Topic: Bitcoin and tools. Would you like to spend/live without extra data control? (Read 288 times)

In order for the circulation of bitcoin or other cryptocurrency in society to be stable and accepted by society, this circulation of crypto must be built into existing economic relations. Therefore, a certain share of control over the circulation of cryptocurrency and its users will be in society and the state in the future.

P2P is definitely a way to stay hidden but at the same time we are talking about something that is a bit more definitely difficult for sure. I am not saying that we shouldn't do something like that at all, P2P is still a good way to go, but that doesn't mean that we have to use that neither.

I personally feel like government knowing what I am doing and how much money I have is fine by me, KYC is nothing to me at all. Don't get me wrong, I understand others doing it in hiding and that’s fine by me, I am not saying that it's bad, all I am saying is that we shouldn't really focus on anything that would be dangerous for our sake, and that’s fine, p2p or exchanges, both are fine.

Main problem is that it is easier to look where it's light and not where is hidden. It is easier for official to collect lots of unnecessary data and report that work is done. Risks of losing all that data and that it can be used by criminals after that are definitely not null. If I was sure all my data would be only controlled by government it would be one situation, but we know that security breaches and data losses are everywhere so I prefer less my data collected by anyone.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that all user actions are monitored today. With fiat, if you pay in cash, you can to essentially undetected (if you want to avoid face identification you can simply wear a mask which is still recommended even if not obligatory). If you are browsing the Internet, you can use VPN if you want to ensure your privacy. Also, nobody has enough resources to literally monitor every user (at least, to do so actively instead of living the job to algorithms). Bitcoin is transparent, so transactions are very traceable. Whether these lead to your real identity is largely a matter of how careful you are. As for me and privacy, I would prefer the companies to know less about me, yes, but I am also not going to go out of my way to achieve it.

As time goes by, data is slowly becoming important in our daily lives, as you can also there are a lot of companies are being sued because of mishandling of users' personal data and that's how data is important.
There are a lot of people who also don't know how important data is, they also don't know how the basics to protect personal data.

With Bitcoin now when we are using payment, I am very positive about using it for such payments, especially online, there are a lot of entities that accept Bitcoin without any personal information, just pay and you are good to go.

If we do speak about being anonymous then it could really be that possible even if the merchant or any services out there on your place do accept bitcoin then there's no way that they could able to know
or the government would look upon on whose the one who did make such payment.

For sure these merchants would be usually touching up 3rd party providers which would really be that normal to be regulated and they are the only ones who would
be monitored out but of us users or consumers then there's no way that you could able to make yourself known.

In some scenarios, it's worth mentioning that VPN + Tor may give additional benefits[1]. Though, I generally agree that if someone is not having a strong enough reason to use it with a VPN, they shouldn't combine it. Even if you trying to hide from your ISP from using Tor or circumvent Tor censorship, I think using a bridge will give more benefits.

[1] https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/wikis/doc/TorPlusVPN

Now listen carefully, we might be a bunch of people who are advocating for privacy and less regulation, but we're not stupid folks. We know - it's common knowledge - that you need to have a certain degree of controls inside the system to stop it from being abused by criminals (governments unfortunately have not considered scammers yet).

Such controls include KYC, declaring where you got your coins from if you are transferring coins in 5 & 6 figures, even a certain degree of analysis to prevent (once again) criminals from abusing the system by tracking their funds.

But any surveillence technology that's applied broadly, upon everyone, does not achieve any results. There is simply too much data being collected for all of the personnel to analyze. In some cases we are talking billions of records. The result of which naturally is that some of the actual criminals manage to get away through the huge morass of data that needs to be parsed. (Somebody needs to tell that [again] to the NSA.)

So the solution is a sort of compromise - surveillence of targeted (small enough to process) populations of people where there's a high concentration of criminals abusing the system. Concentration getting low in some places? Then keep the criminals in your database and erase the rest of the population from your monitors. Another locality is gettng high rates of crime? Track them accordingly. It's not that hard to understand.

It will also silence the people who keep saying that BTC is only a "criminal's technology".

I wouldn't say that's necessary if you're working on an open-source environment. Even a closed-source software will require permission to gain access.

Use Tor. Period.

If you use VPN alone, privacy isn't guaranteed. If you connect from Tor to the VPN, it's neither good, because your VPN provider knows what you're sending through Tor. If you connect from VPN to Tor, it's, again, worse than Tor alone, because whatever you do is known from your VPN.

It wouldn't be enough. A mobile phone operator will collect lots of data just monitoring your movements. Combining that data with other data they collect they can say lots about you and your life. Combining that data with street cameras can give more. It is impossible not to allow to monitor you at all if any huge and powerful enough organisation would like to do it, unfortunately.

