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A broad-based prohibition on encryption of peer-to-peer financial transactions is an incredibly authoritarian measure for a liberal democracy to propose.

leventonportera 3y ago
The people making and passing these laws are 70-100 years old and not only have no idea what encryption or p2p is - they start deleting their gmail emails in their browser when their laptop pops up an out of space message. My favorite goto in these discussions - the Australian PM saying that the laws of Australia override the laws of mathematics, when talking about encryption. You heard that right an old bald guy who doesn't know how to use the second mouse button because mice don't have buttons - they have ears and a tail - is legislating to break AES256. You just have to pass a law to break it you see, and then the math law will have to obey the overriding Australian law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VB3uQHa14g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VB3uQHa14g Here's the thing though - that's not what this is all about, and these old hags have a very well-versed body of people behind them pushing the agenda. The reason the old hags sound like clowns, is because they are puppets with clown makeup. The goal here, is exactly what you said. Prohibition of encryption, because the people in power want more till they're kings, and they want to see everything you do so they can stay kings. In reality, none of this is meant to be enforced. It is however meant to pile up bogus charges and remove you from the public eye where you can make noise against them, once they decide to remove you for any other reason they want.
- martin8412 3y ago
  https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ They don't need to break anything. They can simply compel you, and if you refuse or lie, you're held in contempt and go to prison until you comply.
- mrangle 3y ago
  Ironically, it's a delusion of youth to assume that the older ruling class is logically or morally wrong due to age. State level management agendas are generations in their planning and execution. See the fact that a stodgy old aristocrat wrote the defining book on this matter over a decade before the redditor class had their first epiphany on crypto. The political class has unlimited funds for any youthful advisement needed for necessary corrections, assuming for a second that youth brings actual advantage. They have unlimited access to the smartest people, all who know what encryption and p2p is. It couldn't matter less what mistakes they make when speaking publicly. They could communicate solely through pre-recordings of their farts and still have their way. For better or worse. The only actual arena in which the future will be decided, when and where it is actually contested at all, is that of bleeding-edge technical dominance. I'd offer that they are less idealistic than are crypto-warriors, and therefore the bulk of the latter may not be well enough calculated in what they are wishing for. Yet, like I said, it seems that the argument ultimately will be settled in tech.
  - leventonportera 3y ago
    [flagged]
kemotep 3y ago
Is there a solution to trying to limit money laundering that would not be incredibly authoritarian in your opinion?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- junofan 3y ago
  The bar for circumvention has a ceiling of state sponsorship. This approach is escalatory in a multipolar world. Prosecute the actual crime instead.
  - ryan_lane 3y ago
    When that crime is terrorism, it's too late by the time it's happened, and a lot of money laundering is used for this purpose. It's also impossible to prosecute crimes originating in countries outside of your jurisdiction, but funded within your jurisdiction. Cryptocurrency is more of a blight than it is useful. It's the only reason that cyber ransom is possible.
    - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
      You can punish funding in your jurisdiction with evidence provided by countries outside of your jurisdiction.
      - ryan_lane 3y ago
        What do you do when the police and military forces are illegally controlled by that group?
    - ETH_start 3y ago
      The cost of reducing funding for terrorism cannot be imposing authoritarian controls on the general population. That's a wildly disproportionate and counterproductive response. If the right to use cryptocurrency were legally enshrined, instead always on the verge of being criminalized by new legislation or rules, it would find an enormous number of legitimate use-cases, instead of being fully embraced only by criminals. It's the legal uncertainty, that keeps legitimate actors out, that causes the criminal element to be disproportionately high amongst cryptocurrency users. Cryptocurrency stands to provide the West with a major geopolitical advantage. If you look at the distribution of Ethereum consensus clients, you see they are concentrated in the West: https://monitoreth.io/nodes https://monitoreth.io/nodes Of the current 14,000+ nodes, the US hosts 5,349 of them, and Germany 2,170. No non-Western jurisdiction comes close. This is an industry that cannot thrive in more authoritarian jurisdictions, and will thrive in the West to the extent that authoritarian controls are limited.
appplication 3y ago
I agree. I think it’s actually far more legislatively contained and reasonable to just ban currency-based applications of blockchain than such a prohibition.
mrangle 3y ago
Their math isn't that binary. Obnjectively, the liberal democracy will cease to exist given a relative absence of revenue collection. Noted as someone who does not believe that the nation's revenue ills stem from a failure of collection today. Simply, I'm noting their logic. Unfortunately, stable States aren't idealistic as a matter of physics. Electorates are sometimes scandalized when confronted by that reality. Long term, you might get effective encryption. You'll just have to be okay with the tradeoff on the other end. Accepting for a moment that we've had a liberal democracy.

