5 ms·

""" While we're at it, maybe those same people can defend the Internet, right? Clearly, this experiment in anyone in the world being able to nigh unto anonymous

by saurik 5y ago

""" While we're at it, maybe those same people can defend the Internet, right? Clearly, this experiment in anyone in the world being able to nigh unto anonymously communicate with anyone else was a mistake... at best, every packet should be tracked back to some regulated endpoint that can be tracked in the real world. The Internet, after all, makes the dark web--and its myriad crimes, including ransomware, drug trafficking, and illegal porn--possible: without the former, the latter cannot thrive. The defenses we usually hear come in the form "prior telephone and postal systems facilitated bad stuff, too," which is a fact, but one that doesn't absolute the Internet, either. :/ """ ^ What you sound like to me. Like, I honestly just don't understand your point: these currencies (minus Bitcoin, due to proof of work being a bit ridiculous) seem like a very useful tool that you couldn't really ban anyway without taking ridiculously draconian measures (a la China and the open Internet, which is only barely working for them anyway) as--and this is kind of the whole point--there isn't any central actor running or maintaining it.

emodendroket 5y ago
The obvious difference to me is that the Internet has a lot of benefits outweighing the negatives beyond just enabling people to do speculation.
- saurik 5y ago
  What, pray tell, are those benefits that are so obvious to you, and why should they only apply to photos of your lunch and not money? Most of the more "banal" uses of the Internet would still work fine with a tightly regulated system that required you to sign up for services with an ID and have every packet signed and tracked. The reality is that many in the US believe we had an insurrection attempt in January due to 8chan of all things. To me, sure: it is certainly "obvious" that the ability to have speech that isn't centrally controlled is a good thing... but I can't come up with a single argument for it that wouldn't also apply to being able to send money between two parties (and, notably, in the Western world we tend to purposefully conflate "speech" with the ability to transfer and lend resources, as without capital nothing can be accomplished).
  - tptacek 5y ago
    The whole article is about why money is a distinctively important regulatory target.
    - saurik 5y ago
      I just re-read the article to see if I was blind, but no where does it answer the question "what are the benefits of semi-anonymous photo sharing that don't apply to money transfer", in no small part as the article doesn't try to talk about the benefits of anything, much less an open Internet. I feel like you might not have actually read my comment to see the question I led with (asked in response to the comment above)? ;P
CincinnatiMan 5y ago
I think the argument would be that the internet, while enabling bad things, is a net-positive with its good outweighing its bad. Whereas the value provided by cryptocurrencies is not as clear.
- cinquemb 5y ago
  > Whereas the value provided by cryptocurrencies is not as clear. The problem is that there's a large group of people who don't rely upon it at all, and there's people on the fringes that where using crypto enables non speculative economic activity where the banking sector has ignored/hands tied for too long; and by design, people in the former group can do increasingly very little against those in the latter. The people saying "convince me" don't matter to those already using it, whereas in the case of ransom w/ crypto, the opposite is becoming more and more true… People expecting various conflicting laws/jurisdictions globally to catch up to this at scale are going to have a tough time. The moral hazards deeply embedded in our centralized nation state based monetary systems (and the assumptions built off of them) are once again having to compete with private money in new forms.
- hermes19 5y ago
  I live in a region where electronic cigarettes can't be purchased through the internet. Local shops can sell them, and do at a 100%-150% markup. fasttech.com will sell me products at msrp, but recently payment processors stopped allowing them to sell to me if my order contained electronic cigarette components (heaters, coils, resisters, batteries, etc). I was very pleased to discover they accept BTC and ETH as payment options.
  - Grim-444 5y ago
    You're comparing the benefits the internet provides to society with an example of being able to buy e-cigarettes slightly cheaper?
tptacek 5y ago
You might say you're "banning Bitcoin", but what you're really doing is banning Bitcoin's linkages to the existing institutional financial system. That's a very tenable project.
- meowface 5y ago
  Tenable, for sure. Effective at preventing companies from finding a way to pay a ransom (where the ransomers know it'll take them additional time to acquire the cryptocurrency funds)? Probably to at least some degree; I'm not sure exactly what the deterrence and enforcement statistics might be like. But wise or ethical? I'd argue about as wise and ethical as classifying cryptography as munitions. Cryptography in general is certainly more broadly useful than cryptocurrencies, but strong cryptography also enables far more and far worse crimes than cryptocurrencies alone do. And can you believe there isn't a law preventing US ISPs and network providers from shuttling traffic to or from known Tor nodes? At least 90% of it is obviously used for unethical and/or illegal activity, and it'd be tenable for ISPs to regularly null route public IP addresses they confirm Tor nodes were listening on. Sure, Tor has a few niche use cases like cryptography does, but it so overwhelmingly enables atrocious and criminal activity that it's an injustice no bill has been passed to fight it. Some people could still get around it, and I'm not sure exactly what the deterrence and enforcement statistics might be like, but it'll probably still help to at least some degree. Governments that shield criminals are the cause here. Go after them rather than the technology the shielded criminals happen to leverage.
- quanticle 5y ago
  I think it's more difficult than one imagines to ban Bitcoin's linkages to the existing institutional financial system. After all, it's not as if REvil or DarkSide are using Coinbase to trade their Bitcoin. If the United States shuts down all Bitcoin exchanges operating on its territory, but Russia does not, then does that have a meaningful impact on the usage of Bitcoin for cybercrime? It seems to me that all such a step would do is make the positive usages of Bitcoin more difficult while having only a marginal effect on the usage of Bitcoin for cybercrime.
  - 5y ago

by saurik 5y ago

emodendroket 5y ago

The obvious difference to me is that the Internet has a lot of benefits outweighing the negatives beyond just enabling people to do speculation.

