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The only long term solution is to request anonymous users to commit a tiny amount of cryptocurrency. If you don't want to deal with cryptocurrency then this co

The only long term solution is to request anonymous users to commit a tiny amount of cryptocurrency. If you don't want to deal with cryptocurrency then this could be simply a provable burn - purely an IT thing with no accounting team involved.

beagle3 6y ago
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, NOT anonymous, and is often easy to connect to a real identity (and there’s already legal action against tumblers, etc, that would make it even more so) Monero and ZCash supposedly offer real anonymity, but IIRC all implementations so far have been found vulnerable to (at least partial) deanonymization. Crypto currencies may have good uses, but so far, anonymity is not one of them - most definitely not for the masses (and hard-to-impossible for the very disciplined and knowledgeable pros)
- qertoip 6y ago
  We are talking about relative anonymity against specific service provider and not necessarily absolute anonymity when the government descends upon you. VPN or proxy users are not really anonymous anyway and would certainly welcome an option to pay $0.1 in cryptocurrency instead of fighting infuriating CAPTCHA-s all the time.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    Captchas for website access (not signups etc) seem to be mostly about preventing scrapers that are not from major companies and spying ofcourse. I don't see how they are in the interest of the site owner. It is just an annoying default for no fee caching/CDN by Cloudflare etc. If I would have to pay 10c to visit a website I would like it to "burn up". Most websites I visit I don't support in any sense.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    But it's not even relative anonymity. It's psudeonimity. It's a completely different thing we are not used to dealing with. Unless you actively try to hide your tracks, every single transaction you make is related. You may pay your friend at work $5 back for coffee using Bitcoin -- and at that second -- since he knows your wallet id -- he can check the blockchain for every transaction your wallet has ever participated in - every website you paid for (as a captcha, as a registration fee for that totally-legal-but-morally-questionable site, the money you contributed to support/oppose a political cause, etc.) This is NOT paranoia. People who aren't the NSA are constantly analyzing and making public identities related to wallets and transactions they made. Psudonimity is not anonymity - it's one step away from being an identity; and the fact that the blockchain is public makes all history public for an identity once that step was taken. Take cash from ATM. Put in wallet. Use cash in wallet to pay for drugs. Use cash from same ATM from same wallet to donate to church. Only NSA/FBI has the means to track this, and they have to work for it. Put money in bitcoin wallet. Use wallet to pay for drugs. Use same wallet to donate to church. Now church knows you paid for drugs, and your dealer knows which church you contribute to. Brandan Eich was forced to resign because of his political beliefs, as evidenced by his monetary contribution to some political cause[0]. If pseudonymous blockchain payments become mainstream, such events are going to become an everyday occurrence. For some things, that's a net positive for society (you want to know who the hypocrite politicians are). For some things, it's a net negative (losing privacy for individua). [0] I'm tryting to word this as neutrally as possible.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Bitcoin has 'mixers', using which, AFAIK your anonymity goes from zero to 'only the NSA will be able to track you down'.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    ... and the "mixer"/"tumblr" operator, and anyone who hacked them. Law enforcement is increasingly targeting these mixers, there was a recent case were one operator was criminally charged[0] for not having a "money service license". I am willing to bet that, as part of a plea deal, all past logs they keep (which is likely all of them to day one) will be provided to FinCEN, which may or may not make it public at some point. FinCEN is a few notches below the NSA. It's not your cousin Jerry, true, but it's a lot less than "only the NSA". And the history is immutable - it's possible, even likely, that 20 years from now, many mixer logs will have become public enough. Anything on the blockchain stays there for posterity. [0] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/first-bitcoin-mixer-penalized-fincen-violating-anti-money-laundering-laws https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/first-bitcoin-mixe...
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Oh, right, and these 'mixer-operators' (I was talking about the bitcoin built-in feature, rather than them) I suppose are required to find the other parties to mix your transaction with ?

beagle3 6y ago

Bitcoin is pseudonymous, NOT anonymous, and is often easy to connect to a real identity (and there’s already legal action against tumblers, etc, that would make it even more so) Monero and ZCash supposedly offer real anonymity, but IIRC all implementations so far have been found vulnerable to (at least partial) deanonymization. Crypto currencies may have good uses, but so far, anonymity is not one of them - most definitely not for the masses (and hard-to-impossible for the very disciplined and knowledgeable pros)

qertoip 6y ago
We are talking about relative anonymity against specific service provider and not necessarily absolute anonymity when the government descends upon you. VPN or proxy users are not really anonymous anyway and would certainly welcome an option to pay $0.1 in cryptocurrency instead of fighting infuriating CAPTCHA-s all the time.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Captchas for website access (not signups etc) seem to be mostly about preventing scrapers that are not from major companies and spying ofcourse. I don't see how they are in the interest of the site owner. It is just an annoying default for no fee caching/CDN by Cloudflare etc. If I would have to pay 10c to visit a website I would like it to "burn up". Most websites I visit I don't support in any sense.
- beagle3 6y ago
  But it's not even relative anonymity. It's psudeonimity. It's a completely different thing we are not used to dealing with. Unless you actively try to hide your tracks, every single transaction you make is related. You may pay your friend at work $5 back for coffee using Bitcoin -- and at that second -- since he knows your wallet id -- he can check the blockchain for every transaction your wallet has ever participated in - every website you paid for (as a captcha, as a registration fee for that totally-legal-but-morally-questionable site, the money you contributed to support/oppose a political cause, etc.) This is NOT paranoia. People who aren't the NSA are constantly analyzing and making public identities related to wallets and transactions they made. Psudonimity is not anonymity - it's one step away from being an identity; and the fact that the blockchain is public makes all history public for an identity once that step was taken. Take cash from ATM. Put in wallet. Use cash in wallet to pay for drugs. Use cash from same ATM from same wallet to donate to church. Only NSA/FBI has the means to track this, and they have to work for it. Put money in bitcoin wallet. Use wallet to pay for drugs. Use same wallet to donate to church. Now church knows you paid for drugs, and your dealer knows which church you contribute to. Brandan Eich was forced to resign because of his political beliefs, as evidenced by his monetary contribution to some political cause[0]. If pseudonymous blockchain payments become mainstream, such events are going to become an everyday occurrence. For some things, that's a net positive for society (you want to know who the hypocrite politicians are). For some things, it's a net negative (losing privacy for individua). [0] I'm tryting to word this as neutrally as possible.
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Bitcoin has 'mixers', using which, AFAIK your anonymity goes from zero to 'only the NSA will be able to track you down'.
- beagle3 6y ago
  ... and the "mixer"/"tumblr" operator, and anyone who hacked them. Law enforcement is increasingly targeting these mixers, there was a recent case were one operator was criminally charged[0] for not having a "money service license". I am willing to bet that, as part of a plea deal, all past logs they keep (which is likely all of them to day one) will be provided to FinCEN, which may or may not make it public at some point. FinCEN is a few notches below the NSA. It's not your cousin Jerry, true, but it's a lot less than "only the NSA". And the history is immutable - it's possible, even likely, that 20 years from now, many mixer logs will have become public enough. Anything on the blockchain stays there for posterity. [0] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/first-bitcoin-mixer-penalized-fincen-violating-anti-money-laundering-laws https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/first-bitcoin-mixe...
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Oh, right, and these 'mixer-operators' (I was talking about the bitcoin built-in feature, rather than them) I suppose are required to find the other parties to mix your transaction with ?