leventonportera 3y ago

The people making and passing these laws are 70-100 years old and not only have no idea what encryption or p2p is - they start deleting their gmail emails in their browser when their laptop pops up an out of space message. My favorite goto in these discussions - the Australian PM saying that the laws of Australia override the laws of mathematics, when talking about encryption. You heard that right an old bald guy who doesn't know how to use the second mouse button because mice don't have buttons - they have ears and a tail - is legislating to break AES256. You just have to pass a law to break it you see, and then the math law will have to obey the overriding Australian law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VB3uQHa14g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VB3uQHa14g Here's the thing though - that's not what this is all about, and these old hags have a very well-versed body of people behind them pushing the agenda. The reason the old hags sound like clowns, is because they are puppets with clown makeup. The goal here, is exactly what you said. Prohibition of encryption, because the people in power want more till they're kings, and they want to see everything you do so they can stay kings. In reality, none of this is meant to be enforced. It is however meant to pile up bogus charges and remove you from the public eye where you can make noise against them, once they decide to remove you for any other reason they want.

martin8412 3y ago
https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ They don't need to break anything. They can simply compel you, and if you refuse or lie, you're held in contempt and go to prison until you comply.
mrangle 3y ago
Ironically, it's a delusion of youth to assume that the older ruling class is logically or morally wrong due to age. State level management agendas are generations in their planning and execution. See the fact that a stodgy old aristocrat wrote the defining book on this matter over a decade before the redditor class had their first epiphany on crypto. The political class has unlimited funds for any youthful advisement needed for necessary corrections, assuming for a second that youth brings actual advantage. They have unlimited access to the smartest people, all who know what encryption and p2p is. It couldn't matter less what mistakes they make when speaking publicly. They could communicate solely through pre-recordings of their farts and still have their way. For better or worse. The only actual arena in which the future will be decided, when and where it is actually contested at all, is that of bleeding-edge technical dominance. I'd offer that they are less idealistic than are crypto-warriors, and therefore the bulk of the latter may not be well enough calculated in what they are wishing for. Yet, like I said, it seems that the argument ultimately will be settled in tech.
- leventonportera 3y ago
  [flagged]

kemotep 3y ago

Is there a solution to trying to limit money laundering that would not be incredibly authoritarian in your opinion?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
junofan 3y ago
The bar for circumvention has a ceiling of state sponsorship. This approach is escalatory in a multipolar world. Prosecute the actual crime instead.
- ryan_lane 3y ago
  When that crime is terrorism, it's too late by the time it's happened, and a lot of money laundering is used for this purpose. It's also impossible to prosecute crimes originating in countries outside of your jurisdiction, but funded within your jurisdiction. Cryptocurrency is more of a blight than it is useful. It's the only reason that cyber ransom is possible.
  - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
    You can punish funding in your jurisdiction with evidence provided by countries outside of your jurisdiction.
    - ryan_lane 3y ago
      What do you do when the police and military forces are illegally controlled by that group?
  - ETH_start 3y ago
    The cost of reducing funding for terrorism cannot be imposing authoritarian controls on the general population. That's a wildly disproportionate and counterproductive response. If the right to use cryptocurrency were legally enshrined, instead always on the verge of being criminalized by new legislation or rules, it would find an enormous number of legitimate use-cases, instead of being fully embraced only by criminals. It's the legal uncertainty, that keeps legitimate actors out, that causes the criminal element to be disproportionately high amongst cryptocurrency users. Cryptocurrency stands to provide the West with a major geopolitical advantage. If you look at the distribution of Ethereum consensus clients, you see they are concentrated in the West: https://monitoreth.io/nodes https://monitoreth.io/nodes Of the current 14,000+ nodes, the US hosts 5,349 of them, and Germany 2,170. No non-Western jurisdiction comes close. This is an industry that cannot thrive in more authoritarian jurisdictions, and will thrive in the West to the extent that authoritarian controls are limited.

appplication 3y ago

I agree. I think it’s actually far more legislatively contained and reasonable to just ban currency-based applications of blockchain than such a prohibition.

mrangle 3y ago

Their math isn't that binary. Obnjectively, the liberal democracy will cease to exist given a relative absence of revenue collection. Noted as someone who does not believe that the nation's revenue ills stem from a failure of collection today. Simply, I'm noting their logic. Unfortunately, stable States aren't idealistic as a matter of physics. Electorates are sometimes scandalized when confronted by that reality. Long term, you might get effective encryption. You'll just have to be okay with the tradeoff on the other end. Accepting for a moment that we've had a liberal democracy.