Here, I found this on the Department of Justice's own cybercrime website.
This broad definition addresses the original concerns regarding intrastate "phone phreakers" (i.e., hackers who penetrate telecommunications computers). It also specifically includes those computers used in "foreign" communications. With the continually expanding global information infrastructure, with numerous instances of international hacking, and with the growing possibility of increased global industrial espionage, it is important that the United States have jurisdiction over international computer crime cases. Arguably, the old definition of "federal interest computer" contained in 18 U.S.C. 1030(e)(2) conferred such jurisdiction because the requirement that the computers used in committing the offense not all be located in the same state might be satisfied if one computer were located overseas. As a general rule, however, Congress's laws have been presumed to be domestic in scope only, absent a specific grant of extraterritorial jurisdiction. E.E.O.C. v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244 (1991). To ensure clarity, the statute was amended to reference international communications explicitly.
I don't see how it can be any more clear than that. They weren't 100% sure that the law as it existed would allow them to prosecute for instances of hacking that crossed international boundaries but included US computers or persons located in the US, so they amended it specifically to allow them to do so!
Hacking a computer you do not have authorization to access is a crime in the United States. period. Once you get in, it just gets worse for you depending on what you do.
I guarantee you that section (B) of the definition of "protected computer" will be used against you in a court of law if you hack anything outside the US, as the federal government will claim that that your actions "affect foreign commerce or communication".
While IANAL, I am pretty sure that what you fail to understand is that the US cybercrime laws do not say "It is illegal to hack a US computer", they say "It is illegal for you (you being a person on US soil, under US jusrisdiction) to access a computer without authorization".
it's 100 different shades of legal speak, but it basically boils down to "if you're in a computer and you're not supposed to be there and you know you're not supposed to be there, you're in deep shit". it doesn't say "this rule only applies to US computers", although it does specifically mention at one point how much more pissed off they are if it IS a us govt computer, but that's along side things like how much more pissed off they are if you are stealing financial records, or stealing money directly, or uploading viruses, etc. Additionally, one of the things they mention is that they're extra pissed off if your hacking screws up diplomatic relations.
long and short of it is, "Hacking" as defined by the federal government of the US is most emphatically not "Breaking in to a computer on US soil", it is "Breaking in to a computer you don't have authorization to access". A computer you don't have authorization to access, period. Therefore, breaking into a computer in Zimbabwe is just as illegal as breaking into a computer across town acording to the Feds.
While I do not know for certain, I would be surprised if UK law isn't similar.
His career and new music is still just as relevant (whatever level you deem that to be) after 30 years. Not too many artists performing today can say that.
Not that I truly understand it either, but from what I do understand, it seems that there are so many patents submitted that the patent office doesn't bother to research if there is prior art, only if the patent violates/duplicates one they already have on the books. Whoever shows up first gets it. They figure it's up to the courts to invalidate these things. You know, the "It'll all work itself out in the end. with the help of a whole lot of lawyers and a metric shit-ton of money." attitude.
This shit is confusing. There is a reason that patent lawyers make good money. According to the AIPLA, their members average salary was over $180,000 and senior members in law firms made over $300,000 / yr. Source -> http://www.patentbarstudy.com/career/patentattorneysalary.html
Next question is, when they find something illegal on those hard drives that does not pertain to the investigation at hand (and perhaps you'll forgive my assumption that they probably will), how likely are they to prosecute for that, considering that they've already spent the time and trouble to gather evidence?
I'd say pretty likely.
Even if these kids are innocent of the crime they're trying to cop to, they're just setting themselves up for a world of hurt.
Conclusion? Sucks to be them, I hope my kid doesn't turn out that dumb.
Why should the UK be burdened with prosecuting the case and paying for incarceration, etc for a crime that was not committed against them? Why would a UK jury convict someone of a crime not committed against them?
Perhaps because the crime was committed in the UK, by a resident of the UK, using UK infrastructure?
What if instead of hacking the FBI, the kid had been hacking the Aston-Martin corporate database? Is Aston-Martin responsible for investigating and prosecuting? By your logic, no crimes are prosecuted unless they are against a sovereign government or representative thereof. That's not the way things work. If you commit a crime, you are investigated and prosecuted by the authorities you are under the jurisdiction of at the time you commit the crime.
In either above case, hacking a US government server, or a corporate server, the victim would presumably assist as possible in all investigations thereof, and may do independent investigation on their own if they personally feel the need to do so, but they are certainly not bearing the ultimate responsibility of doing so. Otherwise the next time your house gets robbed, the police would tell you "Well, the crook didn't hurt us any, just you. So, let us know when you figure out who stole your stuff, and can prove it. Maybe we'll go with you when you arrest him, detain him, and prosecute him, it should be a good show."
