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1. Existing payment systems expose your entire financial history to the service provider (e.g.: your bank, your credit card company etc.). I don't understand ho

1. Existing payment systems expose your entire financial history to the service provider (e.g.: your bank, your credit card company etc.). I don't understand how people can complain about surveillance and data collection by tech companies, and then be perfectly fine with consumer finance companies doing the same thing. 2. What is legal is not what is moral. E.g., outlawing sex work, which results in SWers in even Western countries getting kicked off traditional payment systems, or having SW forums taken down (e.g. backpage). Having a decentralized and censorship-resistant infrastructure for these essential utilities is vital, and blockchains can be a key component of that infrastructure. 3. As a cryptographer, PKC and digital signatures have thoroughly failed to provide a decentralized and secure P2P communications infrastructure. (And no, Signal doesn't count: it's fantastic, but it's run by a benevolent operator.)

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> 1. Existing payment systems expose your entire financial history to the service provider (e.g.: your bank, your credit card company etc.). I don't understand how people can complain about surveillance and data collection by tech companies, and then be perfectly fine with consumer finance companies doing the same thing. Generally people have choices in how they handle their finances: you can choose which financial institutions you use and how you want to pay most of the time. If you don't want to be tracked, you can get cash and pay with cash. However, some of the tracking can be to your benefit. Most banks and credit card companies offer some degree of fraud protection / prevention and if you have a good credit history and want to take out a loan, they will happily give you the money. It requires a real-life trust relationship where the bank / finance company is a trusted business partner and not an untrustworthy predator. If you find the relationship with your bank or credit card provider it not to your liking, you can choose a different bank or credit card provider that offers more favorable terms. >> 2. What is legal is not what is moral. E.g., outlawing sex work, which results in SWers in even Western countries getting kicked off traditional payment systems, or having SW forums taken down (e.g. backpage). Having a decentralized and censorship-resistant infrastructure for these essential utilities is vital, and blockchains can be a key component of that infrastructure. I disagree here. I personally do not think that sex work is moral or 'an essential utility'. If a payment provider does not want to offer payments for illegal or immoral products or services that is their choice. Some payment providers might still be willing to, but no one can really stop cash payments. You do have a point here though, no one can stop blockchain-based payment systems and they have been instrumental in the recent increases in malware and ransomware. >> 3. As a cryptographer, PKC and digital signatures have thoroughly failed to provide a decentralized and secure P2P communications infrastructure. (And no, Signal doesn't count: it's fantastic, but it's run by a benevolent operator.) PKC and digital signatures don't provide infrastructure. They provide tools to be used at endpoints. You can use freely available cryptography tools such as OpenPGP (https://www.openpgp.org/software/ https://www.openpgp.org/software/) to generate your own keys and securely communicate with someone else over existing communication infrastructure.
ekanes 5y ago
Honest question: What if coinbase is hacked, and the info connecting people's verified real-world identities to their wallet is revealed? Now everything is public - isn't that worse?
- Ar-Curunir 5y ago
  Yes, which is why cryptocurrencies enable self-custody, so you only need to trust yourself.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago

>> 1. Existing payment systems expose your entire financial history to the service provider (e.g.: your bank, your credit card company etc.). I don't understand how people can complain about surveillance and data collection by tech companies, and then be perfectly fine with consumer finance companies doing the same thing. Generally people have choices in how they handle their finances: you can choose which financial institutions you use and how you want to pay most of the time. If you don't want to be tracked, you can get cash and pay with cash. However, some of the tracking can be to your benefit. Most banks and credit card companies offer some degree of fraud protection / prevention and if you have a good credit history and want to take out a loan, they will happily give you the money. It requires a real-life trust relationship where the bank / finance company is a trusted business partner and not an untrustworthy predator. If you find the relationship with your bank or credit card provider it not to your liking, you can choose a different bank or credit card provider that offers more favorable terms. >> 2. What is legal is not what is moral. E.g., outlawing sex work, which results in SWers in even Western countries getting kicked off traditional payment systems, or having SW forums taken down (e.g. backpage). Having a decentralized and censorship-resistant infrastructure for these essential utilities is vital, and blockchains can be a key component of that infrastructure. I disagree here. I personally do not think that sex work is moral or 'an essential utility'. If a payment provider does not want to offer payments for illegal or immoral products or services that is their choice. Some payment providers might still be willing to, but no one can really stop cash payments. You do have a point here though, no one can stop blockchain-based payment systems and they have been instrumental in the recent increases in malware and ransomware. >> 3. As a cryptographer, PKC and digital signatures have thoroughly failed to provide a decentralized and secure P2P communications infrastructure. (And no, Signal doesn't count: it's fantastic, but it's run by a benevolent operator.) PKC and digital signatures don't provide infrastructure. They provide tools to be used at endpoints. You can use freely available cryptography tools such as OpenPGP (https://www.openpgp.org/software/ https://www.openpgp.org/software/) to generate your own keys and securely communicate with someone else over existing communication infrastructure.

ekanes 5y ago

Honest question: What if coinbase is hacked, and the info connecting people's verified real-world identities to their wallet is revealed? Now everything is public - isn't that worse?

Ar-Curunir 5y ago
Yes, which is why cryptocurrencies enable self-custody, so you only need to trust yourself.