has an established economy based off one single currency, the Scrap Metal. People invest actual money in this currency in order to buy games off of Valve's Steam service, as well as other Team Fortress 2 items. If you're going to ban a digital currency like Bitcoin, you're going to have to ban the other digital currencies as well. When you get down to it, everything is a barter economy, and people are going to find other standard currencies.
Russia banning Bitcoin will have relatively little effect on the use of Bitcoin there since enforcement is highly selective and not dependant on established law.
OTOH if Russia bans it, the US (and its hangers-on) will have to think twice about banning Bitcoin. Heaven forbid the old foe gets it right, and first. Absent strong motivation, the US does not want to be seen as supporting Russia, particularly not ideologically on some matter of principle.
Here would have been an awesome feature for beta: and edit button. 02-2015 = 02-2014 of course.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
When my Internet gets "choppy" and starts dropping more than 1-2% of packets, most "non-simple" web sites including /. slow down horribly. Simple ones slow down tolerably.
This is one reason (accessibility for the blind is another) why all web sites must have a "simple" version for those who need it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That's a stretch. Most banks can only loan out x% of their deposits, limiting the amount of money the can create "at will."
I don't know about Russia, but in America, private people can still loan each other money at interest and they can demand collateral, subject to certain regulations and limitations. As a simple example, if I want to loan my neighbor $1000 at interest of 0.1%/week (i.e. far below "illegal usury" rates) so she can pay for unexpected car repairs, my government isn't going to stop either of us from making that transaction.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
driven away against our will
So go then. Why are you still here? There are plenty of other sites where you can post your naive self-important claptrap. Bitching over a layout redesign is so Facebook 2012. Move on. Yes, there is a subculture here that thinks they can win arguments with bullying, and have no interest in the bigger picture outside their own tunnel vision, but if those guys leave then the community will improve, not get worse. So go, if you're going. And if you're not going, then shut the fuck up with your whining already.
If it's going to die, the quicker they kill it, the less painful it is, as long as there's a Perens or an OkianWarrior, or whoever, to provide a substitute.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
What Alice Hill, President at Slashdot Media, writes on her Linked-In page:
...) while protecting their voice and brand integrity
Proven track record innovating and improving iconic websites
(Slashdot.org,
She's the one claiming to be responsible for this fuck-up. She's the one who needs nuking from orbit (it's the only way to be sure).
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
We could all just start using reddit instead. Heck, or go even here: http://www.reddit.com/r/slashd...
The linked official press release simply reiterates that bitcoins are getting more wide use including criminal use. That the bitcoins are not legal tender. That bitcoins are not backed by anything or anybody but speculative interest and that bitcoin holders are not afforded legal protection of their property rights in respect of their bitcoin investments. Is the word "banned" being misused here?
It's not bad, but it's buggy. I'm using it on my phone right now and every time I try to mod you up it sends me to the home page. It also seems to only load the comments successfully about half the time.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Banning Bitcoin will make it much easier for the kleptocrats in control to take their cut.
If it's going to die, the quicker they kill it, the less painful it is, as long as there's a Perens or an OkianWarrior, or whoever, to provide a substitute.
Why would a Perens or an OklanWarrior want to mess with this whiny group of people? All that can be surmised is that if they did do it but not do exactly what slashdotters want they will get flamed and runned into the ground, too.
I don't know, why not ask them. However, the fact that Perens has done this before implies that he does see a need for such a community. And OkianWarrior has a good backing of us ranters too.
Anyway, we're not whiny, we're loud and obnoxious, there's a difference. We were whiny between 6 months and 3 days ago, while beta was just this thing they were dicking about with. Whiny was useless.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
I think we should mark yesterday, February 6, 2014, as the day that Slashdot died.
Yesterday may be the day that the coroner declared the victim to be dead, but the fatal disease was contracted when Dice.com bought Slashdot. Slashdot is a vibrant community built around a tainted well, and Dice.com is the entity that poisoned that well.
I was an avid /.'er for a good decade and change before wandering off for a while. I've been popping by to lurk, but hadn't posted a comment in years. This beta thing is really disturbing. I thought I could always come home to Mother Slashdot. I thought /. was invincible. I thought it would Always Be, that it could not be undone, that the mutual gravity we all create would bind Planet Slashdot together forever. I forgot that there are Stupidity Supernovas that can scatter our electrons far and wide.
It looks like that's probably going to happen, but let's try to coalesce afterwards. We'll create a lot more light as a star than a nebula.