China, Syria, Libya, Egypt, etc aren't going to extradite a cybercriminal to us in the first place anyway, so whether we charge their citizens with our laws doesn't matter, we'll never get them unless they are stupid enough to come here. Is the Denmark cartoonist dumb enough to travel to Syria? Same situation.
That said, those are -exactly- the countries that we need to work with diplomatically. To that end, we -have- sent Hillary and others to china to discuss their lack of enforcement of IP laws, etc. (this being slashdot, whether you agree with those laws is another matter entirely). There has even been some success, albeit limited.
Really though, that's not what's important. What I worries me far more about your argument regards the countries who are friendly to us, the countries who we do have extradition treaties with, but may still have different laws than us. let's say it's perfectly legal for you to burn trash on your property, but it's illegal to do that in some country that we're buddy-buddy with cause they're all about the green inititive. Let's even say it's the equivalent of a damn felony there, and somehow they believe that smoke from your burning trash pile is affecting them by increasing global warming or something. Should you get extradited to that country to face the felony charges for what was legal where you did it?
Just because you're young and stupid doesn't mean you don't have to deal with the consequences of being stupid. Sure kids do stupid things. I did, I'm sure we all did. That doesn't mean kids immune from the responsibilities of their actions. They are given more leeway, certainly, for having poorly developed sense of judgement, and because of that in this situation you have to take into account that kids are liars and could be falsely claiming responsibility for street cred. But then you look at circumstance:
If some 8-year-old kid who just got his first laptop 3 months ago says on his facebook page that he hacked the FBI, maybe that claim is not trustworthy. But if it is a 17-year old who has been into computers since he was 8 bragging about the same thing, using the lingo, demonstrating the knowledge, etc... maybe you believe him. Or at least you treat it as a credible possibility and investigate. Perhaps even prosecute if you have enough evidence. Maybe he really didn't do it, but then he's going to have to deal with the consequences of saying he did so because he certainly seems like he could have done it.
If you try and convince somebody that you committed a crime, and you do a convincing enough job that they believe you, that's your fault. You better damn well believe that authorities care about high profile felonies, especially ones that are targeted at THEM, which if I recall, some of these attacks were.
Here's a slashdot analogy for you. I was taught not to poke a bees nest when I was a kid. Weren't you? What we're talking about here isn't just poking the bees nest (which the lulzsec guys did), we're talking about somebody else who walked over to the now-angry nest of bees, picked up the stick that was used to poke the nest and stood there under the nest holding the stick. Look, even most kids aren't stupid enough to do that... and the ones who are, what do you make of that? Do you blame the bees for stinging them? He chose to stand there with the stick!
with your logic, you can convict a 6 year old who says 'dodo' during a national anthem.
What in the world does that have to do with our discussion of publicly confessing to felonies?
Oh I am perfectly aware that extradition treaties work both ways, and Denmark isn't too likely to send their cartoonist to get his hand chopped off or something like that, that's why I said it was the "ridiculous" extreme, I was simply pointing out that you may be able to get only slightly less ridiculous and still fall under the umbrella of "oh shit this could actually happen".
Also, you make my own point for me. Since both UK and US have cybercrime laws, we don't need to charge the British kid with breaking our laws because he is already breaking the UK laws. He can be charged under those laws. furthermore, if the UK (or some other country) didn't have cybercrime laws of their own (that the kid could be prosecuted under), then they aren't too likely to extradite to us anyway, in which case it's our job to go in there and convince them (diplomatically dammit, I mean diplomatically!) that the lack of cybercrime laws is something they need to rectify.
If so, they are kids about to learn that public confessions can and will be used against you in a court of law.
What idiot would confess to crimes they didn't commit (or being part of a group committing those crimes) and then be surprised when that draws the attention of the authorities?
"Pig, you can't prove anything" "Really? I've got this video of you saying you're part of the group that did it." "That won't hold up in court!" "Really? Let's see what the jury thinks."
I agree with you up to a point in theory, but in practice I think we run into issues.
The problem comes when you realize that some places have some very weird laws, and their laws don't require you to even be anywhere near the location in order to be "breaking" those laws.
