Topic: [XMR] Monero Speculation - page 2017. (Read 3313076 times)

I don't plan on convincing you. As I said, I do value my privacy. I'm not anal about it.

It's good that you can see that some see value in it. I think more and more people will see value in it. I agree and disagree with smooth at the same time. I do think that too many people are complacent, agreed. However, at the same time I think that the vast majority of people simply do not know how much spying is going on (be it from official bodies, contractors or just third party companies selling big data). Especially the latter. Very few outside the field knows this is going on. It's hardly ever covered in the mainstream media. We surmise though that it will be a larger and larger issue when people see the ramifications of it.

But let's break it apart a bit and spell it out from my rhetoricals:

- You wouldn't want your health insurance knowing your chocolate bar habits, they might raise your premium because of it. They might even refuse to take you on as a customer.
- If your boss knows your stopping your birth control, he might let you go. Maybe he doesn't want to pay for maternity leave. It would be mighty convenient to do that before you fell pregnant.
- If a merchant knows exactly what you've been willing to pay for items before he will be able to charge different prices to customers. And charge you more.
- If your government isn't friendly towards free speech (as we see governments all over the world move towards) and you hold a political opinion that is against the powers that be, your existence in life can be very troublesome. (this is such deep subject so I will not go into it more).
- If you run a little corner-shop and your customers can see what you pay for prices, they might just go straight to the source. Your competitors might be able to see it too. They can see your suppliers and the prices you pay. It's not necessarily good for your business.
- If people can see that you went to a psychiatrist, and take specific meds you could for example risk not being invited to job interviews, or have that date you were going on cancelled, or..or..
- If you were running a local diner, and customers could see that other people were getting special deals (might be your frequent patronage), they would start asking for cheaper meals - or go somewhere else.
- The last one of my previous questions spoke for itself almost. If rogue elements (be it thieves or whatever) can see when you go to the movies, on holidays, go out shopping they can arrange for a house visit at those times. But not just that - they can see WHAT you are shopping - hey you shop for nice things let's steal that..! - and plan accordingly.)

What's that old song called? "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.."

Front page of r/bitcoin: www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2z4b6j/pay_any_bitcoin_address_anonymously_with_monero/

The net sum of data collection is to build a prison around you 24/7 monitoring. It is the slow creep of it that is the insidious part most just don't see. It's just like slowly boiling a frog, it sits there and dies. Those born today are born into a prison they cannot even see. Have you ever been stopped by a cop and asked where your going, where your going to and why? These are infringements of your liberty and what if you don't want to answer them or lie and they have your surveillance at their fingertips? Maybe we should all just carry our movement papers with us. Letting these infringements pass without fighting them is doing yourself and more importantly your descendants inexorable harm.

Once wearable computing takes off, with augmented reality and near-perfect real-time facial recognition, cross-referenced with an analysis of all of your web surfing habits and financial transactions, I suspect you'll change your mind.

I am not saying that I'd want to make my transactions public. Rather, there isn't enough incentive to switch to monero JUST because you can keep such trivial transactions private. It's not a big enough motivation for most people.

@^
Of course I admit I have things I never want other people to find out about me. In fact, in comparison with the world (not the crypto community) I believe I lean towards the side that values privacy. That said, if in the future there is technology that can completely eliminate crimes before they are committed, because everything about the criminal's mindset is known, and that a computer can analyze exactly what I want, for example, what movie would interest me the most at that particular time, instead of having me search google for recommendations, read dozens of them then end up getting "tricked" by a misleading review/rec and wasting my time on mediocre movies.

I can certainly see benefits in having info collected.

Yes, it works well. I used it to donate to freeross.org.

Very well said!


Those that don't understand this and that the continuing data collection of every part of an individuals life is threatening to them just do not grasp the concept, or are part of the problem and profiting from it.

I disagree with you here. Even if you don't care about that individual transaction, is there any reason you would want to make it public? The default should be to private and not open because you never know what could happen in the future. In addition to that what if someone was strongly against Aero bars and decided to block transactions from people that have bought them? Given a long enough timeline an open ledger coin will become less and less fungible IMO. If services can be created around blacklisting coins they will be and most likely already are.

Below is a link to an interesting Ted talk regrading privacy and a link to a discussion regarding a company that is working to deanonymize Bitcoin.

http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters?language=en

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2yvy6b/a_regulatory_compliance_service_is_sybil/

Looks interesting:

https://xmr.to/

Happy 3-week "anniversary" of the Announcement!

