<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="JackMack" data-source="post: 683977"
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Sorry but that is total bull. <br />
None of the following condones any criminal act and certainly not this despicable extortion of a business but to say Bitcoin is the problem is asinine.<br />
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what always makes me laugh when the nothing to hide nothing to fear crowd come out of the woodwork is the irony - they don't even understand the quote is attributed to supreme authoritarian Nazi propagandist Goebbels. It was only ever to sooth the simple minded sycophants of the establishment as they cracked down on anyone who opposed their tyranny. Amazing such a transparent piece of propaganda can still be effective in the minds of people today which is probably why so much propaganda and tyranny is based on blue prints from the Nazi regime.<br />
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You want to blame Bitcoin for criminal activity? <br />
Do you understand why Bitcoin came about?<br />
Do you realise the biggest fraudsters and criminals in the world work in the banking industry which is precisely why Bitcoin came about - to counter banker controlled currency and fiat money?<br />
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Do you understand why they really want a cashless society and to trace every penny? <br />
But hey, having globalist bankers decide you should forfeit your bank account to pay their debt and simply taking your money isn't a crime right? (Cyprus)<br />
And they would never do that again anyway, right?<br />
And the government certainly wouldn't use it to track your movements and the data would never be sold to third parties for commercial gain, right? <br />
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Just as the internet is not to blame for fraud nor is Bitcoin - the fraudsters are. <br />
The very things you want to give up control of to the establishment for security (who by the way are proven liars, fraudsters, criminals, paedophiles to varying degrees) are the very things that give us what little freedom and privacy we have left.<br />
It is such a sick twisted inverse joke that even Cameron's adviser on internet censorship (To save the children!) was arrested on paedophile charges.But it doesn't matter how obvious the tyranny is because folk like you will never ever see it. <br />
Will you be like the compliant Germans, applauding as they frog march dissenters off if we ever get that far down the rabbit hole.<br />
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Technology, whether it is Bitcoin or a drone are neutral, it is how they are used and who by that matters.<br />
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Sorry for veering off topic but that was the second comment of ignorance about Bitcoin.
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This is a good point. The instrument of a crime is often blamed, but it's the way it gets used that's the problem.<br />
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I expect Bitcoin isn't too popular with governments because it's a token of worth that is hard to tax and control. If Bitcoin had not been invented, something else would have been used, and WAS used in the past. The real instrument of this crime is the Botnet and those behind it. Botnets are possible because Microsoft virtually owns the internet, and it's software dominates. Users are left to their own devices when it comes to security of their machines, they have to search out the best third party products and services and install them. Making money from users by selling them security products is clearly more important than the security of the internet itself. If the security of the internet itself was an international priority, then governments and the major software providers would collaborate and develop the very best protection possible, and then distribute it to users "as part of the service".<br />
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Many of the hacks can be traced back to deliberate "back doors" being built into many software and security packages to suit the "security services" of many countries, or even the corporate interests of private companies who "hack their own software" to make even more money for themselves. This desire to flood internet users with ads is the biggest security hole on the internet. The complex means by which this is achieved, often against users' wishes and ad blocking plug-ins, create opportunities for hackers. Many websites just don't work on a truly secured machine, so users have to lower their security setting just so that "the internet works", or in other words, the websites they visit can harvest their data and serve them ads, with the "internet not working" aspect often being a deliberate ploy designed to force users to lower settings so that the data harvesting and ad serving can take place.<br />
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Lenovo hit the news recently after it was discovered they had shipped new laptops with "Superfish" pre-installed. It's purpose was to tamper with the internet as seen by users of Lenovo machines such that ads were served which users believed were coming from the websites visited. Superfish also allowed for a serious exploit that would have enabled a "man in the middle" attack. So, by trying to create a clandestine revenue stream for itself, Lenovo sold thousands of compromised machines, many of which would be connected to the internet. A successful hack of Superfish would have enabled someone to create a Botnet from Lenovo machines.<br />
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Now, the FBI and other agencies ARE going after these Botnets, and occasionally we hear of one being shut down.<br />
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It became clear to me earlier this year that another big botnet was running as my spam box suddenly started to receive 10x more crap than usual.<br />
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This group's activities will come to an end when the botnet they are using gets shut down. They probably realise this, and may be stepping up their activities in the realisation that they have to make as much money as possible in the time they have left. The publicity may cause an increase in their activities because it alerts users, as well as the authorities, that a large number of machines have been hijacked. This may spur the authorities into acting more decisively, and may also inspire users to double check their own machines specifically for botnet infection. Usually, once the underlying malware is identified, free tools specifically designed to detect and destroy it are developed and distributed for free. The most recent major botnet lead to the identification of "Zero Access" as the underlying malware, and numerous tools were developed for it. One of my machines had it, and the first attempt to remove it failed, but it is gone now. My ISP sends "one of your machines is infected with......" type emails, and these have been confirmed by them to be genuine, rather than Phishing attempts. Many users may well be ignoring such warnings from their ISP because they fit the profile of a Phishing attack, so they get deleted rather than acted upon.</div>