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Banks and data harvesters are not good guys. The problem with blockchains is, unlike banks, they let people send abusive messages to me? Every time i wade throu

Banks and data harvesters are not good guys. The problem with blockchains is, unlike banks, they let people send abusive messages to me? Every time i wade through my Gmail spam folder I see dozens of sexually explicit messages. Every time I open my phone there’s notifications I dont want that I never asked to receive from, among other things, my bank. I’ve had money taken out of my bank account, charged to my credit cards from services that couldn’t take a, “No I don’t remember subscribing to you and I don’t want your services.” I get physical mail for loans I don’t need at rates, stated in misleading ways, that nobody should take. I didn’t ask for these. I don’t think blockchains accomplish what they’re supposed to, but you’re telling me the problem with them is they don’t respect and privacy and allow people to send me unwanted messages? Compared to the status quo? What world do you live in?

boffinism 5y ago
In the article she specifically talks about how blockchains are a godsend for data harvesters. I think it's disingenuous to pick out one of her criticisms, ignore the rest and say "that criticism by itself isn't as bad as the alternative".
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  The author is not even wrong. Public transparent blockchains are a disaster for privacy. Bitcoin is even worse for privacy than the average credit card since the personal information is out there for everyone to see. It gets to the point it destroys bitcoin's fungibility since you can tell each coin apart from their transaction history. This isn't am inherent problem with blockchains though. Privacy blockchains exist. Monero transactions don't reveal much. There's no way to tell who's sending the money, who's receiving it or even how much.
  - olalonde 5y ago
    How do you reconcile this idea with the fact that Bitcoin seems quite popular among Internet fraudsters and scammers (e.g. ransomware)? Or that most Bitcoin thieves are never caught? "Bitcoin is even worse for privacy than the average credit card" is a huge overstatement. You really can't infer that much from looking at the blockchain, especially when there is no address re-use. Even less when CoinJoin is used. You can make some probabilistic guesses at best. Ross Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts", was using Bitcoin extensively and never got identified through the blockchain (he got caught due to a Tor misconfiguration). I'm pretty sure he would have been identified pretty quickly if he had used a credit card merchant account.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      > How do you reconcile this idea with the fact that Bitcoin seems quite popular among Internet fraudsters and scammers (e.g. ransomware)? Or that most Bitcoin thieves are never caught? I believe it's due to ignorance of the increasing risks associated with bitcoin and of the existence of better technology. Smarter criminals are already using Monero. > You really can't infer that much from looking at the blockchain, especially when there is no address re-use. You don't even have to infer anything. Just look up a known address and you can see its entire transaction history. There are rich lists which allow you to track whales. You can literally see them deposit the coins on Binance when they're about to dump on the market. > Even less when CoinJoin is used. You can make some probabilistic guesses at best. This is not a good idea. The coin anonymizer transactions will be there for all to see. Your money is tainted the second it passes through these systems even if you do it for privacy reasons. Exchanges will refuse these coins and as a result so will everyone else because they won't be able to cash them out. They might as well be worthless. This sort of anonymizing feature has to be built into the system in such a way that it is always enabled for everyone and can't be turned off. Anonymous money should be the rule and it should be impossible to break it. That way nobody can be discriminated against for protecting their privacy. If you can discriminate against coins based on their origin, they are not fungible. > Ross Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts", was using Bitcoin extensively and never got identified through the blockchain That was years ago.
      - olalonde 5y ago
        > I believe it's due to ignorance of the increasing risks associated with bitcoin and of the existence of better technology. Smarter criminals are already using Monero. The risk is practically non-existent, they're not getting caught through the blockchain. > You don't even have to infer anything. Just look up a known address and you can see its entire transaction history. There are rich lists which allow you to track whales. You can literally see them deposit the coins on Binance when they're about to dump on the market. That shows a misunderstanding of how Bitcoin wallets work. There are some services that claim to track the inflow/outflow of Bitcoins to exchanges but they are very approximate and you can't track individual "whales". If you use a modern wallet there really shouldn't be more than 2 Bitcoin transactions per address (in and out). > Exchanges will refuse these coins and as a result so will everyone else because they won't be able to cash them out. That is false. PS: I know there are blockchains with better anonymity than Bitcoin but please, slow down with the overstatements.
louwrentius 5y ago
To be frank, whataboutism like this reply is really detrimental to the quality of many discussions around any topic, but particularly when it is about crypto. Any and all criticism is deflected with “but look at x, they do y which is just the same. Well so what? Bad behavior within another system doesn’t absolve the system under scrutiny from criticism.
- mw888 5y ago
  Not at all. Pretending that a new technology is somehow exposed to new problems not present in old technology is disingenuous and frames the overall problem narrowly. Take an example from the author: “anyone can airdrop nfts to someone and it will show up in their wallet for them to see before they know what it is.” And? This is no different from getting emailed a similar picture, it’s not hard to track where it came from if investigators are so inclined, unless privacy measures also available in web2 are used. The place this ends is not about crypto currency, if you really want to stop all “harm” on the internet you end up in a society where encryption is demonized. I wonder what abuse and harassment will be irrestistable to corporations and governments who completely deny you privacy or digital autonomy. And we are worried about problems that already exist with or without crypto? Give me a break.
  - louwrentius 5y ago
    > Pretending that a new technology is somehow exposed to new problems not present in old technology Which she doesn't so we can stop there. Your kind of discourse is exactly part of the problem here on HN.
  - rvz 5y ago
    > This is no different from getting emailed a similar picture, it’s not hard to track where it came from if investigators are so inclined, unless privacy measures also available in web2 are used. This. Simply. The road to hell is once again paved with good intentions. From email, to the blockchain.
- tinalumfoil 5y ago
  The status quo the context new technologies get compared against. We don’t live in a vacuum.