I'm pretty sure I remember reading some stories 6 months or a year ago where a company in California was was selling sex toys and the like via website, and some municipality in Florida tried to charge the employees of the company with breaking local laws because some -Florida residents- (why aren't they the ones being charged???) ordered from the website and were shipped exactly what they ordered, but those products ran afoul of the local laws. The employees of the company where nowhere anywhere near Florida when these "crimes" were committed.
How long till we get something like that from an entire country? Take it to it's ridiculous end, what happens when Iran or Saudi Arabia wants the political cartoonist from Denmark extradited for making a cartoon of their prophet? etc.
Because of this, I am still of the opinion that if you do something that is legal where you live, you shouldn't be able to be charged with a crime elsewhere, just because it is illegal there, even if what you did somehow affects businesses or people in this second location. I understand completely the complications of this, but I am convinced it is still the only fair way to go. Most likely, you can let the local authorities know what is going on and they'll arrest the hacker under their own local laws. On the other hand (going back to the original point), if it's legal to hack the US in another country, send Hillary Clinton over there to discuss that with their government, because if "go ahead and hack the US, we don't care" is their policy, I think it's high time we had a talk with them about that.
I was thinking it's a fantastic way for the people with hacked PS3s to rip copies of games using backup managers rather than risk downloading torrents.
$2 for a 100% pristine rip of a game sounds like a pretty good deal...
In that situation, where you are using gold-backed paper, gold-backed credit, etc. you have now defeated all the benefits that gold has as a metal suitable for coinage, because you are not using the metal itself as coinage, only the representation of it.
you must admit that on a day-to-day basis, this is no different than a hypothetically accepted bitcoin, or even dollars. wait wait, before you respond, I am aware of the difference between a backed currency and a fiat currency, I'm simply stating that the usage of the two would not differ. you'd interact with the world and purchase your goods in pretty much the same way.
assuming that we keep a fairly steady amount of gold and the world's population continues to do what it is regrettably doing and growing all over the place, we will reach a point where if you did decide to cash in your your gold-backed notes, your entire life savings can be exchanged for a quarter oz of gold or something a long those lines. what would you do with it? you can't take it down to the local supermarket and shave off the tiniest sliver of it to try and pay for your grocery bill. no obviously you're going to want the paper/plastic/digital representation of it to get any work done. it becomes completely symbolic because you're never going to actually use the metal version of your gold-backed economy.
which, I ask again, how is that different from something like bitcoin? sure with a gold-backed standard you -could- exchange it for metal, but you almost certainly never would unless you believe in some impending doom about to hit the earth, in which case I stand my my earlier statement that in the post-apocalyptic world, gold won't be very useful for a good long while. short of that, the digital and note-based representation of a static amount of tangible wealth is far more useful than the actual wealth... and all things considered, the disproportional benefit to the very earliest adopters aside, that's pretty much the same thing as bitcoin... a fairly static representation of limited static wealth.
TL;DR version is: You would never really want to exchange your digital gold-backed currency for real gold because it would actually hinder your life, so the fact that the gold exists has zero bearing on your life, and that short of mad max events, there is no tangible difference in real everyday life between a gold-backed digital credit and a digital currency approximating the rarity of gold such as bitcoin, so long as society has agreed to accept the bitcoin or something like it as currency.
Since we're probably not going to convince each other of much, just simply circle the same points over and over again, I'll let them go.
I am curious though what you think of the future of purchasing goods, which more and more seems to be going digital. You can find things online cheaper, more readily available, and with far greater selection than local stores almost no matter what it is you are looking to purchase or where it is that you live.
Some things can only be purchased online. I recently purchased a guitar online that isn't sold in any showroom. The company that sells them imports them directly from the factory in Korea, and then resells them via website and ebay. These are very highly rated guitars, and for the money there may not be a better choice... but I'm virtually required to interact with these people via digital currency, in this case the digital version of dollars.
Given your druthers and a gold based standard, you obviously aren't too likely to be mailing these people hunks of gold and waiting for them to mail you back your product. First that's an incredible theft risk, second the world moves faster than that. The world isn't what it was even 15 years ago, and digital currency is becoming required to be a part of the human race (at varying rates of acceptance, depending on where you live of course). you can't even buy food on some flights with cash any more. this isn't even to mention that I'm pretty sure that there isn't anywhere near enough gold on the planet for everybody to have their own share of it.
what is your plan for this? digital currency backed up by gold? in that I can exchange my UGC (universal gold credits) for a hunk of metal at any given time? please explain how that would differ in day-to-day use (or even in the long run) from something like bitcoin?
there are plenty of things that are rare, but not valuable because few people want them.
there are plenty of things that are in great demand, but the supply is abundant.
