I thought you knew that. I am Russ Smith. As far as Bitcoin I got that ruling from Fincen that said Miners didn't have to register as money transmitters. I also filed legal action at the trademark office and had the bogus BITCOIN trademark cancelled because the Foundation dropped the ball on that issue. Of course I am the holder of the MILLY BITCOIN federal trademark. I am also setting up a number of Bitcoin web sites and I bought out CoinNews.com among others.

As for my personal life I have an MS in Physics and a Com Sci degree from Rutgers. I have 27 years of service as a federal employee with the FAA. The first half of my time there I did research on explosives and weapons detection systems. the second half I worked on information security requirements for major FAA systems. That is where I learned about systems engineering and risk analysis which is why I keep suggesting the developers do more rigorous risk assessments and expand upon the risk assessment done by Jim Harper. I also have a CISSP certification.

I lived in DC for 9 years and I operated the Consumer information organization in my spare time. I used to disseminate information about privacy and I would sue companies for breaking privacy laws, mostly under the telemarketer laws that allowed me to go into small claims. I would then testify at things like FTC hearings now and then so I have some experience in how lobbying works with entities such as EFF. I have met EFF lobbyists in the past, at least one was an ex-federal employees.

After I won settlements from about 50 companies in court I got into domain names. I got involved with the ICANN process to a certain extent which was another set of lobbyists that I got to see in action.