boffinism 5y ago

In the article she specifically talks about how blockchains are a godsend for data harvesters. I think it's disingenuous to pick out one of her criticisms, ignore the rest and say "that criticism by itself isn't as bad as the alternative".

matheusmoreira 5y ago
The author is not even wrong. Public transparent blockchains are a disaster for privacy. Bitcoin is even worse for privacy than the average credit card since the personal information is out there for everyone to see. It gets to the point it destroys bitcoin's fungibility since you can tell each coin apart from their transaction history. This isn't am inherent problem with blockchains though. Privacy blockchains exist. Monero transactions don't reveal much. There's no way to tell who's sending the money, who's receiving it or even how much.
- olalonde 5y ago
  How do you reconcile this idea with the fact that Bitcoin seems quite popular among Internet fraudsters and scammers (e.g. ransomware)? Or that most Bitcoin thieves are never caught? "Bitcoin is even worse for privacy than the average credit card" is a huge overstatement. You really can't infer that much from looking at the blockchain, especially when there is no address re-use. Even less when CoinJoin is used. You can make some probabilistic guesses at best. Ross Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts", was using Bitcoin extensively and never got identified through the blockchain (he got caught due to a Tor misconfiguration). I'm pretty sure he would have been identified pretty quickly if he had used a credit card merchant account.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > How do you reconcile this idea with the fact that Bitcoin seems quite popular among Internet fraudsters and scammers (e.g. ransomware)? Or that most Bitcoin thieves are never caught? I believe it's due to ignorance of the increasing risks associated with bitcoin and of the existence of better technology. Smarter criminals are already using Monero. > You really can't infer that much from looking at the blockchain, especially when there is no address re-use. You don't even have to infer anything. Just look up a known address and you can see its entire transaction history. There are rich lists which allow you to track whales. You can literally see them deposit the coins on Binance when they're about to dump on the market. > Even less when CoinJoin is used. You can make some probabilistic guesses at best. This is not a good idea. The coin anonymizer transactions will be there for all to see. Your money is tainted the second it passes through these systems even if you do it for privacy reasons. Exchanges will refuse these coins and as a result so will everyone else because they won't be able to cash them out. They might as well be worthless. This sort of anonymizing feature has to be built into the system in such a way that it is always enabled for everyone and can't be turned off. Anonymous money should be the rule and it should be impossible to break it. That way nobody can be discriminated against for protecting their privacy. If you can discriminate against coins based on their origin, they are not fungible. > Ross Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts", was using Bitcoin extensively and never got identified through the blockchain That was years ago.
    - olalonde 5y ago
      > I believe it's due to ignorance of the increasing risks associated with bitcoin and of the existence of better technology. Smarter criminals are already using Monero. The risk is practically non-existent, they're not getting caught through the blockchain. > You don't even have to infer anything. Just look up a known address and you can see its entire transaction history. There are rich lists which allow you to track whales. You can literally see them deposit the coins on Binance when they're about to dump on the market. That shows a misunderstanding of how Bitcoin wallets work. There are some services that claim to track the inflow/outflow of Bitcoins to exchanges but they are very approximate and you can't track individual "whales". If you use a modern wallet there really shouldn't be more than 2 Bitcoin transactions per address (in and out). > Exchanges will refuse these coins and as a result so will everyone else because they won't be able to cash them out. That is false. PS: I know there are blockchains with better anonymity than Bitcoin but please, slow down with the overstatements.

louwrentius 5y ago

To be frank, whataboutism like this reply is really detrimental to the quality of many discussions around any topic, but particularly when it is about crypto. Any and all criticism is deflected with “but look at x, they do y which is just the same. Well so what? Bad behavior within another system doesn’t absolve the system under scrutiny from criticism.

mw888 5y ago
Not at all. Pretending that a new technology is somehow exposed to new problems not present in old technology is disingenuous and frames the overall problem narrowly. Take an example from the author: “anyone can airdrop nfts to someone and it will show up in their wallet for them to see before they know what it is.” And? This is no different from getting emailed a similar picture, it’s not hard to track where it came from if investigators are so inclined, unless privacy measures also available in web2 are used. The place this ends is not about crypto currency, if you really want to stop all “harm” on the internet you end up in a society where encryption is demonized. I wonder what abuse and harassment will be irrestistable to corporations and governments who completely deny you privacy or digital autonomy. And we are worried about problems that already exist with or without crypto? Give me a break.
- louwrentius 5y ago
  > Pretending that a new technology is somehow exposed to new problems not present in old technology Which she doesn't so we can stop there. Your kind of discourse is exactly part of the problem here on HN.
- rvz 5y ago
  > This is no different from getting emailed a similar picture, it’s not hard to track where it came from if investigators are so inclined, unless privacy measures also available in web2 are used. This. Simply. The road to hell is once again paved with good intentions. From email, to the blockchain.
tinalumfoil 5y ago
The status quo the context new technologies get compared against. We don’t live in a vacuum.