In a simple way, we can consider Bitcoin a decentralized, pseudo-anonymous currency, and you can enhance privacy with a little effort but always remember that privacy is came with cost and learn, so even if you use Bitcoin with a high level of privacy, your ignoring the basics of privacy will end everything.

To enhance privacy you need:

• Use an open source operating system.
• Do not give permissions to closed or unknown programs.
• Remove the physical parts or reduce their use as much as possible (camera, GPS, ... etc.)

To enhance the privacy of Bitcoin:

• RUN full node, open source wallet.
• Dont trust, verify.
• Use Tor, and trusted VPN.
• Do not download any application that you do not know
• Pay cash, buy digital services and sell them for bitcoin.
• Do not buy bitcoins from sites to which you have provided personal data or use a mixing service.
• Learn more and be careful.

Some useful links:

Breaking Mixing Services
[Guide] Decent mixing methods
[Education] Bitcoin Privacy and Anonymity

The problem is, these awesome features of Bitcoin like control over your funds and better privacy come at extreme cost. The price volatility, the enormous security responsibility, uncertain regulatory status, occasional problems with fees - these reasons make Bitcoin benefits not worth it for majority of businesses and consumers alike. People who already value privacy above all are using all the tools they need for it, including Bitcoin or privacycoins.

Just because you can't achieve 100% anonymity, which is natural since there isn't such thing as completely anonymous but levels of anonymity, it doesn't mean they're utopias. You can and should try to hide, protect yourself from surveillance, as much as possible, for your own good. If you've given up with this, you wouldn't mind sharing your real name, home address and phone number on an internet board.

But, you won't.

No, you didn't. I just cleared it up.

I believe privacy and anonymity are utopias. You can never achieve 100% of both in this modern world. Bitcoin and another measures mentioned above help decreasing your exposition, but don't prevent you from  being tracked, unless you don't have any IDs and live hidden in the jungle, eating and drinking from the nature.

If you manage a household, you have bills in your name, so you are already being monitored. If you have a job, you aren't anonymous anymore and probably it will be a must to have a decent communication tool, being indispensable to have a whatsapp or telegram account. If you access youtube (I believe nobody with internet access live without youtube) you are being tracked.

The problem is the government is never satisfied with the level of accessibility they have over citizens' lives. They always want more and more, being totally abusive and tyrant at some point. It's regards these levels of privacy and pseudo-anonymity people should worry in maintaining in my opinion.

Pseudo-anonymity doesn't have to do with KYC, though. If your merchant requires you to give him personal info to make a purchase with cash and you're obtuse enough to give it to him, it doesn't worsen cash's anonymity. Because privacy invasion happens outside the transaction.

Same goes for bitcoin. Pseudo-anonymity is on-chain traceability.

That is true. But the point is — you're asking a Bitcoin community. 99% is going to agree with you. It's like asking a hardcore Trump supporter what he/she thinks about Trump. You already know the answer you're going to get.

Yes, but Monero is much less adopted. Better go with bitcoin, wherein you gain a decent, acceptable level of privacy and have lots of merchants to choose from. Utilize coin control and mixing.

Here's some good replacements:

• Google search with DuckDuckGo.
• Android with CalyxOS or GrapheneOS.
• Google Chrome with Mozilla Firefox plus some extensions like uBlock Origin. If you're willing to sacrifice speed for privacy, go with Tor, even better.
• Gmail with Protonmail.
• Windows with Linux Mint. Tails is an even better OS, but not an alternative for a local, personal computer.

Privacy is underrated. If it was overrated, people would care. They don't.

Any difference to who? To Meta, Microsoft, Google etc.? No, it doesn't make any difference. To your life? It does.

What conclusion would you like to reach? personal data in terms of anonymity? Fiat is distinctly different in context, updates, and controls. It should be without the need to ask anything, the answer for members on the forum is as much as possible while keeping personal data from being exposed and scattered. As for fiat engagement with the community, it's fine, you don't need to hook it up because the bitcoin system isn't centralized by the institutions that collect the data.

Freedom, Privacy and Trust are some of the best guaranteed benefits you get using bitcoin not only as an investment asset but as a means of making payments without any compromise to your security, bitcoin is the solution to the ever longing personal economy challenges in our daily lives, it has far more better potentials against the economy inflation because no central authority required to engage the use of bitcoin.

If you want to live your life without allowing someone to monitor you, do the below mentioned activities,

1. Delete all your social media accounts
2. Stop using Apple of Android devices and move back to basic mobile
3. Close all your bank accounts and transact only using Monero or any other similar privacy focused cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not anonymous.

If you are able to do all these above mentioned activities, you will be able to avoid most of the monitoring mechanisms. But will it give you a convenient life? I guess no!

Privacy is overrated! Don't fall for it! Alone your data doesn't make any difference!