9 ms·

That is a nice and lovely idea... Only every government everywhere hates it. If it is possible to pay for something anonymously, then there is no following th

by mjevans 10y ago

That is a nice and lovely idea... Only every government everywhere hates it. If it is possible to pay for something anonymously, then there is no following the money of others paying anonymously for other reasons. Including paying for products or services that are illegal or even with money from such sales. Yes, you might compare this to cash. Cash that everyone used to carry around. It the higher denominations are marked (serial numbered), at least for US currency. Still it takes a LOT of effort to track their flow. For any kind of digital currency this scheme isn't tenable or repeatable. The tracking would either be too easy to prevent abuse, or too easy to abuse (get around). Maybe we can have this level of freedom, if we admit that being at war with our population is a bad idea. If we allow the legal and controlled use of current vices. It wouldn't be perfect, but at least in that world we could probably get by with just controlling the income phase. Though if you wanted to tax wealth (not income) you'd also need to report a total of 'outflow'. Which makes obtaining 'gifts' from sources not clearly related to work a vector suspect as tax avoidance via temporal displacement of wealth.

lumberjack 10y ago
He's plugging GNU Taler which was specifically designed to be government friendly (allows collection of taxes and AML compliance and not easy to implement black markets). He's not talking about other kind cryptocurrencies. Stallman isn't a "down with the government" type of person despite being sceptical of surveillance.
- mirimir 10y ago
  So the title of his article is a lie, then. > Publishers must let online readers pay for news anonymously It's not anonymous if GNU Taler knows user identity.
  - p4bl0 10y ago
    GNU Taler is a technology, not a company, so it doesn't "know" things in the sense that would be bothersome here. From GNU Taler's website: “When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed to the merchant. The bank, government and exchange will also never learn how you spent your electronic money. However, you can prove that you paid in court if necessary.”
    - mirimir 10y ago
      OK, the exchange will know your identity. That's not anonymous. Edit: Anonymity is a strong claim. Even Tor daemon warns "This is experimental software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity."
      - Retric 10y ago
        Crypto signatures let you prove things without disclosing anything to a third party. Payment X was (singed by XYZ). Yo IRS I paid for it (signed by XYZ).
        mirimir 10y ago
        Looking at https://taler.net/citizens https://taler.net/citizens I see that Taler exchange accounts are funded by bank transfers. I see no indication that wallets are anonymized from deposit accounts. So do you argue that payments are fully anonymous? Edit: IRS? Where does IRS come in for something anonymous?
      - p4bl0 10y ago
        There are ways to prove things without disclosing them using crypto. A very simple example is using hashing. Let's say two friends A and B want to play head-or-tail in a chat discussion. If A first tells "head" or "tail" and then do the draw and win, B won't trust that A did not cheat. But if B do the draw, then A won't trust them. What you need is a way for either A or B to choose between "head" or "tail" and them commit to that choice and be able to prove it to the other after the other made the draw. This is possible without any trusted third-party: — A choose for example "tail", they can hash that choice along with a "password" (generally called salt). For example they hash "tailLO7f-(86F" with md5, the result is "a079dcaae211e60756e5519058dcfc97". — A sends that hash to B. B cannot know from the hash if A chose "head" or "tail", because the hash computation is way too difficult to inverse and they do not know the password to add after "head" or "tail". — B draws a coin (or even chose the result, it doesn't really matter) and tells the result to A. — Then A can prove to B that they chose "tail", by telling B the password "LO7f-(86F" so B can add that to "tail" and verify A's claim by computing the hash themselves. Now this is a very simple example of how it is possible to prove things without disclosing information. It is of course much more complicated in the settings of financial transactions with multiple parties, but it shows that it is possible if necessary prove previously undisclosed claims.
  - bo1024 10y ago
    It seems like you are assuming a lot about how GNU Taler works. I don't know that you're wrong, but I'd be pretty confident that Stallman knows what he's doing and is not one to take the word "anonymous" lightly. I don't much about Taler, but here is the site so you can see for yourself if you believe it: https://taler.net/ https://taler.net/
  - acdha 10y ago
    Lying is a strong, loaded term to toss around for a difference in opinion. From the context, it's immediately clear that Stallman was referring to the relationship between the reader and the publisher. That still counts as anonymous from their perspective even if the reader also has other relationships with different parties (ISP, bank, government, etc.) on different terms.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      It's disingenuous, at best, to style a system as "anonymous" when it's providing only a very limited sort of anonymity. Consider the dispute between the FBI etc and Apple over backdooring iPhone encryption. By the logic that you propose here, Apple could claim secure device encryption even with backdoors. Indeed, claims about anonymity are a red flag for bullshit. Because it's so nontrivial. And because failure tends to be calamitous.
  - upofadown 10y ago
    You seem to be claiming that Taler doesn't work without providing any actual arguments.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      I've read the website and whitepaper carefully. I see no language about partition of trust between users' deposit accounts and payment systems. Yes, payments are blind-signed. But it's a single entity that's handling the entire process.
- skybrian 10y ago
  It does better than Bitcoin (taxes can be collected) but it looks like it could still be used for money laundering? The whole point is to make it impossible to find out who paid for what document, so money can be legally collected in one place without disclosing where it came from, beyond that it was sent through Taler.
p4bl0 10y ago
As lumberjack said, you should look into GNU Taler [1]. Their goal is precisely to provide a privacy-enabled form of payments that is compatible with the rule of law in a democracy. [1] https://taler.net/ https://taler.net/
merpnderp 10y ago
The official stance of US law enforcement is already that large sums of cash are presumed guilty of illegal activity and you must prove the money innocent. My state has a state question coming up to require criminal charges to seize money and you should hear the DA's grinding and gnashing their teeth over how this will flood the state in crime and drugs.
z3t4 10y ago
With Bitcoin you get the best of both worlds, it's possible to be anonymous, but it's also possible to follow the money.