It is only the intersection of the low supply with high demand that creates value, the first of which Bitcoin has already planned for, the latter of which is pretty much up to public sentiment and the success of any given PR campaign.
As I said elsewhere in these comments section, the gold standard that many seem to trumpet as the solution to all woes is just as silly as anything else. The only two things about gold that makes it suitable as a currency are that 1. the material itself would make a good currency due to it's material stability and low reactiveness, and 2. people agree that it's worth something.
The latter is exactly what I've already specified above, the former is simply a matter of design. Gold is a currency standard simply because of the available metals, if you were to pick one that has be best combination of what we'd want to see in our currency, gold best fits the bill. We (as in human society) essentially chose gold to be worth something just because gold makes the best coins, not because gold itself is all that useful to society... it isn't. You can use it to plate electronic contacts so they don't oxidize, and you can... make pretty stuff out of it. That's about it. If you can design a digital currency that can't be forged, can't be artifically created, and doesn't easily degrade, you've essentially created digital Gold.
You can't use bitcoins to plate video card contacts, nor can you make a set of earings out of them, but aside from that, as a place to store wealth, they're every bit as legit as a currency as precious metals because that was the idea, all it takes is people to agree that they are worthwhile, which is how pretty much any currency works.
Once again, assuming I understand the technology correctly:
I don't think the original owner could do that, because as far as the network is concerned, the original theft was a valid transfer because it originated from the user's valid wallet file to a valid recipient address. The network believes that what was done was done properly, even though it was done in an improper fashion by someone who broke in to do the transfer.
The entire network relies on everybody agreeing on what has previously gone on.
Therefore, if the original owner used a backup copy to try and re-transfer the backed-up bitcoins to a new address, the network would reject it as an illegal transfer because the network doesn't believe that he has the valid right to transfer those bitcoins anymore. I'm pretty sure that the individual bitcoin clients are at the mercy of the network-at-large, and if he tries to send coins to another address he owns, the network is going to claim he doesn't have the right to do so and the transaction will be invalidated.
The best analogy I can think of is a hacker logging in to a server with a stolen username and password. The hacker does not have rightful posession of the username and password, but the server doesn't know that. the server only knows that the authentication challenge was responded to with legitimate information, so the server has to assume that the hacker is who he says he is. likewise, the bitcoin network saw the $500,000 transfer (whatever that is in BTC) as valid by all authentication protocol, so it can only assume that it was legit and act as such in all future transactions using the affected bitcoins.
Which is itself silly in the first place anyway, because aside from a money sink in jewelry, and some uses in electronics and space vehicles, Gold isn't all that valuable. I don't understand why libertarians (and society in general) hold it in such high esteem.
Its main draws seem to be: 1. it's pretty. 2. it doesn't react with much so it tends to stay pretty. 3. other people say it's always been valuable so I guess I'll agree with them that it's always going to be.
It's one of those self-fulfilling economic cycles. People keep investing it it because they think it's worth something, and because the demand for it is so high, it -is- worth something... as long as people keep demanding it. etc. I have a feeling that if the societal collapse that the fringe are always predicting is "just a year away!" ever happened, you'd find that the value of gold would plummet to bupkis compared to say, the value of a tank of gasoline or a loaf of bread, cause you know.. you can actually do something with those.
Philosophically, I really don't see the difference between gold and bitcoins other than gold has a much better PR agent. Oh sure gold is tangible, but in today's digital society, how much of value is something that you'll never be able to hold in your hands? A whole lot actually. "Value" all comes down, in the end, to how many and how much people want something.
Heck, put the encrypted "savings" wallet on some USB keys and a few CDs/DVDs and put them in a safety deposit box if you want to. You can continue sending payments to that address as much as you want.
If I understand the technology, if he were to try to sell bitcoins from a backup.dat, the bitcoin network would reject the transaction as fraudulent saying that he no longer owned the coins he is trying to transfer.
The immediate transfer would go through, and over the next 10 minutes both parties would recieve thousands of "I don't agree that this transfer is valid, invalidate it" messages from other nodes on the bitcoin p2p network.
Slashdot Mirror
Here, I found this on the Department of Justice's own cybercrime website.