XMR price is up +126% in 3 weeks.

I'm gonna stay away from any judgement calls about dark markets or the average person's desire for privacy, and bring everyone back to the original fireside chat where fluffy was showing off how they were using Iframes to build the GUI. He kept saying "power users" and that is the use-case that brought me into Monero. A power user wants control, and a currency that offers privacy (as well as a GUI that represents how they manage their day-to-day lives) gives it to them. Monero is an accurate reflection of a certain segment of the population who want control of as much as their lives as possible. These people are leaders, self-sustained individualists, contrarians, the young and exuberant, or maybe (hopefully) just about anyone who takes more than a passive interest in their life and how much control they have over it--this is why Monero succeeds: not a particular market, but a particular person.  IMO

I think people care, its just that they feel powerless to stop it. Kind of like "yeah, but what are yah gonna do?" I guess the answer would be to use cash for everything, but for some people they don't feel safe or for whatever reason there's a combination of things that outweighs the lack of privacy.

I think this is pretty important, and we've discussed several times since the start of Monero. If the only thing you can do with Monero is illicit trade, then sellers will just dump it as soon as they get it, in exchange for something they can actually spend. No willingness to hold means no store of value at all. For people to hold money they have to be able to use it for unknown future purchase needs, and that requires wide acceptability and use. You can't live on drugs alone.

Monero needs to have a very significant legal, mundane, use, for at least three reasons.

First, having a significant legal use means that at least some jurisdictions can't just ban it, and criminalize anyone found running a monero node. If the vast majority of Monero use is illegal, this could be done. Note that this doesn't prevent illegal spying/compromising, nor more targetted attacks, and it doesn't prevent full criminalization in all jurisdictions, in case someone might want to pretend I claim that.

Second, having more uses brings more people, liquidity, decentralization, and hash rate. All are good, directly or indirectly, for Monero's security and usefulness.

Third, it's a point of principle. Normal run of the mill people conducting boring transactions have the right to privacy, even if it's being shredded and stomped over every minute nowadays. Monero can serve as a light of hope that privacy is still possible, maybe encouraging others to being privacy helping software in other areas.

It is actually pretty clear you are correct, if you look at how the whole commercial and government spying industry has developed. It's not the case that people aren't aware of it, but most really and truly don't care.

So as you say there may be more some narrower niches that drive adoption, at least at first.

Or fungibility might drive the issue more than privacy. (For example, even today I would be reluctant to receive Bitcoins from a third party into my Coinbase account, or even receive Bitcoins and then send them there. In fact sending Bitcoins from a Coinbase account is a bit risky too.)

Or public opinion might shift on the privacy question in some unknown and unexpected way. Always hard to predict the future.

Great explanation and something to show to people when they say 'I don't care about privacy and you shouldn't either if you have nothing to hide'. I get sick of that argument and nervous as hell when a politician says it or some variant thereof.

Your comment got me thinking about who will be the first to develop a qt for some shit coin that places targeted banner ads across the wallet based on their spending habits.

I'll be surprised if it has not already happened

I don't want anyone to know anything about my finances without my consent. I guess other people don't feel strongly about that yet. Otherwise, XMR would be #2. I hate to wish for bad things to happen, but perhaps it will take a privacy/fungibility-disaster for people to finally wake up. Someone will be arrested by the police because of taint or targeted for theft or kidnapping after they reveal a high balance. Something will happen that will be big in the media and they will be forced to confront the issue.

I have to say that I really don't, and I think the vast majority (or at least a good number of ordinary folks) of the world doesn't. More important things to care about.

That said, I guess I can see that some people might care about such things, which does give it value. Is it enough to make monero mainstream? Only time will tell.

Really? Sorry for the rhetoricals, but do you want you health insurance to make statistics on your chocolate bar consumption? Do you want your boss to know when you stop buying prophylactics, or what you're buying at the pharmacy? Do you want merchants knowing your willingness to pay a certain price compared to other customers? Do you want to be censored/excluded/persecuted because you supported the democrats (insert any other political fraction) or wikileaks? Would you like for your customers to see the price you pay for the goods you sell them (and where you buy them)? Would you like that people can see you're visiting the psychiatrist - and which medicine he/she prescribed because of price correlation? Would the local diner like to see that all customers can see that some of the regulars get discounts? Do you want people (thieves e.g.) to see not just that you go to the movies - but when you go to the movies (so you are out of home), or that you are paying for things overseas (i.e. you are away on holiday).

The examples are endless in my opinion.