US Department of Justice Calls For More International Cooperation, Coordination on Crypto Law Enforcement

A new report from the Department of Justice proposes more international cooperation among law enforcement agencies on the crypto and blockchain front. From a report: Information sharing and the harmonization of anti-money laundering and know-your-customer rules were also proposed in the DOJ report, which was developed in conjunction with other US agencies in the wake of the Biden White House's executive order on crypto. That EO was released in March. The report itself was drafted in response to that executive order. In the introduction, US Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote that "the growing use of digital assets in the global financial system has profound implications for investors, consumers, and businesses and increases the risk of crimes such as money laundering, ransomware, terrorist financing, fraud and theft, and sanctions evasion."

Now this is _really_ badly worded

[gweihir]

"Crypto" is Cryptography, period. The DOJ has been active quite a bit in that space. What the headline actually means is that the DOJ want to do something about cryptographic "currencies".

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[Arethan]

Crypto == Cryptography is a subjective viewpoint. The news headline slang for cryptocurrency has been shortened to just 'crypto' for at least the past year, probably longer.

Is it confusing? Sometimes.
Will they stop? Unlikely.

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[gweihir]

Nope: https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]

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[Joce640k]

Dictionaries usually lag parlance by a couple of years.

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[gweihir]

They do nicely show that this is _not_ a subjective viewpoint _and_ prove that "crypto" has already been take as abbreviation for "cryptography" for a long time. And that makes the use in the crapcoin fans insist on simply abysmally stupid. Not the only abysmally stupid thing in that bunch, admittedly.

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[Arethan]

You do realize that dictionaries are a reactionary ledger of terms and their usage, right? They don't actively define language, they merely attempt to record it for the sake of simplifying future communication. They're not guaranteed to be 100% correct, particularly in areas where terminology and usage is actively changing.

Whether you agree or disagree with that is moot. If any sizable group of individuals disagrees, then the statement implicitly becomes true.

hth

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[jythie]

That isn't how language works. Dictionaries are a snapshot of descriptive, not authoritatively proscriptive.

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[gweihir]

That is quite enough for my purpose.

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[UnknownSoldier]

The hijacking of terms is sadly not a new thing.

* Hack = quick fix, now it means unauthorized access.

You'll notice popular long words tend to shortened down due to use. Television = TV, etc.

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[zlives]

i hacked the daemon
with my +5 holy grenade

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[Joce640k]

I have a business card with "Hacker" on it.

Lots of people see it and ask me if I can get them a pirate copy of Windows/Office.

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[Joce640k]

(and my answer is "use the online version of Office, it's free...")

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[jythie]

Maybe sometimes, but not 'period'. I would even argue that using 'crypto' to describe 'cryptography' is increasingly unusual, or at least proportionally unusual. I rarely hear people even in the cryptography field doing so anymore.

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[gweihir]

Well, nobody can stand against a flood of stupidity...

Freedom used to do things we don't like

[AcidFnTonic]

Freedom used to do things we don't like.

News at 11.

Re:Freedom used to do things we don't like

[rsilvergun]

To be fair I don't particularly like money laundering and Ponzi schemes. Large-scale criminal endeavors tend to have negative impacts on my life and society as a whole. Also I don't particularly cherish the thought of new tax shelters so the wealthy can enjoy the benefits of civilization without paying for it. Fuck those guys.

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[JKanoock]

Yes to this!

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[gweihir]

Also ransomware payments. Apparently in Germany > 65% of SMEs have been hit by ransomware in 2021 and 20% got their systems fully or mostly encrypted. 50% of those hit decided to pay. (Numbers are from Symantec customers but should be representative.)

That is a massive, massive scale of organized crime enabled by crapcoins and it has to stop.

The Law is already Cryptic as it is

[nospam007]

Otherwise we would haven gotten rid of lawyers a long time ago.

Inevitable

[jacks smirking reven]

Since crypto assets have spent the last half a decade becoming weird gambling tokens or investment vehicles that are only useful in what they can be values in fiat national currencies they are well under the umbrella to be regulated, at the very least the exchanges are able to be regulated like any other exchange, bank or financial institution that handles finance transactions.

Regulating the tokens or blockchains themselves probably wont (or can't) happen but as soon as it is exchanged for "real" money it i