5 ms·

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

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.
      - mirimir 10y ago
        Yes, I know that stuff. What I don't know is how Taler exchanges would handle customer information. The reliance on bank transfers and card payments is troubling. I've read https://taler.net/ https://taler.net/ with some care, and I'm still not clear. At https://taler.net/governments https://taler.net/governments I see: > Taler is an electronic payment system that was built with the goal of supporting taxation. With Taler, the receiver of any form of payment is known, and the payment information comes attached with some details about what the payment was made for (but not the identity of the customer). Thus, governments can use this data to tax buisnesses and individuals based on their income, making tax evasion and black markets less viable. However, at https://taler.net/citizens https://taler.net/citizens I see nothing about anonymizing deposits via bank transfer from payments. I can buy Bitcoin in the same way. But before I spend them, I can anonymize by mixing via Tor. Without that step, there is no substantive anonymity.
- 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.

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.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Yes, I know that stuff. What I don't know is how Taler exchanges would handle customer information. The reliance on bank transfers and card payments is troubling. I've read https://taler.net/ https://taler.net/ with some care, and I'm still not clear. At https://taler.net/governments https://taler.net/governments I see: > Taler is an electronic payment system that was built with the goal of supporting taxation. With Taler, the receiver of any form of payment is known, and the payment information comes attached with some details about what the payment was made for (but not the identity of the customer). Thus, governments can use this data to tax buisnesses and individuals based on their income, making tax evasion and black markets less viable. However, at https://taler.net/citizens https://taler.net/citizens I see nothing about anonymizing deposits via bank transfer from payments. I can buy Bitcoin in the same way. But before I spend them, I can anonymize by mixing via Tor. Without that step, there is no substantive anonymity.
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.