Having read through both articles (actually, it’s not that long a read), I keep falling back to reflect on the technicalities one needs to know and manage, in order to (try to) comply with Bitcoin Privacy best practices. This escapes the scope of reach of many that have entered the Bitcoin sphere, and a certain hope is placed on those solutions that are coming, the ease of use they should have, and the broadness of usage they should reach on order to mitigate the traditional KYC related paths many of us follow or have followed in the past.
What’s more, by the time one reaches a certain awareness, he is probable already KYC linked here and there (normally to a bank as a point of entry or exit), and whilst direct usage remains relatively marginal in the world, people will need to still hop through a conversion gateway which, more often than not, is composed by the Exchange/Bank account pair.
Recently I’ve been reading about how banks here and there are blocking customer accounts that have interacted with any of exchanges, mixers, coinjoin based wallets, or gambling sites. Cases do not (yet) seem to be bulk in volume, but they introduce a high degree of uncertainty when pondering the usage of a bank account as an entry/exit point. That is only the first derivative. The second will be the potential hassle given by the pertinent taxation office. Both of these entities can apply greater choking strength at will, often with seemingly arbitrary rules and varying in resolution depending who is on the other end of the counter.
Whilst the "solutions that are coming" (reference from the second article), I wonder how many holders are being holders due to the above.
Topic: A Treatise on Bitcoin and Privacy - page 2. (Read 628 times)
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Privacy and Trust: All or Nothing
An interesting feature of this transparent setting, discussed by Satoshi and by many other early Bitcoin contributors and researchers, is the all-or-nothing nature of its privacy guarantees. A trusted third party can, indeed, promise to keep your sensitive information safe from potential kidnappers, robbers or stalkers, while still being forced to provide any detail to more powerful political entities (nation-states with their tax agencies, financial authorities, secret services, etc.).
I still always will not even trust services or thridparty proving to encrypt my data and save it, their database can still be hacked, and there are possibilities that the encrypted data can be decrypted. What even tells us some thridparty encrypted any data as there are many that do not encrypt anything. Some people would have received many phishing attack just because of data breaches somewhere.An interesting feature of this transparent setting, discussed by Satoshi and by many other early Bitcoin contributors and researchers, is the all-or-nothing nature of its privacy guarantees. A trusted third party can, indeed, promise to keep your sensitive information safe from potential kidnappers, robbers or stalkers, while still being forced to provide any detail to more powerful political entities (nation-states with their tax agencies, financial authorities, secret services, etc.).
Also, the governments are made up of people, people are the thieves, I do not see any differences. The best is to truly maintain high level of privacy. That is why I only trust my noncustodial wallet, noncustodial exchange and myself alone.
Thanks for the links on this treatise on Bitcoin and privacy, I've spent the last hour reading the two parts (1&2), and it's really educative to say the least; there's a particular excerpt I love in the part 1, that underscores how important privacy is:
I think that treatise is a good "framework" to understand why all the above actions are important while dealing with your financial sovereignty.
After reading the articles, I couldn't agree with you more, there are quite a lot of forms and "red herrings" introduced to eliminate our privacy when we spend or buy Bitcoin, but users need to know how possible it is to still maintain their privacy notwithstanding and how important it is to do so. This treatise provides such knowledge in a form that is very easy to understand and implement. 
A few times ago, my fellow italian Bitcoin maximalist Giacomo Zucco published a two part Treatise on Bitcoin and Privacy on the Bitcoin Magazine.
I immediately translated in italian and posted on the italian board (Un trattato su Bitcoin e la Privacy).
I am opening this thread to discuss it, because I see on many occasion that privacy is not a well understood concept, and above all, the very specific nature of this feature make "privacy related stuff" very "dangerous" to handle:
Privacy is a very strange good: once you let it go, you cannot claim it back.
So I am here to suggest the read of this article:
A Treatise On Bitcoin And Privacy Part 1: A Match Made In The Whitepaper
A Treatise On Bitcoin And Privacy Part 2: Don’t Be Misled By Red Herrings
In the past months I made a few privacy related posts:
Coinbase the most anti-Bitcoin organisation. Make #DeleteCoinbase great again
Dust Attack, what it is, why it is dangerous and how to prevent falling to it
[Total privacy Bitcoin]: off grid Transactions LoRaWan/goTenna
Comprare Bitcoin senza KYC: Bitcoin bancomat a Milano rispettoso della Privacy (in Italian).
I think that treatise is a good "framework" to understand why all the above actions are important while dealing with your financial sovereignty.
I immediately translated in italian and posted on the italian board (Un trattato su Bitcoin e la Privacy).
I am opening this thread to discuss it, because I see on many occasion that privacy is not a well understood concept, and above all, the very specific nature of this feature make "privacy related stuff" very "dangerous" to handle:
Privacy is a very strange good: once you let it go, you cannot claim it back.
So I am here to suggest the read of this article:
A Treatise On Bitcoin And Privacy Part 1: A Match Made In The Whitepaper
Quote
How one’s focus can shift in just two weeks! While today everybody in the Bitcoin space seems more concerned with price fluctuations in response to the global financial panic (understandably so), it’s important to remember perennial issues that never go away, like the importance of maintaining your privacy when you transact in bitcoin. Throughout this month especially, we’ve been hearing reports of KYC/AML-compliant exchanges freezing user accounts due to suspected use of CoinJoin software (more on that later), followed by yet another case of a famous and respected early Bitcoin proponent promoting his new illiquid altcoin as something that “will replace Bitcoin, which isn’t private enough!”
If you want to take a short break from global pandemics, financial meltdowns and price volatility, here’s an attempt at analysing claims, facts and context of this latest “Bitcoin drama.” To begin with, in Part 1 of this two-part series, we’ll start by looking at the fundamental relationship between Bitcoin and privacy by going back to the beginning with the whitepaper. Then, in Part 2, we’ll focus on some the ways that Bitcoin privacy is being maintained and improved upon — and strike down a few “red herrings.”
If you want to take a short break from global pandemics, financial meltdowns and price volatility, here’s an attempt at analysing claims, facts and context of this latest “Bitcoin drama.” To begin with, in Part 1 of this two-part series, we’ll start by looking at the fundamental relationship between Bitcoin and privacy by going back to the beginning with the whitepaper. Then, in Part 2, we’ll focus on some the ways that Bitcoin privacy is being maintained and improved upon — and strike down a few “red herrings.”
A Treatise On Bitcoin And Privacy Part 2: Don’t Be Misled By Red Herrings
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In Part One of this treatise, we examined the fundamental relationship between Bitcoin and privacy by going back to the beginning with the whitepaper. In spite of some excellent privacy preserving options that have been available to users since those early days, we seem to have taken a few wrong turns. But to fix it, in order to make Bitcoin’s privacy “great again,” we must be able to distinguish between real privacy and red herrings that can only lead us further off the path.
In the past months I made a few privacy related posts:
Coinbase the most anti-Bitcoin organisation. Make #DeleteCoinbase great again
Dust Attack, what it is, why it is dangerous and how to prevent falling to it
[Total privacy Bitcoin]: off grid Transactions LoRaWan/goTenna
Comprare Bitcoin senza KYC: Bitcoin bancomat a Milano rispettoso della Privacy (in Italian).
I think that treatise is a good "framework" to understand why all the above actions are important while dealing with your financial sovereignty.
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