by mjevans 10y ago

lumberjack 10y ago

He's plugging GNU Taler which was specifically designed to be government friendly (allows collection of taxes and AML compliance and not easy to implement black markets). He's not talking about other kind cryptocurrencies. Stallman isn't a "down with the government" type of person despite being sceptical of surveillance.

mirimir 10y ago
So the title of his article is a lie, then. > Publishers must let online readers pay for news anonymously It's not anonymous if GNU Taler knows user identity.
- p4bl0 10y ago
  GNU Taler is a technology, not a company, so it doesn't "know" things in the sense that would be bothersome here. From GNU Taler's website: “When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed to the merchant. The bank, government and exchange will also never learn how you spent your electronic money. However, you can prove that you paid in court if necessary.”
  - mirimir 10y ago
    OK, the exchange will know your identity. That's not anonymous. Edit: Anonymity is a strong claim. Even Tor daemon warns "This is experimental software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity."
    - Retric 10y ago
      Crypto signatures let you prove things without disclosing anything to a third party. Payment X was (singed by XYZ). Yo IRS I paid for it (signed by XYZ).
      - mirimir 10y ago
        Looking at https://taler.net/citizens https://taler.net/citizens I see that Taler exchange accounts are funded by bank transfers. I see no indication that wallets are anonymized from deposit accounts. So do you argue that payments are fully anonymous? Edit: IRS? Where does IRS come in for something anonymous?
    - p4bl0 10y ago
      There are ways to prove things without disclosing them using crypto. A very simple example is using hashing. Let's say two friends A and B want to play head-or-tail in a chat discussion. If A first tells "head" or "tail" and then do the draw and win, B won't trust that A did not cheat. But if B do the draw, then A won't trust them. What you need is a way for either A or B to choose between "head" or "tail" and them commit to that choice and be able to prove it to the other after the other made the draw. This is possible without any trusted third-party: — A choose for example "tail", they can hash that choice along with a "password" (generally called salt). For example they hash "tailLO7f-(86F" with md5, the result is "a079dcaae211e60756e5519058dcfc97". — A sends that hash to B. B cannot know from the hash if A chose "head" or "tail", because the hash computation is way too difficult to inverse and they do not know the password to add after "head" or "tail". — B draws a coin (or even chose the result, it doesn't really matter) and tells the result to A. — Then A can prove to B that they chose "tail", by telling B the password "LO7f-(86F" so B can add that to "tail" and verify A's claim by computing the hash themselves. Now this is a very simple example of how it is possible to prove things without disclosing information. It is of course much more complicated in the settings of financial transactions with multiple parties, but it shows that it is possible if necessary prove previously undisclosed claims.
- bo1024 10y ago
  It seems like you are assuming a lot about how GNU Taler works. I don't know that you're wrong, but I'd be pretty confident that Stallman knows what he's doing and is not one to take the word "anonymous" lightly. I don't much about Taler, but here is the site so you can see for yourself if you believe it: https://taler.net/ https://taler.net/
- acdha 10y ago
  Lying is a strong, loaded term to toss around for a difference in opinion. From the context, it's immediately clear that Stallman was referring to the relationship between the reader and the publisher. That still counts as anonymous from their perspective even if the reader also has other relationships with different parties (ISP, bank, government, etc.) on different terms.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    It's disingenuous, at best, to style a system as "anonymous" when it's providing only a very limited sort of anonymity. Consider the dispute between the FBI etc and Apple over backdooring iPhone encryption. By the logic that you propose here, Apple could claim secure device encryption even with backdoors. Indeed, claims about anonymity are a red flag for bullshit. Because it's so nontrivial. And because failure tends to be calamitous.
- upofadown 10y ago
  You seem to be claiming that Taler doesn't work without providing any actual arguments.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    I've read the website and whitepaper carefully. I see no language about partition of trust between users' deposit accounts and payment systems. Yes, payments are blind-signed. But it's a single entity that's handling the entire process.
skybrian 10y ago
It does better than Bitcoin (taxes can be collected) but it looks like it could still be used for money laundering? The whole point is to make it impossible to find out who paid for what document, so money can be legally collected in one place without disclosing where it came from, beyond that it was sent through Taler.

p4bl0 10y ago

As lumberjack said, you should look into GNU Taler [1]. Their goal is precisely to provide a privacy-enabled form of payments that is compatible with the rule of law in a democracy. [1] https://taler.net/ https://taler.net/

merpnderp 10y ago

The official stance of US law enforcement is already that large sums of cash are presumed guilty of illegal activity and you must prove the money innocent. My state has a state question coming up to require criminal charges to seize money and you should hear the DA's grinding and gnashing their teeth over how this will flood the state in crime and drugs.

z3t4 10y ago

With Bitcoin you get the best of both worlds, it's possible to be anonymous, but it's also possible to follow the money.