
Pentagon Planned for a Bitcoin Rebellion - jchandra
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/06/10/pentagon-documents-reveal-the-us-has-planned-for-a-bitcoin-rebellion/#587a63844cc0
======
dhosek
A college friend teaches at the Naval War College. Most of these "Pentagon
planned for X" stories are breathless reporting on some scenario put together
by a low-level officer as a training exercise. Often some component is
something "hot" in the culture at the moment to make the training exercise
more compelling for trainees. This is also why there was, for example,
pentagon "plans" for a zombie apocalypse, etc.

~~~
openasocket
Was about to comment with the same, the military creates all sorts of plans
for all sorts of scenarios, even completely implausible ones. In the 1930s for
instance, the US had an actual war plan for an invasion of Canada (War Plan
Crimson, as a part of War Plan Red which was a general war with the UK) and
Mexico (War Plan Green)! These plans were made not because we really had any
intention of invading Canada or Mexico, but because it gave our military
planners something new to work on. And as a part of this they could come up
with new ideas or theories that could be applied to more likely threats, and
this planning is a good way to help train officers and sharpen minds for
strategic thought

~~~
TrainedMonkey
Is there any reason to believe similar plans and contingencies don't exist
anymore?

~~~
landryraccoon
I hope there are even more of them now. It would be pretty cool to read about
a contingency plan for an insurgency against a Klingon or Cylon occupation of
the earth. That would be an interesting scenario.

Think about it, would it be better for the US military (not to mention the
world) to spend it's money on training simulations to improve officer quality,
or actual drones and bombs being used in actual wars? Scenario 1, IMHO, is
much better for humanity.

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NicolasGorden
> "global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption and to support
> causes it deem[s] beneficial... The group... funnelling ... bitcoin to ...
> "worthy recipients"

> The Pentagon war game documents ... revealed after ... Representative ...
> called for the government to "freeze" the money of demonstrators after
> country-wide protests

> "One of the most important tools in the authoritarian toolkit is the ability
> to freeze the funding of legitimate political dissent,"

> By separating the infrastructure of money from the infrastructure of state
> power, bitcoin makes it that much harder for this type of politically
> motivated confiscation.

People have been using bitcoin to donate to Snowden or get money to people in
place like Venezuela. Cyprus happened. Now it might happen that anyone who
protests might lose their ability to access banking services.

Yet somehow many here think this is just a scenario.

~~~
root_axis
> _Now it might happen that anyone who protests might lose their ability to
> access banking services._

What? Why? How? Did you just make that up? Beyond that, if you lose access to
banking services then bitcoin isn't going to help you since you need banking
services to turn bitcoin into usable money.

~~~
NicolasGorden
RTFA it's literally in there. Admittedly it says 'freeze the money'. Though
I'm really not sure how that's different than 'lose their ability to access
banking'. Come to think of it, freeze their money is worse, since that implies
losing access to existing funds and the system, not just losing access to the
banking system.

~~~
root_axis
> _Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz called for the government to
> "freeze" the money of demonstrators_

That is not even remotely close to "it might happen", that's just partisan
bloviating from a Florida state rep.

~~~
NicolasGorden
I took a government representative saying they are considering doing something
as a sign that the government is considering doing something. Crazy.

I agree it's mostly likely just political 'bloviating'. But the Patriot Act
did happen and we did create the category of 'enhanced interrogation' and
'enemy combatant'. If I were to tell my grandparents that was going to pass in
the 90s they'd have said the same thing; just political bloviating.

So you'll have to forgive me if I take the governments own words as a sign to
be defensive about what the government might do, even if it is unlikely.

~~~
root_axis
> _I took a government representative saying they are considering doing
> something as a sign that the government is considering doing something_

Ok, but that's not how the government works, like not even close. A state
representative making a statement doesn't mean "the government is considering
doing" it, there are more than 1000 state reps across the country, willfully
assuming anything they say is going to happen is just silly.

~~~
NicolasGorden
It was my understanding that the Representative quoted in the article was from
the US House of Representatives which has 435 voting members. The senate has
100. These two bodies are in charge of drafting and passing legislation (hence
the legislative branch). I though legislation begins with discussions within
the house and then a bill is presented and then it moves to congress.
Ultimately it is sent to be signed or vetoed by the president (the executive
branch). Alternatively, the president does have some ability to sign some
types of executive orders.

It was also my understanding that both legislation and executive orders are
subject to judicial review, mainly in the form of supreme court case review
but also in the form of statute reviews. Though these don't happen very
frequently and many times the result is counter intuitive, it seems supreme
court cases can go many ways depending on the complex legal interpretations of
the justices.

I am an immigrant who had to learn about this on a naturalization test prep.
So I know that my knowledge is SUPER basic and really it's the least any
person who can vote in the USA should know. In my own country my political
knowledge is much deeper as I learned about it in high school and college.

Maybe you could explain to me as an apparently knowledgeable person where you
came up with 'more than 1000' number? Hopefully you can tell me from the point
of view of an American who knows his country and learned about it through his
years of schooling.

Also, since 'this is not how the government works', maybe you could explain to
ignorant old me how it does work? Save me from being silly and illuminate me
with your wisdom!

\- Summer Glau

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vmception
> The group, called Zbellion, encourages cyber attacks against organizations
> that support "the establishment," funnelling stolen cash into bitcoin to
> make "small, below the threshold donations" to "worthy recipients" and
> Zbellion members.

That happens. Most of the non-drug and non-porn sections on dark net
marketplaces are about tools for doing this specific thing, and creating
completely parallel identities for bank accounts and investing.

Illicit funds in, get crypto, leave crypto into fake/real/not-you person bank
account.

They even have entire marketplaces for compromised windows computers, so that
you can find a computer near the address of someone's compromised visa card,
so that it is more likely your transactions will not get blocked because it
looks to be in the same area.

