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Why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?

by Touche 12y ago

jasode 12y ago
> need to run on Tor? I don't know the technical details of OpenBazaar. From the article this thread is about, it says: "OpenBazaar is open-source software that runs a peer-to-peer network that can be used with the Tor anonymizing network." I interpreted that in the literal sense that it "CAN" be used and not "MUST". If the only possible way to use the OpenBazaar client is to log into Tor, that would understandably raise skepticism about its ambitions for legal trade. A representative from OpenBazaar is in this thread and maybe he can clarify that technical detail. As for hiding my sales of legal items, maybe I don't want my friends to know that I sold that ugly shirt they got for my birthday. I'm sure there are all sorts of legitimate reasons for being an anonymous seller of legal goods.
- narrowrail 12y ago
  Just as an aside, use of Craigslist obviously avoids these fees, with the caveat that market participants be within the same physical vicinity. I wonder if there could be a potential for some sort of integration. I bought my truck in another state using CL, and flying one-way with cash in hand.
dionyziz 12y ago
OpenBazaar developer here. This is the "nothing to hide" argument that we've seen used to much by the NSA and governments. The answer is that we believe people simply have the right to privacy in trade. Here's a discussion by the OpenBazaar team on the matter: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar/issues/189 https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar/issues/189 Do you want your credit card company to know exactly where you've shopped for the past two years? Would you like your employer to know what porn movies you enjoy? Would you want your neighbourhood burglars to know exactly how much money you spent on your brand new Swiss watch this month? Is it OK if your super-market chain only offers discounts to you on the condition that you don't buy anything from other super-market chains? Should your wife be able to scrutinize what trips you went to and how much you spent on expensive chocolate and alcohol without your permission? Discover before her birthday that you bought her a ring as a present? Would you feel alright if Google used all your shopping history to show you targeted ads? As a seller of rare books, do you want the prices of all purchases to be published to potential candidate sellers instead of being treated as trade secrets? Would you want your annoying jealous nephew to know you've booked snowboarding tickets to Austria without inviting him? Is it acceptable for these things to be posted on the Internet and commented-on by Redditors? Please, I invite you to post your credit card records for the past year here. We'll be happy to look over them and leave some comments for you. After all, you've got nothing to hide, yes? Anonymity is important for people. For some people, it's more important than others. Different people have different needs. Sometimes anonymity is a matter of life and death, sometimes it's just a matter of personal privacy and the right to be left alone. Users can use the anonymity feature as they see fit, but we need to be there to protect them if they require so. And, yes, some trade can be only marginally legal or completely illegal. Sometimes illegal trade is ethical, and laws vary from country to country. At least at the trade level, we should be free and anonymous. What if your Internet provider disables the Internet in your country by secret warrant request of the government if you live in North Korea, or Turkey in the times of Twitter-censorship, or Egypt in the time of the revolt, or Iran at times of war? Is it OK to leak to your government that you purchased an antenna off of OpenBazaar to access the Internet through mesh networks? Sometimes the penalty can be death. Not everyone lives in free regimes where privacy is a matter of a warm, cozy feeling and convenience. People need privacy in trade to be free. That said, freedom comes at a cost, and the price for being free is not low :)
- jeangenie 12y ago
  Well said!
- martinrd 12y ago
  Thank you for your work on OpenBazaar, and for your comment here.
- csandreasen 12y ago
  > Please, I invite you to post your credit card records for the past year here. We'll be happy to look over them and leave some comments for you. After all, you've got nothing to hide, yes? That's a ridiculous counter argument. If I buy a bunch of towels/etc. from an online merchant, I have every reason to believe they will not use any information they gather to publicly embarrass me or otherwise do me ill will. Their business relies on them not abusing their customers. If they showed any indication that they aren't trustworthy, I wouldn't do business with them. On the other hand, I don't have any reason to trust someone on the internet requesting my credit card records in exchange for the privilege of being publicly embarrassed when they post it on the internet. The argument is never "I've got nothing to hide", the argument is that I have no reason to hide my Amazon purchases from Amazon. Most of your examples are either non-issues or not realistic. My credit card company does have a right to see how much and where I'm spending - I'm borrowing their money when I make a purchase. I don't know of any service I use that sends my porn history to my boss (unless I decided to do it at work on computers owned by my employer). I don't know of any supermarket discount program that prevents you from shopping elsewhere - every rewards program I've ever seen is structured to encourage you to shop with them more, not punish you for shopping elsewhere. My wife has every right to scrutinize our bank account - if I didn't trust her I wouldn't have married her. If she finds out what her birthday present was, that's her loss for ruining the surprise, not mine. My annoying jealous nephew can get over himself - if he wants to come on trips with me then he needs to be less annoying. If I don't want any of these things posted publicly on the internet, I a) won't post them publicly on the internet, and b) won't share the information with anyone that I don't trust to refrain from posting it publicly to the internet. Anonymity is not the same as privacy - privacy comes from keeping personal information to yourself. So, to reiterate the grandparent poster asked, why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?
