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I wonder if we are going to reach a sort of singularity with regard to encroachment on privacy in western countries where we both take it for granted that priva

by eof 7y ago

I wonder if we are going to reach a sort of singularity with regard to encroachment on privacy in western countries where we both take it for granted that privacy is a right, and live in societies where actual privacy is clearly trending somewhere just above zero. I don't think this is really about cryptocurrency particularly. This is about electronic transfers generally. My read on this was that the government is basically saying "big transactions can't be in something we can't feasibly track." Australia seems quite aggressive in this regard; also openly banning encryption. I used to be up in arms about this stuff. Now I am older and mostly trust (for my threat model) off-the-shelf end to end encryption for basically anything I consider private. But I also don't care about the privacy thing anymore. I kind of hope the people 10+ years younger than me still care about that stuff. Google reading/mining the dick jokes I've been sharing back and forth in a dying g-chat window for the last 10 years? Whatever. I'd still keep the conversation there just for intertia's sake; even though I also assume its adding to google's model about me. I don't think, at least in countries culturally similar to the US (the one I know the most), any populous will embrace the idea of "let the experts of the government see everything so you can all be safe"; but, it also seems that we will just trend toward that and kinda pretend like its not happening.

discordance 7y ago
Our society needs you to still care. It's this exact attitude that has ceded so much control to the government where there is little oversight. It's not fair to put the burden on young people, and apathy is no excuse.
ajdlinux 7y ago
> Australia seems quite aggressive in this regard; also openly banning encryption. Australian here, talking to you over an encrypted HTTP connection, because we didn't ban encryption. Mandating certain measures which sometimes can be used to circumvent the privacy guarantees of encryption doesn't mean encryption is banned... (yeah, it's still a bad law.) As for transaction privacy - I am concerned about small transactions, not large ones. Small transactions reveal your personal preferences and day-to-day dealings, large transactions reveal aspects of your financial situation that almost certainly have an impact on your tax obligations (and therefore that government has more reason to want to track) without revealing as much about your personal affairs. So this bill, on its own, seems alright to me. Though I do fear that it's the start of a slippery slope down to abolishing cash - not that the free market needs any help with doing that. We'll see.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  > Mandating certain measures which sometimes can be used to circumvent the privacy guarantees of encryption doesn't mean encryption is banned. If there's a way around encryption for someone, then there's a way around encryption for everyone (because it will get out) If there's a way around the encryption, then it's not really encrypted. If the Australian government has mandated that there must be a known way to circumvent encryption, then yes, they have effectively banned encryption.
fit2rule 7y ago
> culturally similar This is the crux of it. The purpose of the repressive Australian laws is to ensure that Australia's culture remains on course per those who are planning it. Find yourself in a non-mainstream culture that wants to discuss your problems with the mainstream culture privately? Well, you can't do that without incurring the wrath of the PTB. Is this a healthy state of affairs? I don't think so. But Australia has not been a healthy place for a long, long time.

by eof 7y ago

discordance 7y ago

Our society needs you to still care. It's this exact attitude that has ceded so much control to the government where there is little oversight. It's not fair to put the burden on young people, and apathy is no excuse.

ajdlinux 7y ago

> Australia seems quite aggressive in this regard; also openly banning encryption. Australian here, talking to you over an encrypted HTTP connection, because we didn't ban encryption. Mandating certain measures which sometimes can be used to circumvent the privacy guarantees of encryption doesn't mean encryption is banned... (yeah, it's still a bad law.) As for transaction privacy - I am concerned about small transactions, not large ones. Small transactions reveal your personal preferences and day-to-day dealings, large transactions reveal aspects of your financial situation that almost certainly have an impact on your tax obligations (and therefore that government has more reason to want to track) without revealing as much about your personal affairs. So this bill, on its own, seems alright to me. Though I do fear that it's the start of a slippery slope down to abolishing cash - not that the free market needs any help with doing that. We'll see.

RHSeeger 7y ago
> Mandating certain measures which sometimes can be used to circumvent the privacy guarantees of encryption doesn't mean encryption is banned. If there's a way around encryption for someone, then there's a way around encryption for everyone (because it will get out) If there's a way around the encryption, then it's not really encrypted. If the Australian government has mandated that there must be a known way to circumvent encryption, then yes, they have effectively banned encryption.

fit2rule 7y ago

> culturally similar This is the crux of it. The purpose of the repressive Australian laws is to ensure that Australia's culture remains on course per those who are planning it. Find yourself in a non-mainstream culture that wants to discuss your problems with the mainstream culture privately? Well, you can't do that without incurring the wrath of the PTB. Is this a healthy state of affairs? I don't think so. But Australia has not been a healthy place for a long, long time.