This broad definition addresses the original concerns regarding intrastate "phone phreakers" (i.e., hackers who penetrate telecommunications computers). It also specifically includes those computers used in "foreign" communications. With the continually expanding global information infrastructure, with numerous instances of international hacking, and with the growing possibility of increased global industrial espionage, it is important that the United States have jurisdiction over international computer crime cases. Arguably, the old definition of "federal interest computer" contained in 18 U.S.C. 1030(e)(2) conferred such jurisdiction because the requirement that the computers used in committing the offense not all be located in the same state might be satisfied if one computer were located overseas. As a general rule, however, Congress's laws have been presumed to be domestic in scope only, absent a specific grant of extraterritorial jurisdiction. E.E.O.C. v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244 (1991). To ensure clarity, the statute was amended to reference international communications explicitly.
I don't see how it can be any more clear than that. They weren't 100% sure that the law as it existed would allow them to prosecute for instances of hacking that crossed international boundaries but included US computers or persons located in the US, so they amended it specifically to allow them to do so!
source: http://www.cybercrime.gov/1030analysis.html
Subsection 1030(a)(5)
Hacking a computer you do not have authorization to access is a crime in the United States. period. Once you get in, it just gets worse for you depending on what you do.
I guarantee you that section (B) of the definition of "protected computer" will be used against you in a court of law if you hack anything outside the US, as the federal government will claim that that your actions "affect foreign commerce or communication".
While IANAL, I am pretty sure that what you fail to understand is that the US cybercrime laws do not say "It is illegal to hack a US computer", they say "It is illegal for you (you being a person on US soil, under US jusrisdiction) to access a computer without authorization".
check out http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/computer-hacking/
it's 100 different shades of legal speak, but it basically boils down to "if you're in a computer and you're not supposed to be there and you know you're not supposed to be there, you're in deep shit". it doesn't say "this rule only applies to US computers", although it does specifically mention at one point how much more pissed off they are if it IS a us govt computer, but that's along side things like how much more pissed off they are if you are stealing financial records, or stealing money directly, or uploading viruses, etc. Additionally, one of the things they mention is that they're extra pissed off if your hacking screws up diplomatic relations.
long and short of it is, "Hacking" as defined by the federal government of the US is most emphatically not "Breaking in to a computer on US soil", it is "Breaking in to a computer you don't have authorization to access". A computer you don't have authorization to access, period. Therefore, breaking into a computer in Zimbabwe is just as illegal as breaking into a computer across town acording to the Feds.
While I do not know for certain, I would be surprised if UK law isn't similar.
This is not the overhaul you're looking for.
Move along.
His career and new music is still just as relevant (whatever level you deem that to be) after 30 years. Not too many artists performing today can say that.
Not that I truly understand it either, but from what I do understand, it seems that there are so many patents submitted that the patent office doesn't bother to research if there is prior art, only if the patent violates/duplicates one they already have on the books. Whoever shows up first gets it. They figure it's up to the courts to invalidate these things. You know, the "It'll all work itself out in the end. with the help of a whole lot of lawyers and a metric shit-ton of money." attitude.
This shit is confusing. There is a reason that patent lawyers make good money. According to the AIPLA, their members average salary was over $180,000 and senior members in law firms made over $300,000 / yr.
Source -> http://www.patentbarstudy.com/career/patentattorneysalary.html
Good point.
Next question is, when they find something illegal on those hard drives that does not pertain to the investigation at hand (and perhaps you'll forgive my assumption that they probably will), how likely are they to prosecute for that, considering that they've already spent the time and trouble to gather evidence?
I'd say pretty likely.
Even if these kids are innocent of the crime they're trying to cop to, they're just setting themselves up for a world of hurt.
Conclusion? Sucks to be them, I hope my kid doesn't turn out that dumb.
Why should the UK be burdened with prosecuting the case and paying for incarceration, etc for a crime that was not committed against them? Why would a UK jury convict someone of a crime not committed against them?
Perhaps because the crime was committed in the UK, by a resident of the UK, using UK infrastructure?
What if instead of hacking the FBI, the kid had been hacking the Aston-Martin corporate database? Is Aston-Martin responsible for investigating and prosecuting? By your logic, no crimes are prosecuted unless they are against a sovereign government or representative thereof. That's not the way things work. If you commit a crime, you are investigated and prosecuted by the authorities you are under the jurisdiction of at the time you commit the crime.
In either above case, hacking a US government server, or a corporate server, the victim would presumably assist as possible in all investigations thereof, and may do independent investigation on their own if they personally feel the need to do so, but they are certainly not bearing the ultimate responsibility of doing so. Otherwise the next time your house gets robbed, the police would tell you "Well, the crook didn't hurt us any, just you. So, let us know when you figure out who stole your stuff, and can prove it. Maybe we'll go with you when you arrest him, detain him, and prosecute him, it should be a good show."
certainly.
http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
China, Syria, Libya, Egypt, etc aren't going to extradite a cybercriminal to us in the first place anyway, so whether we charge their citizens with our laws doesn't matter, we'll never get them unless they are stupid enough to come here. Is the Denmark cartoonist dumb enough to travel to Syria? Same situation.
