[mcantelon]

It's a possibility. States do work to undermine things that threaten them. The Liberty Dollar project, for example, was recently shut down by the US government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar . Bitcoin is a potential threat to the state because it provides an ideal instrument for tax avoidance and competition in the drug/force trade.

[hugh3]

It's a possibility. States do work to undermine things that threaten them. The Liberty Dollar project, for example, was recently shut down by the US government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar

Sure, and they shut it down openly using the hammer and anvil of the FBI and the judicial system. If and when the US Government decides to act against bitcoin, they'll do it loudly and openly... not by some complicated, difficult and illegal scheme that doesn't really achieve anything.

Currency issues fall into the jurisdiction of the US Secret Service, an agency not known for subtlety.

[mcantelon]

Yeah, if legal and open is more cost effective, they'll likely go that route. Otherwise, they may revert to skullduggery (as they have in the past: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO).

[tedunangst]

I think it's a big leap to go from illegal wiretaps to hacking and stealing.

[mcantelon]

COINTELPRO included "extralegal violence and assassination" according to Wikipedia. So it's weird to think that the authorities would rule out a bit of hacking to protect their interests.

[27182818284]

It was less that reason and more of an explicit violation of law.

"Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."