Topic: A treatise on privacy (Read 620 times)

This  is the same everywhere and people roam around casually once looking at the matter from the above just to put some of their involvement without even going into deep and taking the matter seriously.Not only with privacy or keeping your funds safety we find this attitude and mindset of people in most of the cases which lead to problems for them.Thinking that it will never happen with me is not a way to approach these issues as we all have the same chance of hitting with the same problems.

With coinbase privacy issues and Binance hacks people still lack the awareness and have their funds on these exchange who are easily prone to hacks as they already are in possession of your keys so what safety do you expect next? Many customers have shared their negatives reviews and how they lost the funds but your statement that "i am safe" is the reason behind they becoming the next soft targets.

Government will never allow citizens to slip out of their control and they will take every step to restrict them and have them restricted and the best way is to put restrictions on these exchange like the recent Coinbase by the Canada government.If you withdraw $1000 CAD or transfer it you will have to disclose the recipient details above the normal one which puts barrier to privacy and end up disclosing your personal information to them so they can put limits to you whenever they want so what's the benefit of holding funds over these exchanges?

Slowly the more government will regulate bitcoin but will also take steps to track you down so don't think your government is so crypto friendly attitude and you are safe over the counter and take all the security steps you can if you want privacy and true decentralised control over your funds.

One of the problems with this is that people hold the same mindset as they hold when it comes to centralized exchanges: "Well, it would never happen to me".

With centralized exchanges, despite literally thousands of warnings from users who have had their money go missing, had their coins confiscated, or had their accounts locked or terminated, people continue to leave large amounts of money on these exchanges, thinking "Well, I've never had any problems so I'll be fine to continue doing this". When their account is locked, they are obviously too late to do anything about it.

When it comes to governments censoring certain citizens or certain viewpoints, many people think either "Well, it would never happen in my country" or "Well, it would never happen to me". Here's the thing though. It almost certainly already is happening in your country, but it's just people you don't agree with being censored so you don't notice or care. Are you certain that your government will always treat your fairly? What about all future governments? You really can't imagine any circumstance in which your government might not like something you have to say? As we've seen throughout history, by the time they've silenced all the outspoken critics and start coming for the average citizens, then it is far too late to do anything.

I often mentally draw a parallel between this forum and bitcoin itself. There are a minority of users on this forum who express opinions which are provably wrong and/or abhorrent. Despite this, I have never and would never try to have their posts deleted or ban them from posting here just because of the nature of their opinions. There are a minority of users of bitcoin who use bitcoin for acts I would deem immoral. I have never and would never try to have them excluded from using bitcoin. Bitcoin is either censorship resistant, or it isn't. You cannot pick and choose who it is censorship resistant for.

In light of recent events, I stumbled across this topic.

One thing that I'd like to add, which wasn't brought up here yet, is the following point: who defines what is illegal?
Take for instance the current politics in Russia, where you aren't allowed to call a war, a war, or where holding up an empty paper sheet gets you arrested. Those things are illegal there, so therefore we shouldn't incentivize the use of free (freedom) money to allow protestors to receive donations and fight for information freedom, peace and democracy?

Since drugs were brought up: in some countries they're legal, in others they're not. Meaning the exact same activity (owning or selling them) may be illegal in one country and legal in another.

What I'm trying to say is: at first thought, it seems trivial that 'illegal things bad', 'legal things good', especially if you live in a country with semi-alright laws; but if you really think about, the definitions of legal and illegal activities are often very subjective and arbitrary. Lots of things we do on a daily basis (like expressing our thoughts freely) are actually illegal in some countries and you'd be outraged if I told you not to donate to people who fight for peace and freedom, because in their legislation it's not legal. There are lots of things all over the world that in their geographic and temporary location are illegal, but we all here would still consider 'good'.

Maybe you'd like not to see Bitcoin used for 'immoral' (instead of 'illegal') activities; which I would agree with, as opposed to referring to some random country's law. Besides the fact that morality is again a super subjective philosophical topic, it's physically impossible to create free, independent money and at the same time impose rules on its usage.

In my mind, by definition, the best money is the one that can be used anywhere, by anyone and for anything.
My final point (while already being mentioned) is that criminality has always existed and criminals always find a way to transact money. You could even argue that by using cryptocurrency, the criminals' lives are actually safer than if they met in person to exchange cash, as we can imagine how that often ends, if two armed criminals meet with a large bag of money.

But it's the law enforcement, of course they aren't criminals and bad people.. right?

Absolutely pathetic, although predictable. Privacy isn't bad. It never was. For a government thirsty for power and surveillance though, it's awful.

I will only keep repeating this as long as I live: governments need ways to obfuscate traces of money. They'll use it and they'll need it - as long as this statement is valid, Bitcoin and/or Monero will NOT fail. Any attempt to make Bitcoin more anonymous will be met 100% with an oppression from the governments. But we have to get past that. We have to learn to stop being afraid of what the authorities tell us especially when we know the only reason they're trying to stop us is that they are afraid of losing control over us instead of gaining more of it.

