Wonder who is behind the bit coin? I would think it would make the LE easier to trace your money and spending.
Originally Posted by BabyDallass
First, your first question is just
so much bigger than you could have meant it to be.
It would probably be harder only from a standpoint of it being more difficult to actually obtain the records for study. As is, yes, it's likely to be not worth the effort for LE to try to sift through and find the connections, but as time goes on and Bitcoin becomes more popular for its anonymity, the departments will adapt and probably hire on or train forensic accountants specifically to sift through the data presented.
The encryption of transactions... Well that's a security precaution, yes, but one to keep the transactions themselves secure from hijacking. Law enforcement isn't going to be sniffing your traffic to try to watch what you're doing realtime. Well, FBI, NSA, CIA might. But that's sort of a different boat altogether. And the computer arrays and encryption experts they have can shit on some random company's encryption standards if they really want to. But, more to the point - the company is going to have to keep clear, identifiable records. Bitcoin isn't regulated but as it interacts with standard currency, they have standards they have to keep up with. I mean, IRS liabilities alone. She. The IRS comes after you, you are about as "innocent until proven guilty" as it gets in the U.S. If they can just show spending higher than income as a sustained model of your financial history, the burden of proof is on you to say where the income came from. So, all that to say - a company would be committing financial suicide if they didn't have unencrypted versions if their books available for when a subpoena comes floating along.