saurik 5y ago
What, pray tell, are those benefits that are so obvious to you, and why should they only apply to photos of your lunch and not money? Most of the more "banal" uses of the Internet would still work fine with a tightly regulated system that required you to sign up for services with an ID and have every packet signed and tracked. The reality is that many in the US believe we had an insurrection attempt in January due to 8chan of all things. To me, sure: it is certainly "obvious" that the ability to have speech that isn't centrally controlled is a good thing... but I can't come up with a single argument for it that wouldn't also apply to being able to send money between two parties (and, notably, in the Western world we tend to purposefully conflate "speech" with the ability to transfer and lend resources, as without capital nothing can be accomplished).
- tptacek 5y ago
  The whole article is about why money is a distinctively important regulatory target.
  - saurik 5y ago
    I just re-read the article to see if I was blind, but no where does it answer the question "what are the benefits of semi-anonymous photo sharing that don't apply to money transfer", in no small part as the article doesn't try to talk about the benefits of anything, much less an open Internet. I feel like you might not have actually read my comment to see the question I led with (asked in response to the comment above)? ;P

CincinnatiMan 5y ago

I think the argument would be that the internet, while enabling bad things, is a net-positive with its good outweighing its bad. Whereas the value provided by cryptocurrencies is not as clear.

cinquemb 5y ago
> Whereas the value provided by cryptocurrencies is not as clear. The problem is that there's a large group of people who don't rely upon it at all, and there's people on the fringes that where using crypto enables non speculative economic activity where the banking sector has ignored/hands tied for too long; and by design, people in the former group can do increasingly very little against those in the latter. The people saying "convince me" don't matter to those already using it, whereas in the case of ransom w/ crypto, the opposite is becoming more and more true… People expecting various conflicting laws/jurisdictions globally to catch up to this at scale are going to have a tough time. The moral hazards deeply embedded in our centralized nation state based monetary systems (and the assumptions built off of them) are once again having to compete with private money in new forms.
hermes19 5y ago
I live in a region where electronic cigarettes can't be purchased through the internet. Local shops can sell them, and do at a 100%-150% markup. fasttech.com will sell me products at msrp, but recently payment processors stopped allowing them to sell to me if my order contained electronic cigarette components (heaters, coils, resisters, batteries, etc). I was very pleased to discover they accept BTC and ETH as payment options.
- Grim-444 5y ago
  You're comparing the benefits the internet provides to society with an example of being able to buy e-cigarettes slightly cheaper?

tptacek 5y ago

You might say you're "banning Bitcoin", but what you're really doing is banning Bitcoin's linkages to the existing institutional financial system. That's a very tenable project.

meowface 5y ago
Tenable, for sure. Effective at preventing companies from finding a way to pay a ransom (where the ransomers know it'll take them additional time to acquire the cryptocurrency funds)? Probably to at least some degree; I'm not sure exactly what the deterrence and enforcement statistics might be like. But wise or ethical? I'd argue about as wise and ethical as classifying cryptography as munitions. Cryptography in general is certainly more broadly useful than cryptocurrencies, but strong cryptography also enables far more and far worse crimes than cryptocurrencies alone do. And can you believe there isn't a law preventing US ISPs and network providers from shuttling traffic to or from known Tor nodes? At least 90% of it is obviously used for unethical and/or illegal activity, and it'd be tenable for ISPs to regularly null route public IP addresses they confirm Tor nodes were listening on. Sure, Tor has a few niche use cases like cryptography does, but it so overwhelmingly enables atrocious and criminal activity that it's an injustice no bill has been passed to fight it. Some people could still get around it, and I'm not sure exactly what the deterrence and enforcement statistics might be like, but it'll probably still help to at least some degree. Governments that shield criminals are the cause here. Go after them rather than the technology the shielded criminals happen to leverage.
quanticle 5y ago
I think it's more difficult than one imagines to ban Bitcoin's linkages to the existing institutional financial system. After all, it's not as if REvil or DarkSide are using Coinbase to trade their Bitcoin. If the United States shuts down all Bitcoin exchanges operating on its territory, but Russia does not, then does that have a meaningful impact on the usage of Bitcoin for cybercrime? It seems to me that all such a step would do is make the positive usages of Bitcoin more difficult while having only a marginal effect on the usage of Bitcoin for cybercrime.
- 5y ago