4 ms·

We are talking about relative anonymity against specific service provider and not necessarily absolute anonymity when the government descends upon you. VPN or

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.

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.