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I don't understand why technology that provides a modicum of privacy must be demonized. It must be for money laundering and criminals. It can't have a legitimat
by acidtakes1 4y ago
I don't understand why technology that provides a modicum of privacy must be demonized. It must be for money laundering and criminals. It can't have a legitimate use case. Is it used for nefarious activities? Of course, but not exclusively so.
- zht 4y agoCan I use an RPG-7 to kill animals like bears that threaten my life on my property? Yes. It’s definitely usable for non nefarious activities. Should I be demonized for having one in my house? Probably
- eterps 4y agoAnd when it's less obvious? Should I be demonized for using TOR? Monero? Signal? GPG?
- axlee 4y agoIf 99% of BTC mixers' volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, arms or human trafficking, it's not exactly hard to demonize mixing itself. I have no data to base this on, but I assume that privacy absolutists are a tiny, tiny drop in the pool of blood and crime.
- lovich 4y agoWould privacy absolutists even use BTC? I was under the impression that every transaction was out in the open and permanent.
- thefounder 4y agoThe answe is no but they can make a trade off using something like monero. BTC's only read advantage is the network effects. As far as the tech is concerned it is mediocre compared with other ledgers.
- throwaway290 4y agoPrivacy absolutists are free to deal in cash. Whatever amounts they send and receive, criminals and dictators do orders of magnitude more and people suffer as a result. If it wasn't so sad it would be funny that the countries with highest levels of freedom and least corruption tend to be the ones with most vocal privacy absolutists...
- stirfish 4y ago>the countries with highest levels of freedom and least corruption tend to be the ones with most vocal privacy absolutists... Correlation or causation?
- throwaway290 4y agoOnly irony. No one is taking cash away from those guys.
- ETH_start 4y agoThe most powerful states don't need to launder any money, since they can just pass a law legitimizing any action they do, with no need to hide the funds generated from any one else.
- throwaway290 4y agoThis is irrelevant. Anything putin gang does is legal in Russia obviously but being able to clean blood money is vital for them. That's the point of sanctions and why any way around it like crypto is a godsend to dictators.
- ETH_start 4y agoYou're missing my point. Your example doesn't contradict it. My point is that the most powerful countries don't need to clean their dirty money to spend their money abroad, because they are the center of the world economy, and everything is available to them to buy. Russia is economically on the periphery and thus does need to clean it.
- bsamuels 4y agodo you feel the same way about Tor? If 99% of Tor's volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, distributing CSAM, etc, should it be demonized as well?
- FabHK 4y agoThere's a difference between sending around uncensored information, and sending around uncensored money.
- warner25 4y agoI think most people do feel that way about Tor, both in terms of assuming that 99% of its users are criminals and that it should be demonized. It's interesting to me because I think most of those people don't feel the same way about encryption in general, which of course enables Tor and all sorts of criminal activity in other contexts. Everyone has something to hide from someone and wants to see the green lock symbol in their browser's address bar along with other assurances of some degree of privacy. I don't know how most people decide where to draw a line.
- opportune 4y agoThere are some things that are perfectly legal for me to Google search, that I don’t want my ISP or Google to know about. So Tor works well for that. Tor would also be useful if governments were to crack down on free speech. You can apply basically the same argument to money. If I have $20m in Bitcoin I don’t want my name to be tied to my wallet address (because a KYC exchange saw where the money went to) because it makes me a target, for example. And in the case of censorship or something I want to be able to do with the money what I please. Privacy is a fundamental human right, in my opinion. We have to use cumbersome technology to get any modicum of true digital privacy. Just because people use it for illegal things doesn’t mean that the desire for privacy or the technology itself is bad. One day things we find morally just may be illegal too
- Closi 4y agoIntentional consealment of illegal internet traffic isn't a crime (the crime is just the crime). Intentional consealment of illegal financial transactions is a crime in-and-of itself (the crime is money laundering, which is a seperate offence to the original criminal activity that the money came from).
- csomar 4y agoFunny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto.
- chollida1 4y ago> Funny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/crypto-criminals-laundered-540-million-using-renbridge-elliptic-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/crypto-criminals-laundered-5... Is $540M considered a tangible amount? I'll let you quibble over that but I'd think most criminals would be more than happy to be able to launder $540M.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- csomar 4y agoThat's mixing or "anonymizing" your crpyto proceeds. To make use of this crypto, you need to convert it to the relevant currency of the country you are in. If you are based in the USA, your only option is the few regulated exchanges which will ask "lots" of questions for this amount of money. It doesn't stop there, you'll have to answer lots of questions for the banks too as you'll withdraw this money eventually. If you made it this far, then you start the laundering process. You can't launder money with Bitcoin because Bitcoin is not well integrated with any country financial devices in any meaningful manner.
- eaenki 4y agojust buy homes from individuals. or rent luxury homes and and sub rent them. there are many individuals who will turn a blind eye on their real estate for a 30% premium.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- adr1an 4y agoPlease give an example
- T0Bi 4y agoIf you don't want to link your 'public' wallet with your cold wallets. General privacy on a chain where everyone can see everything.
- acidtakes1 4y agoSignal: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twitter-signal-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twit...
- graeme 4y agoSignal is not a crypto mixer. The argument here is about the frequency a certain service is used for crime. For example, library records generally have a fair amount of privacy. Criminals sometimes consult libraries. Crime is not the dominant use of libraries. Mixers have a fair amount of privacy. Mixers are used by criminal, and crime is overwhelmingly the dominant use of mixers. To rebut this you’d need to show large and innocent use cases which use mixers. Not an unrelated app.
- acidtakes1 4y agoI'm only arguing the definition shouldn't be changed to something that is explicitly negative, even if the vast majority of the time it's used for nefarious reasons.
- butterfi 4y agoCan you provide a legitimate use case for mixers? (I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely curious)
- exo762 4y agoScenario one. Individual (while working in a startup) is receiving some tokens as a compensation. Time passes. Their remuneration being on-chain and visible is a problem when negotiating salary in the next job. Scenario two. I want to have on-chain identity (e.g. exo762.eth domain name). To register it I need to have some ETH (gas, registration fee). If I sent this ETH directly from my "money" account, I will forever link my public identity to my money, which is like walking around with "my net worth is at least XYZ USD" banner.
- Phlarp 4y agoHow are these scenarios "use cases" for a mixer and not critical flaws in the underlying system? We're in a thread about a rogue state using the tech to steal money to fund their operations (Chemical attacks in airports, nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, etc.) How many nuclear detonations would you consider acceptable in exchange for the cryptobros to have their toys?
- junofan 4y agoYou’d rather they sell meth? They’re gonna find the money one way or another.
- exo762 4y agoHow "Operation Choke Point" is not a critical flow of the underlying system? I care about civil rights way more than I care about NK.
- nanidin 4y agoSide note, I find it interesting that "bros" is now a pejorative - cryptobros, techbros. Are there other instances? We've come a long way from Mario Bros!
- babypuncher 4y agoI agree in principal, however if the vast majority of a given service's users are using it for criminal activity then maybe there's room for some added scrutiny.
- ifyoubuildit 4y agoOk, so all you have to do is prove that the vast majority of a given service's users are using it for criminal activity, right?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- snthd 4y agoGNU Taler[0] provides a "modicum of privacy" and isn't demonized. [0] https://taler.net https://taler.net
- meltedcapacitor 4y agoIt may get demonized if it ever gets some users. Quite a Hurd(le)!
- ETH_start 4y agoGNU Taler lets the government surveil people's transactions.