That said, those are -exactly- the countries that we need to work with diplomatically. To that end, we -have- sent Hillary and others to china to discuss their lack of enforcement of IP laws, etc. (this being slashdot, whether you agree with those laws is another matter entirely). There has even been some success, albeit limited.
Really though, that's not what's important. What I worries me far more about your argument regards the countries who are friendly to us, the countries who we do have extradition treaties with, but may still have different laws than us. let's say it's perfectly legal for you to burn trash on your property, but it's illegal to do that in some country that we're buddy-buddy with cause they're all about the green inititive. Let's even say it's the equivalent of a damn felony there, and somehow they believe that smoke from your burning trash pile is affecting them by increasing global warming or something. Should you get extradited to that country to face the felony charges for what was legal where you did it?
Just because you're young and stupid doesn't mean you don't have to deal with the consequences of being stupid. Sure kids do stupid things. I did, I'm sure we all did. That doesn't mean kids immune from the responsibilities of their actions. They are given more leeway, certainly, for having poorly developed sense of judgement, and because of that in this situation you have to take into account that kids are liars and could be falsely claiming responsibility for street cred. But then you look at circumstance:
If some 8-year-old kid who just got his first laptop 3 months ago says on his facebook page that he hacked the FBI, maybe that claim is not trustworthy. But if it is a 17-year old who has been into computers since he was 8 bragging about the same thing, using the lingo, demonstrating the knowledge, etc... maybe you believe him. Or at least you treat it as a credible possibility and investigate. Perhaps even prosecute if you have enough evidence. Maybe he really didn't do it, but then he's going to have to deal with the consequences of saying he did so because he certainly seems like he could have done it.
If you try and convince somebody that you committed a crime, and you do a convincing enough job that they believe you, that's your fault. You better damn well believe that authorities care about high profile felonies, especially ones that are targeted at THEM, which if I recall, some of these attacks were.
Here's a slashdot analogy for you. I was taught not to poke a bees nest when I was a kid. Weren't you? What we're talking about here isn't just poking the bees nest (which the lulzsec guys did), we're talking about somebody else who walked over to the now-angry nest of bees, picked up the stick that was used to poke the nest and stood there under the nest holding the stick. Look, even most kids aren't stupid enough to do that... and the ones who are, what do you make of that? Do you blame the bees for stinging them? He chose to stand there with the stick!
with your logic, you can convict a 6 year old who says 'dodo' during a national anthem.
What in the world does that have to do with our discussion of publicly confessing to felonies?
Oh I am perfectly aware that extradition treaties work both ways, and Denmark isn't too likely to send their cartoonist to get his hand chopped off or something like that, that's why I said it was the "ridiculous" extreme, I was simply pointing out that you may be able to get only slightly less ridiculous and still fall under the umbrella of "oh shit this could actually happen".
Also, you make my own point for me. Since both UK and US have cybercrime laws, we don't need to charge the British kid with breaking our laws because he is already breaking the UK laws. He can be charged under those laws. furthermore, if the UK (or some other country) didn't have cybercrime laws of their own (that the kid could be prosecuted under), then they aren't too likely to extradite to us anyway, in which case it's our job to go in there and convince them (diplomatically dammit, I mean diplomatically!) that the lack of cybercrime laws is something they need to rectify.
If so, they are kids about to learn that public confessions can and will be used against you in a court of law.
What idiot would confess to crimes they didn't commit (or being part of a group committing those crimes) and then be surprised when that draws the attention of the authorities?
"Pig, you can't prove anything"
"Really? I've got this video of you saying you're part of the group that did it."
"That won't hold up in court!"
"Really? Let's see what the jury thinks."
I agree with you up to a point in theory, but in practice I think we run into issues.
The problem comes when you realize that some places have some very weird laws, and their laws don't require you to even be anywhere near the location in order to be "breaking" those laws.
I'm pretty sure I remember reading some stories 6 months or a year ago where a company in California was was selling sex toys and the like via website, and some municipality in Florida tried to charge the employees of the company with breaking local laws because some -Florida residents- (why aren't they the ones being charged???) ordered from the website and were shipped exactly what they ordered, but those products ran afoul of the local laws. The employees of the company where nowhere anywhere near Florida when these "crimes" were committed.
