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And the problem is centralization, which facilitates censorship and totalitarian control. That nobody cares does not imply that it doesn't matter. I don't wan

And the problem is centralization, which facilitates censorship and totalitarian control. That nobody cares does not imply that it doesn't matter. I don't want to bash China specifically, it just happens to be the first example that comes to my mind. So for example nobody cares that millions of Uyghurs are being enslaved in China, but that does not imply that it is not important. (Or take the example of Assange I mentioned - nobody cares that the UK locked him away without good cause). Also most people don't really care about economics or how money or the stock market works. They just find themselves suddenly with a devalued currency or out of a job.

acdha 5y ago
> And the problem is centralization, which facilitates censorship and totalitarian control. This is a gross misunderstanding of both the current banking system (which is decentralized) and the degree to which using a slow database doesn’t prevent legal actions. Blockchains are very easy to monitor and censor: ideal for an authoritarian government to get a signed confession for every disapproved transaction you make, and a high-volume always-on network is trivially blocked should they care to.
- fullstackchris 5y ago
  I think that's a bit disingenuine considering the US government couldn't even put up a healthcare signup website without it crashing. With such a track record, you really think they could just "tap in" or "modify" any given crypto protocol so they could audit every transaction? Give me a break.
  - n8cpdx 5y ago
    I don’t really care about the assertion you’re trying to refute, but that’s the same US government that destroyed Iran’s centrifuges through software. You can’t really look at such a large organization and treat it as uniformly competent/incompetent when it clearly isn’t. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
  - acdha 5y ago
    > I think that's a bit disingenuine considering the US government couldn't even put up a healthcare signup website without it crashing. Speaking of disingenuous, I feel compelled to note that the failure was built by the private sector (CGI Federal) and fixed by the government (Mikey Dickinson’s USDS team), and it’s certainly not like there aren’t plenty of failures in private industry. You can’t honestly say anything about an entire sector based on a single cherry-picked example. For example, should we look at the high level of skill shown by Stuxnet and similar government operations, compare it to Experian, and conclude that the private sector can’t operate computers securely? > With such a track record, you really think they could just "tap in" or "modify" any given crypto protocol so they could audit every transaction? A public transaction ledger means you’re giving them that with no work and there are blockchain analytics companies which already have government contracts even if you believe that civil servants can’t use computers. Similarly, there’s a well documented history of governments monitoring network traffics, collecting forensics data from phones in police custody, installing malware on people’s phones or computers, etc. There’s a zero-percent chance that they would forget to check for cryptocurrency activity along with everything else.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  There are literally "central banks", and if banks don't want to give somebody a bank account, there is nothing these people can do about it. That is the result of centralized control. You can not prevent somebody from having a Bitcoin address. I know that transactions on the Bitcon blockchain are public. There are approaches to fixing it and several altcoins claim to fix it. It certainly isn't the last iteration of the tech forever. And I think you can also do things to anonymize Bitcoin transactions. I haven't really dug into it yet. The real fire test of governments attacking crypto coins has yet to happen, agreed. It won't be easy, but nothing will be easy under authoritarian control.
  - acdha 5y ago
    > There are literally "central banks", and if banks don't want to give somebody a bank account, there is nothing these people can do about it. That is the result of centralized control. You can not prevent somebody from having a Bitcoin address. Banks follow laws, which is also a hard requirement for cryptocurrency businesses. Very, very few people are banned from having an account and those bans are of categories which would also prevent a cryptocurrency exchange in that country from working with them. Note also that “centralized” is only true within a governmental boundary — a bank in Zimbabwe doesn't phone someone in the U.S. to ask whether they should allow someone to open an account, which is why I described it as decentralized because it lacks a central authority. It's true that someone can try to circumvent those measures, which is a practice dating bank centuries, but there's an important distinction between being able to make a transaction and being able to avoid punishment for doing so. Just as most censorship happens because someone is afraid of the potential consequences for speech rather than prior approval of all communications, it's both possible and a natural extension of existing practice to start demanding that people in your jurisdiction disallow any transactions linked to a particular address or to punish people for accepting a payment after it's linked to a criminal activity. You'll never get that down to zero but cryptocurrencies make it a lot easier to block than real cash payments. This is also the problem with anonymization schemes: governments don't say “he used Monero, guess we have to give up on law enforcement” but rather “Monero does not comply with our financial laws, any business or person caught accepting it will be fined and risk jail time”. Bitcoin laundering schemes are unproven at scale from a powerful adversary but also simply using a tumbler is risky because you're publishing a durable record of using a service designed to evade legal controls — if that's ever linked back to you, you've given the police a signed confession that you knew what you were doing was illegal. Legitimate users aren't going to pay a premium to take on that risk — especially since it would open them to charges of collusion on whatever anyone else using that service was doing — and that removes legal traffic volume, making it easier for analysis and blocking.

