
Australia to regulate Bitcoin under counter-terrorism finance laws - aaron695
http://www.smh.com.au/world/australia-to-regulate-bitcoin-under-counterterrorism-finance-laws-20160808-gqnne2.html
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mtgx
Just imagine what would've happened to the Internet, if governments of the
world _knew then_ what they know now about it.

"Porn? Anyone can just say anything they want "without repercussions"?
Propaganda by other governments? Communicating without being able to intercept
them like we do through the phone lines? My god, what an awful thing this
Internet is! We better lock it down tight!"

I think it would've been worse than what Chinese government did to it in its
own country. Perhaps something more along the lines of Zuckerberg's
"charitable" Internet.org/Free Basics service.

That's why I never supported Free Basics. Can you imagine what it would've
done to a country like Uganda or somewhere where people have no idea what the
real Internet is? They would've grown up knowing only 100 (or perhaps 1,000
eventually) websites that are fully curated by both Facebook _and_ the local
governments. Nothing else would be allowed.

These tight regulations on Bitcoin and other similar technologies will
definitely limit their potential, in ways we may not even understand yet, if
that experimentation that was supposed to happen, never does.

