Quote from: AbelsFire on September 01, 2012, 07:28:04 PM

I suggest you explore the question with more granularity. Some people use Bitcoins for "criminal" transactions because they feel that particular laws are unjust, invasive, abusive or otherwise inappropriate.

You may find a difference in the percentage of people who are opposed to the use of Bitcoins to facilitate theft vs the percentage who are opposed to the use of Bitcoins to allow expats to send remittances to their family in countries the US government does not permit trade with, or the use of Bitcoins to avoid legal prohibitions of online gambling.

Quote from: blablahblah on September 01, 2012, 08:01:32 PM

I think you need to take a more philosophical stance and define crime first, before getting stuck into fixing problems with criminal transactions.

Thought experiment:
There are 2 countries, A and B.
...
How do you know it's illegal?/ Whose definition of crime are you using? And why that particular definition, rather than some other rule-book?

I agree. The study is part of my Masters which is leading into a PhD, so I will hopefully have the next 3 years to explore the question more gradually.

Web Science is an interdisciplinary subject so we're encouraged to approach web based problems from multiple disciplines. My research over the course is done with the Criminology department, along with the Computer Science department. My first degree was Computer Science, so I'm having to pickup and learn the criminology + social side quite quickly. But the benefit of the course is that I can effectively utilize and draw ideas from all disciplines, including things like law, economics, philosophy etc.

Part of the aim of the Masters is to explore a question or problem, to allow further in depth informed research over the course of the PhD.

Quote from: kokjo on September 01, 2012, 07:37:51 PM

Quote from: Chang Hum on September 01, 2012, 07:35:23 PM

Great another academic wasting tax payers money on fancy long words.

if the did not waste tax money, we would not have computeres.

Yup, I agree. Also, I think it's worth mentioning, in an ideal world, a lot of legislation and policy making should be made based on academic research, which is why so much money is invested. Personally, I believe academic research into Bitcoin is a "must" for it to be accepted as a currency.