6 ms·

Absolutely no aspect of Taler could be reasonably described as "government spyware". First of all, only receivers of Taler tokens are auditable (and the reason

by cyphar 8y ago

Absolutely no aspect of Taler could be reasonably described as "government spyware". First of all, only receivers of Taler tokens are auditable (and the reason for this is so that businesses can show they've paid their taxes correctly -- unless you are a "taxation is theft" type of person I'm sure you'll agree that if you want to have large-scale systems of doing transactions this is a requirement unless you want government intervention). Consumers are not auditable, nor is it possible for any third-party to correlate their purchases. Comparing this to BitCoin, you would have to also argue that BitCoin is "government spyware" because it provides a public transaction record -- which is far more information about consumers' transactions than is available through Taler. By the same token, VISA or your bank is government spyware. That's just a ludicrous argument.

jstanley 8y ago
> By the same token, VISA or your bank is government spyware. That's just a ludicrous argument. No it isn't! The fact that visa and banks are government spyware is basically why bitcoin was invented in the first place.
- cyphar 8y ago
  Bitcoin has a public record of every transaction by every user, with every users' current balance made public (the former might be possible to reduce with Lightning, but the latter is not since you have to settle everyone's balance on-chain at the end of the day). Can you please clarify by which token VISA and banks (and GNU Taler) are "government spyware" and Bitcoin is not? I happen to think that none of these systems are "government spyware" but if you want to argue otherwise, it would be nice to have substantiated statements.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    The part where Visa and banks know your name and address and the blockchain doesn't.
    - cyphar 8y ago
      Every single exchange I've used requires providing multiple forms of government ID. Practically speaking, most Bitcoin users identify themselves in this manner. Yeah, there's localbitcoins.com but just because it's technically possible to do doesn't mean that it is a practical difference if very few people do it. Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's generally a problem that all of these institutions know your name and address. But to be honest, I trust my bank to better protect my personal information than some random Bitcoin exchange.
      - jstanley 8y ago
        But with Bitcoin you don't have to use any exchange. You can get paid directly in Bitcoin for goods and services. With fiat, there is no way to do digital transactions without attaching your name and address.
        cyphar 8y ago
        > You can get paid directly in Bitcoin for goods and services. While I do understand why this is valuable, no government accepts taxes to be paid in Bitcoin (nor do banks give out loans in Bitcoin). As a result, everyone will need to convert some of their Bitcoin to fiat eventually, allowing for de-anonymisation. Not to mention that basically nobody gets paid in Bitcoin (personally there's no way I would accept my wage be paid in a currency that is that volatile). > With fiat, there is no way to do digital transactions without attaching your name and address. Taler is a system that can work on any medium of exchange (fiat, cryptocurrency, sheep, whatever) and doesn't attach your name and address to all transactions.
CryptoPunk 8y ago
You're making an ideological argument for taxation of income and for having government spyware embedded in our financial tools, not a technical argument that GNU Taler is not government spyware. "Spyware" doesn't mean "spying software that I don't like". You liking it and thinking it necessary makes it no less spyware.
- cyphar 8y ago
  Can you explain, in technical terms, how GNU Taler is literally government spyware? It was not developed by a government, it does precisely what it advertises, does not steal information from users' computers, and is GPLv3+ licensed. It therefore does not fulfill any criteria that a reasonable person would use to define "spyware", let alone "government spyware". If the concern is the government knowing about your transactions (which Taler doesn't allow -- but whatever), then that is an ideological concern not a technical one. I don't know why you think that my liking GNU Taler's principles somehow invalidates that it does not fulfill the definition of "government spyware". I assumed that the objection was ideological, not technical -- because as I've outlined above there is no technical basis on which to base this view (I don't think it's good to strawman people -- I assumed that GP was making the stronger ideological argument rather than the [in my opinion] incorrect technical argument).
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    I guess it's not spyware, or a backdoor, because it's not secret. It's an overt listening device for the government. The lack of privacy to government surveillance is the important feature that people are trying to convey when they use the term "spyware" to describe it. But we can use a more precise term if you're concerned about the term's connotations with secretive spying. The only world where people would use financial software like this that puts them in such a subordinate position vis-a-vis the government, is one where real financial privacy technology is illegal. Stallman should be upfront about whether such laws are what he would like to see implemented.
    - cyphar 8y ago