~~~
luckylion
They're not about "the establishment" and "worthy recipients" though, they are
ordinary criminals, which is great news for "the establishment", because the
people that want to scam people or phish info etc are usually quite aware that
they wouldn't be able to do that if it wasn't for "the system" at large
operating at a very stable level.

It's more lucrative and much safer to be a criminal in a stable, advanced
society with lots of laws and regulation and little social mobility than being
a criminal in Somalia. Successful criminals don't want to see society end or
even change massively, they are doing fine.

~~~
vmception
yeah, I'm just pointing out the Pentagon's creative writing prompt adds an
unnecessary reason to something already quite prevalent, suggesting they don't
even know it is prevalent.

------
globular-toast
It should already be abundantly clear that the current banking system and
Western governments are one and the same thing so no surprises here.

------
vslira
So, from the comments, it's not a real action plan, more like a scenario for
case analysis.

Which is a shame. I'd really like to read about how well blockchain technology
-- which is based on very transparent p2p communication -- would fare against
the NSA or the Great Chinese Firewall if the US or China actually wanted to
stop it.

~~~
colechristensen
The whole public transaction log makes it easy to trace every transaction made
by a person, especially in widespread use. If you want to stop bitcoin, making
using it a crime and then set up false flag merchants (or give immunity to
merchants for cooperating) and it becomes trivial to track individuals.

And as for p2p communication, again, easy to find and charge anybody
participating in the network.

Alternatively, don't make bitcoin illegal, just heavily use it to track and
arrest people using it for already illegal things, preferably in a _shock and
awe_ way where you make a big show of arresting a bunch of criminals at once
and then brag in the media about how bitcoin made it all possible.

Bitcoin is terrible at privacy unless you're trying really hard to conceal
your identity.

~~~
lawn
If you're serious about privacy you should probably use Monero instead of
Bitcoin.

~~~
colechristensen
If you're serious about privacy, use cash.

And know that actively trying to hide the sources and flows of money can be a
crime, even if you're not doing anything criminal with the money.

~~~
lawn
Cash is great yes. But it's not always possible to pay in person, and it can
be less private to make transactions in person too.

------
WealthVsSurvive
Change bitcoin to its successor and "theft" and selective redistribution to
transference and automatic redistribution along a curve back to labor or into
public works, and I think you've got something that probably should destroy
finance, insurance, etc.

------
diegoperini
If software world managed to create esoteric languages like brainfuck, expect
from any military to study a hypothetical spontaneous human combustion
pandemic. The exercise itself is useful for learning despite the comical
outcome or product.

------
kim0
Tracking funds across a transparent ledger like Bitcoin is unfortunately too
easy. After going after individuals is trivial. Would love to know if they're
also planning to attack more private options decentralized networks like
Monero!

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The cheapest way to deal with a Bitcoin rebellion is to use some of the
military budget and buy and run Bitcoin miners to dominate the chain and then
do stuff like double spending, etc to undermine confidence in Bitcoin.

~~~
dmichulke
Wouldn't that technically be a fork?

The other miners are surely free not to accept blocks with double spends, no?

~~~
NathanKP
A bitcoin transaction is considered valid as long as it is in the longest
uninterrupted chain of blocks. If the military could buy and run enough
equipment to create blocks faster than all the rest of the miners around the
world combined then they could mess with Bitcoin's fundamental consistency by
making longer chains of blocks than the rest of the world. The only thing
preventing this from already happening today is that it would cost an insane
amount of money to be able to mine blocks faster than everyone else in the
system combined

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>The only thing preventing this from already happening today is that it would
cost an insane amount of money to be able to mine blocks faster than everyone
else in the system combined

The US Military budget is insanely large. The total value of Bitcoin is
estimated at around $160 Billion[0]. The annual military budget is 750 Billion
dollars. If there is the will, being the money would not be the issue
preventing such an attack.

0\. [https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-much-worlds-money-
bitc...](https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-much-worlds-money-bitcoin/)

~~~
root_axis
The military also has access to extreme computing resources that are not
available to the general public. If the pentagon cared to develop their own
ASICs they could easily dominate the network.

~~~
NathanKP
Not going to lie I don't think the military or the pentagon is that
sophisticated to build their own ASICs. They'd just buy ASICs from one of the
Chinese miners that has already perfected the game. The primary resource at
the US disposal is ridiculous sums of cash, but we aren't exactly on top when
it comes to expertise and manufacturing.

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ur-whale
[http://archive.is/wip/TaFYy](http://archive.is/wip/TaFYy)

~~~
scared2
Why do you have to share the archive of an article that is just published

~~~
ur-whale
Think of it as future-proof snapshot.

Also, the archive link won't show you the "I've turned off my ad blocker"
popup.

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asymmetric
mods: The original (better) article is at
[https://theintercept.com/2020/06/05/pentagon-war-game-
gen-z/](https://theintercept.com/2020/06/05/pentagon-war-game-gen-z/)

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papito
In which scenario is the Secretary of Defense required to inspect a public
bathroom?

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rm2040
More like “planning”

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IAmWorried
Holy shit, this is absolutely fascinating. I find it incredibly interesting
that this scenario of a "Generation Z Rebellion" was constructed in 2018, and
projected increasing tensions until 2026, at which point things would flame
up. Yet the current pandemic has essentially forced everybody's hand and put
history on fast forward. Maybe, in the end, the pandemic will end up being a
strategically good thing for the United States, at least compared to how our
adversaries will fare.

~~~
lgl
Yet the saddest thing about your comment is that even in the face of a virus
pandemic that sees no borders or races, you still see it as a "good thing"
against your "adversaries" as if you're somehow worthier that everybody else
in the planet.