Lol.
This is EPIC

Report Claims the FBI Uses Bitcoin Mixers During BTC Forfeiture Processing

The article goes on with the Government  rule:


Yes, we know that...

Privacy is good thing, although Bitcoin don’t give us that, like they say, bitcoin is just pseudonymous. Yes, there are some of us that are good people, and what we need is just some privacy and not have anyone looking into our business, but unfortunately there are evil people who are looking for ways to use it for evil. This is why you will see some people here who don’t support the idea of being anonymous/having privacy. I am not really going to blame, we want privacy, yes that’s true, but we wouldn’t like for those who commit evil to go scout free. Unless there will be other ways to solve these problems which I don’t know.


I value privacy just because of ensuring my freedom rather than assuming like I got something to hide so I need privacy. When people find the actual reason why they need privacy over a wrong assumption about seeking privacy, then I guess they will get clear idea about bitcoin adoption as well.

But let's be real, the fact that bitcoin gives the possibility of anonymity is a net positive. You may not like some of the implications of it, but I personally prefer to have my savings stored far from my govt's reach. Simple as that, just think how much money is taken from you in taxes at any given month and is just normal to you, well, it's not okay. And privacy is a good way to combat it. Yes,  I know taxes do have good uses, but see the current US political stage and you can quickly realize how I don't want my hard earned money just mindlessly spent against my countries' own interests. But maybe that's just me.

I do agree, people overestimate the power of CCTV cameras and the coverage of facial recognition programs (even if the reality might be more “harsh” than thought), but what is really used for scanning our habits is the enormous amount of traces we leave behind via our credit cards. With those is easy to understand where we are, when we are there, what we like, what we need...
This is the ultimate privacy breaking tool.
So we know the antidote: cash. Use cash. Or to be traced. Did you notice protesters in HK buying their underground tickets on their way to protests with cash? Do you think they weren’t underground subscribers? No, they wanted to use cash not to be traced back, as simple as that.
 Also Google and Alexa (whose microphone is physicsllly detepached from the device when disabled), are somehow greatly overvalued as privacy menaced.

But the point is we must be as vigilant with digital privacy as we are with physical one: Bitcoin is not as private as initially fought, so we have to take countermeasures.

 

As 20kevin20 points out, probably far more likely is your phone, tablet, smart watch, fitness trackers, or some other device tracking your location (which they are all doing all the time) than a CCTV camera, especially since the later can be beaten by a scarf or (especially in the current climate) a face mask.

Completely agree. If you want to go full privacy, you can buy small adhesive physical shutters to put over the cameras in your devices, and you can physically remove the microphones so the only way for the phone to record sound is by you manually plugging in a headset or headphones with a built in microphone.

Still, the fact remains that all I have to do is simply leave these devices behind and any cash transaction I make can be anonymous. It is much harder to be truly anonymous while using bitcoin.

Even if some of us, accepts it or not in my opinion we may need to sacrifice some of our privacy in order to be accepted and mass adopted by institution, governments and average people.
And be prepared as it grows it gets more regulated like our current monetary system. The only difference is they cannot manipulate or control our money and the price because its versatile and scalable.

As long as we are still using centralized exchanges, of course we don't have privacy anymore, even if we track Bitcoin transactions
only know the address of Bitcoin and the amount. Once we use the centralization of exchanges or online wallets it will certainly be
connected with our personal data. But for me it doesn't matter that Bitcoin can't be completely anonymous, as long as I don't use
Bitcoin for illegal activities, I think it will be safe. Besides, I use Bitcoin not to get privacy, but I'm already tired with  transactions
using fiat. Which is always arranged by a third party.

At this point, I believe it's easier than ever and more realistic to monitor someone through phones instead of CCTVs. I highly doubt someone is keeping a track of who uses cash at some places through cameras - it's much easier and makes more sense to monitor someone through a device they carry around 24/7 with them.

And then, how will the cameras know anything besides (possibly) the products you've bought and the fact that you paid in cash? >99% of the CCTVs do not have a quality high enough to properly see and count how much money you're spending on what.

I'd be way more afraid of an Alexa or a Google Assistant than I'd be of a surveillance camera tbh, and let's not forget the fact that a lot of people use NFC cards to pay at shops for comfort - so the ledger is already there: the bank account. With the smartphone it's as easy as the phone recognizing a customer-cashier interaction and storing the data in a server.

If I had to guess, they're talking about surveillance like CCTV cameras.  Because you have to physically go somewhere to spend cash, your movements could be monitored.  I guess it's a valid point in some places, where CCTV can be quite pervasive.  But I think people overestimate the potential sometimes.  Too many shows on TV where they always catch the bad guy by enhancing some blurry footage from a camera in a way that wouldn't actually be possible in the real world, heh.

Sure, but how did people find out about those things in the first place? Word of mouth from current users and advertising. Smartphone producers spend billions of dollars each every year advertising their product. Bitcoin has none of that. Social media spread largely through word of mouth, with people wanting to "add" their friends to their profiles. If we, the current bitcoin users, don't talk about bitcoin to other people and try to spread adoption, then bitcoin doesn't have any of that either. How is adoption supposed to grow in that case?