How long till we get something like that from an entire country? Take it to it's ridiculous end, what happens when Iran or Saudi Arabia wants the political cartoonist from Denmark extradited for making a cartoon of their prophet? etc.
Because of this, I am still of the opinion that if you do something that is legal where you live, you shouldn't be able to be charged with a crime elsewhere, just because it is illegal there, even if what you did somehow affects businesses or people in this second location. I understand completely the complications of this, but I am convinced it is still the only fair way to go. Most likely, you can let the local authorities know what is going on and they'll arrest the hacker under their own local laws. On the other hand (going back to the original point), if it's legal to hack the US in another country, send Hillary Clinton over there to discuss that with their government, because if "go ahead and hack the US, we don't care" is their policy, I think it's high time we had a talk with them about that.
I was thinking it's a fantastic way for the people with hacked PS3s to rip copies of games using backup managers rather than risk downloading torrents.
$2 for a 100% pristine rip of a game sounds like a pretty good deal...
In that situation, where you are using gold-backed paper, gold-backed credit, etc. you have now defeated all the benefits that gold has as a metal suitable for coinage, because you are not using the metal itself as coinage, only the representation of it.
you must admit that on a day-to-day basis, this is no different than a hypothetically accepted bitcoin, or even dollars. wait wait, before you respond, I am aware of the difference between a backed currency and a fiat currency, I'm simply stating that the usage of the two would not differ. you'd interact with the world and purchase your goods in pretty much the same way.
assuming that we keep a fairly steady amount of gold and the world's population continues to do what it is regrettably doing and growing all over the place, we will reach a point where if you did decide to cash in your your gold-backed notes, your entire life savings can be exchanged for a quarter oz of gold or something a long those lines. what would you do with it? you can't take it down to the local supermarket and shave off the tiniest sliver of it to try and pay for your grocery bill. no obviously you're going to want the paper/plastic/digital representation of it to get any work done. it becomes completely symbolic because you're never going to actually use the metal version of your gold-backed economy.
which, I ask again, how is that different from something like bitcoin? sure with a gold-backed standard you -could- exchange it for metal, but you almost certainly never would unless you believe in some impending doom about to hit the earth, in which case I stand my my earlier statement that in the post-apocalyptic world, gold won't be very useful for a good long while. short of that, the digital and note-based representation of a static amount of tangible wealth is far more useful than the actual wealth... and all things considered, the disproportional benefit to the very earliest adopters aside, that's pretty much the same thing as bitcoin... a fairly static representation of limited static wealth.
TL;DR version is: You would never really want to exchange your digital gold-backed currency for real gold because it would actually hinder your life, so the fact that the gold exists has zero bearing on your life, and that short of mad max events, there is no tangible difference in real everyday life between a gold-backed digital credit and a digital currency approximating the rarity of gold such as bitcoin, so long as society has agreed to accept the bitcoin or something like it as currency.
Since we're probably not going to convince each other of much, just simply circle the same points over and over again, I'll let them go.
I am curious though what you think of the future of purchasing goods, which more and more seems to be going digital. You can find things online cheaper, more readily available, and with far greater selection than local stores almost no matter what it is you are looking to purchase or where it is that you live.
Some things can only be purchased online. I recently purchased a guitar online that isn't sold in any showroom. The company that sells them imports them directly from the factory in Korea, and then resells them via website and ebay. These are very highly rated guitars, and for the money there may not be a better choice... but I'm virtually required to interact with these people via digital currency, in this case the digital version of dollars.
Given your druthers and a gold based standard, you obviously aren't too likely to be mailing these people hunks of gold and waiting for them to mail you back your product. First that's an incredible theft risk, second the world moves faster than that. The world isn't what it was even 15 years ago, and digital currency is becoming required to be a part of the human race (at varying rates of acceptance, depending on where you live of course). you can't even buy food on some flights with cash any more. this isn't even to mention that I'm pretty sure that there isn't anywhere near enough gold on the planet for everybody to have their own share of it.
what is your plan for this? digital currency backed up by gold? in that I can exchange my UGC (universal gold credits) for a hunk of metal at any given time? please explain how that would differ in day-to-day use (or even in the long run) from something like bitcoin?
How would you define the word "value"?
Isn't value simply supply vs demand?
there are plenty of things that are rare, but not valuable because few people want them.
there are plenty of things that are in great demand, but the supply is abundant.
