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This is one of those things that the people who welcome the march towards crypto or cashless seem to forget, ignore, or don't consider important. Privacy of wha
by lykr0n 8y ago
This is one of those things that the people who welcome the march towards crypto or cashless seem to forget, ignore, or don't consider important. Privacy of what you do with your money is important.
I know Vemmo is an extreme example, but it's not like they don't still have that data accessible for interested parties to access. People here like to say "We're never going to give customer data over blah blah blah," but time changes everything. The information is there, and you don't know what the laws or social forces will bring tomorrow.
Either way, a good spotlight on the issues that need to be discussed.
- Franciscouzo 8y agoThe majority of cryptocurrencies might forgo privacy, but there are projects such as monero (and other cryptonote cryptocurrencies) which have privacy as a first class citizen.
- blattimwind 8y agoMonero's obfuscation doesn't really work as well as the developer thought it did.
- Franciscouzo 8y agoDo you have a source or paper on the vulnerabilities you're mentioning?
- blattimwind 8y agoLMGTFY "monero privacy" https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2018/03/mit-finds-monero-transactions-not-as-private-as-previously-thought/ https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2018/03/mit-finds-monero-...
- Franciscouzo 8y ago> Although these two weaknesses have been known to Monero’s developers since 2015, it was not until February 2017, when Monero’s implementation was modified, that these concerns were addressed, thus making post hoc de-anonymization more difficult. According to the researchers, transactions prior to this date are at significant risk of being identified.
- keypusher 8y agoCryptocurrency users and developers are very much aware of the importance of privacy. For many, it's the primary concern.
- lykr0n 8y agoYes, but there are two facts that will short circuit privacy. 1. By the very nature, blockchain is public. If the wallet can verify a transaction goes from one user to another, it's not private. You can obscure all you want, but you from the way I understand it, if the system can verify itself then nothing is private. 2. Blockchains are centralized in that there is once source of information. Our current payments system is more decentralized in that Bank #1 -> Mastercard -> Stripe -> Bank #2 -> Bank #3. There are multiple parties that need to work together, and theoretically have different information collection requirements. If you need to trace money from Bank #1 to Bank #3, in theory you need multiple warrants. Privacy requires some form of black box and trust in that black box. I'm not sure how you can remove that black box without reducing the privacy.
- wuliwong 8y agoI think that many people believe bitcoin is anonymous. But in my experience, privacy has always seemed to be high up on the list of reasons for cryptocurrencies.