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> And if you think that your government will never do such thing, think again, harder. Citizens must have a leverage against abuse. With shrinking use of cash,

by sobkas 5y ago

> And if you think that your government will never do such thing, think again, harder. Citizens must have a leverage against abuse. With shrinking use of cash, cryptocurrencies allow people to evade a chokehold that can instantly smother them. Blockchain won't save you from visit from a man with 5$ wrench, if you know what I mean. Blockchain might keep your transactions pseudonymous, but when government already knows you, there is little you can do to keep yourself out of its reach.

fsflover 5y ago
> Blockchain won't save you from visit from a man with 5$ wrench, if you know what I mean. There is a large middle-ground between a government respecting your ownership and a one stealing your funds using a wrench.
woah 5y ago
This is a logical fallacy. This is like arguing that because the government could hypothetically put you under 24/7 physical observation and listen to your every conversation by being in the same room and looking over your shoulder, ever using encryption technology is useless.
- giaour 5y ago
  If your threat model includes Stas-like pervasive surveillance and a real possibility of interrogation under torture, then GP is right, traditional encryption technology will be of limited benefit.
CuriousCosmic 5y ago
> Blockchain won't save you from visit from a man with 5$ wrench, if you know what I mean. This is accurate however the following isn't necessarily accurate: > Blockchain might keep your transactions pseudonymous, but when government already knows you, there is little you can do to keep yourself out of its reach. There are plenty of solid privacy chains based on well understood cryptography. On top of that it is becoming increasingly easy/viable for existing networks to integrate privacy preserving Tx into their networks. Ex: Litecoin (a long standing Bitcoin software fork) integrating privacy preserving Tx via the MimbleWimble protocol and Extension Blocks (together referred to as the MWEB hard fork). Developments like the introduction of MWEB show that even if the government knows you or your Tx today, all you have to do is make an MWEB (or equivalent) transaction and all of a sudden that chain of visibility goes dark. Additionally while it may be possible for the government or any organisation to forcibly extract access or knowledge from you with force, we as a society should not be content with making that easy. Prior to the introduction of the internet and digital society, organisations had to spend far more effort to collect far less (and far less reliable) information. We should be making every push to set that pre-digital information era as a baseline or absolute minimum for privacy standards.
Zak 5y ago
We've seen examples of financial denial of service from governments in situations where they're unable or unwilling to hire thugs or apply criminal laws. I'll offer two: Wikileaks is the easy one here. While it may have some problems, I suspect most of the HN audience believes it should exist. The US government has successfully pressured payment providers to deny service to Wikileaks in the past, which has the potential to become an existential threat. Cannabis businesses in the US are another example. Cannabis is legal under state law in a significant fraction of states (a majority for medical purposes), but illegal under federal law. The federal government is mostly unwilling to enforce the federal criminal law against businesses that are complying with state law, but it's quite willing to prohibit banks from providing service to cannabis businesses.

by sobkas 5y ago

fsflover 5y ago

> Blockchain won't save you from visit from a man with 5$ wrench, if you know what I mean. There is a large middle-ground between a government respecting your ownership and a one stealing your funds using a wrench.

woah 5y ago

This is a logical fallacy. This is like arguing that because the government could hypothetically put you under 24/7 physical observation and listen to your every conversation by being in the same room and looking over your shoulder, ever using encryption technology is useless.

giaour 5y ago
If your threat model includes Stas-like pervasive surveillance and a real possibility of interrogation under torture, then GP is right, traditional encryption technology will be of limited benefit.

CuriousCosmic 5y ago

> Blockchain won't save you from visit from a man with 5$ wrench, if you know what I mean. This is accurate however the following isn't necessarily accurate: > Blockchain might keep your transactions pseudonymous, but when government already knows you, there is little you can do to keep yourself out of its reach. There are plenty of solid privacy chains based on well understood cryptography. On top of that it is becoming increasingly easy/viable for existing networks to integrate privacy preserving Tx into their networks. Ex: Litecoin (a long standing Bitcoin software fork) integrating privacy preserving Tx via the MimbleWimble protocol and Extension Blocks (together referred to as the MWEB hard fork). Developments like the introduction of MWEB show that even if the government knows you or your Tx today, all you have to do is make an MWEB (or equivalent) transaction and all of a sudden that chain of visibility goes dark. Additionally while it may be possible for the government or any organisation to forcibly extract access or knowledge from you with force, we as a society should not be content with making that easy. Prior to the introduction of the internet and digital society, organisations had to spend far more effort to collect far less (and far less reliable) information. We should be making every push to set that pre-digital information era as a baseline or absolute minimum for privacy standards.

Zak 5y ago

We've seen examples of financial denial of service from governments in situations where they're unable or unwilling to hire thugs or apply criminal laws. I'll offer two: Wikileaks is the easy one here. While it may have some problems, I suspect most of the HN audience believes it should exist. The US government has successfully pressured payment providers to deny service to Wikileaks in the past, which has the potential to become an existential threat. Cannabis businesses in the US are another example. Cannabis is legal under state law in a significant fraction of states (a majority for medical purposes), but illegal under federal law. The federal government is mostly unwilling to enforce the federal criminal law against businesses that are complying with state law, but it's quite willing to prohibit banks from providing service to cannabis businesses.