acdha 5y ago

> And the problem is centralization, which facilitates censorship and totalitarian control. This is a gross misunderstanding of both the current banking system (which is decentralized) and the degree to which using a slow database doesn’t prevent legal actions. Blockchains are very easy to monitor and censor: ideal for an authoritarian government to get a signed confession for every disapproved transaction you make, and a high-volume always-on network is trivially blocked should they care to.

fullstackchris 5y ago
I think that's a bit disingenuine considering the US government couldn't even put up a healthcare signup website without it crashing. With such a track record, you really think they could just "tap in" or "modify" any given crypto protocol so they could audit every transaction? Give me a break.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  I don’t really care about the assertion you’re trying to refute, but that’s the same US government that destroyed Iran’s centrifuges through software. You can’t really look at such a large organization and treat it as uniformly competent/incompetent when it clearly isn’t. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
- acdha 5y ago
  > I think that's a bit disingenuine considering the US government couldn't even put up a healthcare signup website without it crashing. Speaking of disingenuous, I feel compelled to note that the failure was built by the private sector (CGI Federal) and fixed by the government (Mikey Dickinson’s USDS team), and it’s certainly not like there aren’t plenty of failures in private industry. You can’t honestly say anything about an entire sector based on a single cherry-picked example. For example, should we look at the high level of skill shown by Stuxnet and similar government operations, compare it to Experian, and conclude that the private sector can’t operate computers securely? > With such a track record, you really think they could just "tap in" or "modify" any given crypto protocol so they could audit every transaction? A public transaction ledger means you’re giving them that with no work and there are blockchain analytics companies which already have government contracts even if you believe that civil servants can’t use computers. Similarly, there’s a well documented history of governments monitoring network traffics, collecting forensics data from phones in police custody, installing malware on people’s phones or computers, etc. There’s a zero-percent chance that they would forget to check for cryptocurrency activity along with everything else.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
There are literally "central banks", and if banks don't want to give somebody a bank account, there is nothing these people can do about it. That is the result of centralized control. You can not prevent somebody from having a Bitcoin address. I know that transactions on the Bitcon blockchain are public. There are approaches to fixing it and several altcoins claim to fix it. It certainly isn't the last iteration of the tech forever. And I think you can also do things to anonymize Bitcoin transactions. I haven't really dug into it yet. The real fire test of governments attacking crypto coins has yet to happen, agreed. It won't be easy, but nothing will be easy under authoritarian control.
- acdha 5y ago
  > There are literally "central banks", and if banks don't want to give somebody a bank account, there is nothing these people can do about it. That is the result of centralized control. You can not prevent somebody from having a Bitcoin address. Banks follow laws, which is also a hard requirement for cryptocurrency businesses. Very, very few people are banned from having an account and those bans are of categories which would also prevent a cryptocurrency exchange in that country from working with them. Note also that “centralized” is only true within a governmental boundary — a bank in Zimbabwe doesn't phone someone in the U.S. to ask whether they should allow someone to open an account, which is why I described it as decentralized because it lacks a central authority. It's true that someone can try to circumvent those measures, which is a practice dating bank centuries, but there's an important distinction between being able to make a transaction and being able to avoid punishment for doing so. Just as most censorship happens because someone is afraid of the potential consequences for speech rather than prior approval of all communications, it's both possible and a natural extension of existing practice to start demanding that people in your jurisdiction disallow any transactions linked to a particular address or to punish people for accepting a payment after it's linked to a criminal activity. You'll never get that down to zero but cryptocurrencies make it a lot easier to block than real cash payments. This is also the problem with anonymization schemes: governments don't say “he used Monero, guess we have to give up on law enforcement” but rather “Monero does not comply with our financial laws, any business or person caught accepting it will be fined and risk jail time”. Bitcoin laundering schemes are unproven at scale from a powerful adversary but also simply using a tumbler is risky because you're publishing a durable record of using a service designed to evade legal controls — if that's ever linked back to you, you've given the police a signed confession that you knew what you were doing was illegal. Legitimate users aren't going to pay a premium to take on that risk — especially since it would open them to charges of collusion on whatever anyone else using that service was doing — and that removes legal traffic volume, making it easier for analysis and blocking.