by cyphar 8y ago

jstanley 8y ago

> By the same token, VISA or your bank is government spyware. That's just a ludicrous argument. No it isn't! The fact that visa and banks are government spyware is basically why bitcoin was invented in the first place.

cyphar 8y ago
Bitcoin has a public record of every transaction by every user, with every users' current balance made public (the former might be possible to reduce with Lightning, but the latter is not since you have to settle everyone's balance on-chain at the end of the day). Can you please clarify by which token VISA and banks (and GNU Taler) are "government spyware" and Bitcoin is not? I happen to think that none of these systems are "government spyware" but if you want to argue otherwise, it would be nice to have substantiated statements.
- jstanley 8y ago
  The part where Visa and banks know your name and address and the blockchain doesn't.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    Every single exchange I've used requires providing multiple forms of government ID. Practically speaking, most Bitcoin users identify themselves in this manner. Yeah, there's localbitcoins.com but just because it's technically possible to do doesn't mean that it is a practical difference if very few people do it. Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's generally a problem that all of these institutions know your name and address. But to be honest, I trust my bank to better protect my personal information than some random Bitcoin exchange.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      But with Bitcoin you don't have to use any exchange. You can get paid directly in Bitcoin for goods and services. With fiat, there is no way to do digital transactions without attaching your name and address.
      - cyphar 8y ago
        > You can get paid directly in Bitcoin for goods and services. While I do understand why this is valuable, no government accepts taxes to be paid in Bitcoin (nor do banks give out loans in Bitcoin). As a result, everyone will need to convert some of their Bitcoin to fiat eventually, allowing for de-anonymisation. Not to mention that basically nobody gets paid in Bitcoin (personally there's no way I would accept my wage be paid in a currency that is that volatile). > With fiat, there is no way to do digital transactions without attaching your name and address. Taler is a system that can work on any medium of exchange (fiat, cryptocurrency, sheep, whatever) and doesn't attach your name and address to all transactions.

CryptoPunk 8y ago

You're making an ideological argument for taxation of income and for having government spyware embedded in our financial tools, not a technical argument that GNU Taler is not government spyware. "Spyware" doesn't mean "spying software that I don't like". You liking it and thinking it necessary makes it no less spyware.

cyphar 8y ago
Can you explain, in technical terms, how GNU Taler is literally government spyware? It was not developed by a government, it does precisely what it advertises, does not steal information from users' computers, and is GPLv3+ licensed. It therefore does not fulfill any criteria that a reasonable person would use to define "spyware", let alone "government spyware". If the concern is the government knowing about your transactions (which Taler doesn't allow -- but whatever), then that is an ideological concern not a technical one. I don't know why you think that my liking GNU Taler's principles somehow invalidates that it does not fulfill the definition of "government spyware". I assumed that the objection was ideological, not technical -- because as I've outlined above there is no technical basis on which to base this view (I don't think it's good to strawman people -- I assumed that GP was making the stronger ideological argument rather than the [in my opinion] incorrect technical argument).
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  I guess it's not spyware, or a backdoor, because it's not secret. It's an overt listening device for the government. The lack of privacy to government surveillance is the important feature that people are trying to convey when they use the term "spyware" to describe it. But we can use a more precise term if you're concerned about the term's connotations with secretive spying. The only world where people would use financial software like this that puts them in such a subordinate position vis-a-vis the government, is one where real financial privacy technology is illegal. Stallman should be upfront about whether such laws are what he would like to see implemented.
  - cyphar 8y ago