It is only the intersection of the low supply with high demand that creates value, the first of which Bitcoin has already planned for, the latter of which is pretty much up to public sentiment and the success of any given PR campaign.
As I said elsewhere in these comments section, the gold standard that many seem to trumpet as the solution to all woes is just as silly as anything else. The only two things about gold that makes it suitable as a currency are that 1. the material itself would make a good currency due to it's material stability and low reactiveness, and 2. people agree that it's worth something.
The latter is exactly what I've already specified above, the former is simply a matter of design. Gold is a currency standard simply because of the available metals, if you were to pick one that has be best combination of what we'd want to see in our currency, gold best fits the bill. We (as in human society) essentially chose gold to be worth something just because gold makes the best coins, not because gold itself is all that useful to society... it isn't. You can use it to plate electronic contacts so they don't oxidize, and you can... make pretty stuff out of it. That's about it. If you can design a digital currency that can't be forged, can't be artifically created, and doesn't easily degrade, you've essentially created digital Gold.
You can't use bitcoins to plate video card contacts, nor can you make a set of earings out of them, but aside from that, as a place to store wealth, they're every bit as legit as a currency as precious metals because that was the idea, all it takes is people to agree that they are worthwhile, which is how pretty much any currency works.
not secret as in "nobody can tell it is doing it", but secret as in "its stated function is something else, but here is what they really want it for".
was making a reference to several sarcastic comments on the news article talking about the supercomputer from a few days ago.
Like a cell deep in Guantanamo or the like?
I'm just saying what everybody else is thinking...
Once again, assuming I understand the technology correctly:
I don't think the original owner could do that, because as far as the network is concerned, the original theft was a valid transfer because it originated from the user's valid wallet file to a valid recipient address. The network believes that what was done was done properly, even though it was done in an improper fashion by someone who broke in to do the transfer.
The entire network relies on everybody agreeing on what has previously gone on.
Therefore, if the original owner used a backup copy to try and re-transfer the backed-up bitcoins to a new address, the network would reject it as an illegal transfer because the network doesn't believe that he has the valid right to transfer those bitcoins anymore. I'm pretty sure that the individual bitcoin clients are at the mercy of the network-at-large, and if he tries to send coins to another address he owns, the network is going to claim he doesn't have the right to do so and the transaction will be invalidated.
The best analogy I can think of is a hacker logging in to a server with a stolen username and password. The hacker does not have rightful posession of the username and password, but the server doesn't know that. the server only knows that the authentication challenge was responded to with legitimate information, so the server has to assume that the hacker is who he says he is. likewise, the bitcoin network saw the $500,000 transfer (whatever that is in BTC) as valid by all authentication protocol, so it can only assume that it was legit and act as such in all future transactions using the affected bitcoins.
Which is itself silly in the first place anyway, because aside from a money sink in jewelry, and some uses in electronics and space vehicles, Gold isn't all that valuable. I don't understand why libertarians (and society in general) hold it in such high esteem.
Its main draws seem to be:
1. it's pretty.
2. it doesn't react with much so it tends to stay pretty.
3. other people say it's always been valuable so I guess I'll agree with them that it's always going to be.
It's one of those self-fulfilling economic cycles. People keep investing it it because they think it's worth something, and because the demand for it is so high, it -is- worth something... as long as people keep demanding it. etc. I have a feeling that if the societal collapse that the fringe are always predicting is "just a year away!" ever happened, you'd find that the value of gold would plummet to bupkis compared to say, the value of a tank of gasoline or a loaf of bread, cause you know.. you can actually do something with those.
Philosophically, I really don't see the difference between gold and bitcoins other than gold has a much better PR agent. Oh sure gold is tangible, but in today's digital society, how much of value is something that you'll never be able to hold in your hands? A whole lot actually. "Value" all comes down, in the end, to how many and how much people want something.
Heck, put the encrypted "savings" wallet on some USB keys and a few CDs/DVDs and put them in a safety deposit box if you want to. You can continue sending payments to that address as much as you want.
That's fuckin brilliant.
If I had more than 0.1 BTC I'd do the same. hah.
If I understand the technology, if he were to try to sell bitcoins from a backup .dat, the bitcoin network would reject the transaction as fraudulent saying that he no longer owned the coins he is trying to transfer.
The immediate transfer would go through, and over the next 10 minutes both parties would recieve thousands of "I don't agree that this transfer is valid, invalidate it" messages from other nodes on the bitcoin p2p network.
I'm hoping it's the company that owns that new chinese supercomputer built out of GPUs that is secretly mining for bitcoins?