I do agree with that, which is kind of the point I am making. We will never have some massive advertising campaign on billboards and TV ads around the world saying "Bitcoin has arrived!", so instead we need slow and steady growth by word of mouth.

Don't follow you at all here. How can the government easily identify when and where I pay for something in cash? Once I have withdrawn the cash from the bank, the paper trail ends. How does the government know if I give it to my friend to pay for some pizza or if I give it to a drug dealer in the next neighborhood?

I think it already happened.
Just looks slower now because we are rushing the adoption.

Imagine how much members only in this forum had.
Now, we are millions I think if you use the amount in userid's.
Although some have a different reason coming in, there is still always a chance they will bump into a thread like this which talks about bitcoin.
No one advertised bitcoin, that is the truth. Because no one will pay you doin it.
It came from the mouths of those who believe in it. Scattered slowly but can now be a discussion in the streets.

I cannot even count anymore how many people I bumped into personally and ended up talking about bitcoin.
Just yesterday someone asked me about bitcoin again.
My new neighbor.

Ofcourse.
It will be hard to use Bitcoin the way it supposed to be used without the privacy feature. All its important features were included in the beginning for good reasons. If you begin to remove the features little by little, you will leave the network vulnerable and weak.  
"if the purpose of something is unknown (or deliberately ignored) abuse is inevitable."

It will also he good to use its important features like privacy in ways that will be hard to abuse or use for wrong reasons

I think that privacy matters, but it's really difficult to maintain it. Just today I wanted to upload a video on Youtube anonymously because it has some content the government of one country might hate, but without a phone it's now impossible to make a Youtube channel (so I spent hours working on the issue of getting an anonymous phone number). And when it comes to Bitcoin, it's hard to spend it directly and not be identified. If it's an online shop, then you order delivery on a certain address and most likely have to also provide your name and phone number. If it's not an online store, it's even harder to find one in one's neighborhood to pay with BTC. And if one sell BTC for fiat, like me, it most likely contains identification in the form of KYC or a name associated with a debit card or something. Or, if one's meeting someone personally, this person knows how you look like and where you can meet (so you probably live in the same town if not district).

You are partially right, but you can make 100 transactions with cash, peer-to-peer, and nobody would have any ledger where all of them are recorded. That's the main difference - Bitcoin txs are recorded, validated and represent an undeniable proof that your address indeed has had transactions with another specific address.

If you go to an exchange (or any other service), use crypto to pay/exchange and you complete KYC or even some basic info forms, they'd very easily link the addresses to your name and any other info you (un)willingly gave away. That includes your IP, your e-mail address, your phone number etc. It's very easy to link these informations together and find a very accurate match for them.

And even if you enter an exchange using Tor without your real e-mail, name and phone number, chances are you are not using coin control in your BTC wallet so at one point the said account is easily linked to your other addresses through which you've leaked enough info to be identified.

I have to disagree with that, cash isn't as anonymous as bitcoin. Cash is person to person transaction which the government can easily identify where all your money goes just for asking and reviewing all your movements, unlike in bitcoin? You could create thousands of wallet in several clicks, transact seamlessly without anyone knowing that you are already doing it. Cash will be only anonymous when you transact with your eyes closed, you forgot that government has all the power.

My question is how could they do that? And also, living in the blockchain does not mean that you need to loosen your guard right?

Indeed, and I suspect Satoshi has a vision that bitcoin is going to places where we don't see it now.

I'm of a similar mindset lately.  Take it slow and steady.  For the most part, just allow people to get there on their own.  We don't need a sales pitch, just patience.  It's all about the timing.  When someone else is vocal about their dissatisfaction with traditional banking, that's where you plant the seed.  Nothing too pushy.  Just wait for that one opportune moment to casually mention to someone how much you've been enjoying the benefits of privacy and financial freedom afforded to you by Bitcoin at a time when it's going to resonate with them the most.  If they ask questions, take it from there.  If they don't respond, wait for the next moment.  

Once more people are on board, then the retailers will naturally follow.  I don't see the point in pestering companies to adopt Bitcoin at a time where they won't see a tremendous deal of traffic.  That could potentially cause more harm than good, as they may write the idea off permanently if they invest precious time in going through the learning curve and setting up payment infrastructure that people don't sufficiently use.  It has to be a grassroots thing and grow organically.  

Besides, I suspect the traditional banking system is going to give us plenty of those "opportune moments" over the course of time.  It's clearly not going to reform itself into anything remotely respectable anytime soon.  Perhaps it might yet find ways to get worse, somehow.  

And, for the topic at hand, many of the current participants of Bitcoin need to understand privacy better in order for them to be capable of correctly explaining the benefits when that moment comes.  If they are just talking about speculating and not discussing the real benefits, that's not going to help adoption either.  We need to educate the traders before we set to work on the wider public.