As I believe was pointed out in other comments, I think Alice Hill no longer has any association with Slashdot. In other words, she's an early adopter of "FUCK BETA". >:(
If the US can't tax it, they'll ban it. Right now the IRS goes after every source of personal income, whether it was earned in the US or in any other sovereign nation. Think about that. You're a US Citizen living outside the US. Any income generated by you is subject to US taxation even though you may have not earned the money in the US and you're not living there. So if Bitcoin can't be tracked and taxed, ultimately the US govt. will ban its use because it goes contrary to their money-sucking dreams.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Okay, mod parent troll. I had my fun. Yes, I suspect astroturfing no, I don't know it's true.
Yes, I cannot use the betas or the mobile site with my phone.
No, I loathe JS.
Yes, it appears dice is going to take a massive hit because no, they won't back down, and no, they don't understand the concepts in the book "the tipping point".
No, I suspect nothing can replace it, but it appears slashdot is dead. No, there's really nothing else I want to see discussed here, which means soon I'll get tired of this and leave.
Bye.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I've been thinking that doing everything the old site does isn't a feature.
Being able to link to individual comments and showing your score, replies and a link back to your comments in the user space is important, but things like showing UID i don't think are.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
BTC seems to have dropped quite a bit today, but IMHO it's more likely to be because Mt. Gox has 'temporarily' halted withdrawals rather than any news coming out of Russia..
http://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox...
At least until that site is sued into oblivion. We've seen in the past where fans kept alive a disposed of product that was far superior to the current product. In most cases, the company trying to monetize their new pile of junk sues to get the superior previous version killed.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Being able to link to individual comments and showing your score, replies and a link back to your comments in the user space is important, but things like showing UID i don't think are.
Being able to tell Bill and BiII apart is useful. Especially if one is a trusted old community member and the other is an impersonator.
Before removing a feature, it behoves one to ask why it was put in place.
Indeed, bitcoin is a protocol used to push around numerical value (which are counted is bitcoins, BTC).
Your IRS or any other tax service shouldn't tax bitcoin, just the same way that they don't tax your paypal account (as is litteraly putting a tax on the e-mail address itself) nor (for a more extreme metaphore) put a tax on your credit cards (litteraly taxing the actual bit of plastic with a "Visa" or "Master card" logo on them).
Bitcoin protocol is a mean to exchange value (except that you don't directly push around any official currency, but instead you push BTC around and convert to/from BTC using exchanges, payment processors, etc.)
This is exactly the same as paypal is a service used to do online payment, and as a credit card is a mean to do payment.
At the end of the day, a merchant using BTC as mean of payment, will exchange them to a local currencies (USD, EUR, whatever is here around) usually in a completely automatic manner (using a payment processor such as coinbase, bitpay, etc.)
So at the end of the day, a merchant will make revenue in local currency (USD, EUR) and that what the merchant has to declare as a revenue:
the flow of USD/EUR/etc. going to the merchant's bank account. The tax service shouldn't give a fuck is that money was conveyed using paper money at a cash register, or using commercial centralised payment methods like PayPal or MasterCard, or a distributed crypto-currency as bitcoin.
What matter is at the end of the day, a merchant made XXXX USD/EUR and has to pay taxes, social charges, inssurances, etc. from this amount.
Also, to the poster above: please stop spreading the disinformation that bitcoin can't be tracked. In fact, the whole security principle of bitcoin lies on the exact opposite: every single transaction is broadcasted to the whole network, so every single node is able to verify it.
The closest thing the bitcoin protocol has is "pseudonymity". Identity of parties in a transaction aren't directly disclosed in the clear:
- it's not 'Mr XXX, living at adress AAA' has sent bitcoins to 'Ms. YYYY living at BBBB'"
- it's more like 'account [public key 1]' has sent bitcoins to 'account [public key 2]'
On the other hand, if Ms. YYYY happens to be a merchant, she has the name and address of Mr. XXX and can map it to a public address. Government have enough ressouces to do such mapping on a large scale and completely remove any anonymity.
But you're shielded from your neighbours accidentally discovering that you spent money at a sex-shop.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I found the response acceptable. I find your self-righteous power-trip mob-raising rebuttal more objectionable. Enjoy your last few days here, and I'll enjoy each day after that.
No profit.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Did you file a bug report?
A reliable repro would help, too. Got any more kids?
Like gay people being constantly hounded, hunted, and attacked by vigilante groups ?