Quote from: jgarzik on December 04, 2010, 10:25:45 PM

Quote from: RHorning on December 04, 2010, 10:17:44 PM

Basically, bring it on. Let's encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I'm willing to face any risk or fallout from that act.

Thanks for being willing to helpfully impose risk upon others. For people who are just starting to build businesses on bitcoin, this could be devastating to their new business.

And it could permanently marginalize bitcoin, keeping it out of the mainstream for good. Is that really the end result the bitcoin community most desires?

Some of us are working hard to build tools and programs that encourage businesses to invest their time, money and energy into bitcoin. It would be very sad to see all that go down the drain.

What would go down the drain? Really, I think this is making a mountain out of a molehill and if you want to stay anonymous I'm not necessarily stopping you from doing that either. Some are willing to stand up and others want to hide in the background. I choose to stand in front if that is necessary. Many are participating on this project using a pseudonym, and if they are very paranoid through a Proxy IP address and using https for communications to this forum and perhaps taking other precautions. I am not, because I'm not afraid. I'm not necessarily against anonymity and even would encourage it for those who find it necessary for whatever reason they have.

In short, I don't wish to impose this risk upon others but I am willing to take this risk for myself.

I also fail to see how this would marginalize Bitcoin as a software project either. The best thing, from a political perspective, would be to completely ignore that Bitcoin even exists at all. If that is marginalizing Bitcion, how is that different from what is going on right now?

I suppose the hope here is that Bitcoin will be used by a bunch of people first (it already is) and that perhaps Bitcoin can be known for doing other things than financing Wikileaks. I am not encouraging that the main page of bitcoin.org have a huge banner across the top "the official fundraising method for Wikileaks". We don't have to tie ourselves that closely, and anybody who checks out Bitcoin will discover what it is.... an alternative to PayPal and other on-line financial transaction systems with perhaps some other interesting benefits as well. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Is there anything new that hasn't been said repeatedly elsewhere? If you were trying to stay off people's radar, publicity should be avoided altogether.

This is also about doing what is right, and this is the right thing to do. I get the arguments advocating caution, but sometimes you also have to take a stand on an issue too. There is a down side, and talking about concerns over that perhaps is useful.

Quote from: kiba on December 04, 2010, 10:28:23 PM

Success is not guaranteed; access risk; act wisely; remember knowledge gaps.

It's funny to see a miniarchist libertarian say "Bring it on" when anarchists like me are advising cautions.

It look like I am right, people throw cautions to the wind.

I agree, success is not guaranteed. Sometimes you have to take some risks and sometimes do so with imperfect knowledge. It is a golden opportunity right now for the Bitcoin community, however, to encourage Wikileaks to accept Bitcoin donations and I personally don't think the extra publicity that we may or may not get from having a link on the Wikileaks website would necessarily be a bad thing. There isn't even any sort of guarantee that Wikileaks will even take Bitcoins if they are being offered.

But seriously, what are the downsides anyway? Do you really think the "Men in Black" are going to shut down Bitcoin? Really? If Bitcoin is that fragile and vulnerable to attack, what are we doing anyway and why is it so consistently being defended?