pmorici 12y ago
Using Tor isn't required.
adrusi 12y ago
I'm not familiar with the architecture of openbazaar, but whereas with centralized services like amazon and ebay only your credit card and the marketplace have access to your full history (and people tend to trust these entities, begrudgingly or not), in a p2p model, the marketplace is everyone in the network. While for most people its reasonable to trust a reputable organization for their legal transactions, very few people would be comfortable letting any scriptkiddie with an hour of time analyze the public network activity and get access to their entire purchase history. In order to avoid this drawback of a p2p architecture, additional privacy guards must be used.
anon4 12y ago
Well no, but if I'm doing nothing wrong, then you have no need to see it.
adekok 12y ago
> Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels? Yes. When I sell towels, I put my business reputation on the line. Not my personal one. The customers don't know my real name. Tell me this. When was the last time you knew the full name of a store clerk you interacted with? The name tag might say "Sally", but is it really "Sally"? Or is it "Sally Smith" or "Sally Jones" ? You don't know, and you don't care. All you know is you went to a business (with a prominent name and location), and bought a towel. If you're happy with the towel, you'll go back. If not, you'll write bad reviews. At no time do you know the full name or address of the store clerks you interact with. Therefore, it is completely appropriate for the clerks to demand the same level of anonymity online. Now, this isn't always true. You might have a neighborhood hardware store you've been going to since you were 5. You might know the full name and home address of the owner. But that is his choice. It is entirely inappropriate for you to demand to know his full name and address, or to forbid him from operating behind an anonymous "Hi, I'm Bob" nametag.
- csandreasen 12y ago
  You don't currently need to reveal your identity to customers when doing business online, but complete anonymity is something else altogether. I might not know the full name and address of the store clerk, but his employer certainly does. That clerk is representing his business and should be held accountable to business for anything he does. If I have I bad experience purchasing from that store, it doesn't matter to me that it was a bad clerk - it's Local Towel Sales, Inc. that's not going to get my business in the future. I also as a customer don't need to know that "Sally Smith" owns the corner store, but the owner of the lot that she's renting out for her storefront certainly does. If she's running her business in such a way that it affects the value of the property or will result in legal action, she needs to be held accountable to someone. It works exactly the same online. When I buy a product that Online Towel Sales, Inc. posted to eBay, I don't care about who posted the product online or packed it up and shipped it, I only care that it came from Online Towel Sales, Inc. and will choose whether or not to do business again with them based on that experience. Likewise, if the owner of Online Towel Sales is using eBay to peddle illegal counterfeit towels or something, eBay needs to know who to hold accountable because they have a vested interest in not having their website associated with illegal activity. I'm not going to come back to eBay if it gets a reputation for being a criminal safehaven.
gubatron 12y ago
In my world view (also OpenBazaar developer) I think OpenBazaar shouldn't make false promises on delivering anonymity, not even Bitcoin can do that. I believe that OpenBazaar's initial motive was to distance itself from DarkMarkets as the opportunity to directly link people worldwide for trade without intermediaries, or barriers of entry to the market outweight the needs of those looking to trade anonymously. I foresee market forces killing off the sellers that prefer to remain anonymous and misterious unless they're selling special items. In practice I believe people will be less scared to transact with someone who has an identity, who can be accountable. Honor and trust are necessary for all kinds of commerce. If it were up to me, I'd build OpenBazaar to work flawlessly on the OpenInternet, if anybody needs to use the technology in a different way the code is open and I'm sure they'll find a way to try to hide themselves, but I think it's a fool's errand, no amount of Tor will hide you from the authorities if they want to get you. I think the size of illegal markets as big as they can be are minuscule compared to the new era of trade I envision, never in our history we have been able to directly trade with anybody else out there. Centralized ecommerce outfits like ebay and amazon have only given us a glimpse of what's possible, but as good as they are, they can't scale to 100% of the planet, I believe a great p2p solution can do this and the consequences of this will be of historic importance. This slide stack will give you the bigger picture OpenBazaar should be going after http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/the-emerging-global-web http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/the-emerging-global-web Worrying ourselves with pleasing users that want to be on Tor, at this point in time, I believe is a waste of time that draws the wrong kind of attention to the project. There's a much bigger opportunity to be seized, a truly world changing one.

Why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?

by Touche 12y ago

Why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?

jasode 12y ago

> need to run on Tor? I don't know the technical details of OpenBazaar. From the article this thread is about, it says: "OpenBazaar is open-source software that runs a peer-to-peer network that can be used with the Tor anonymizing network." I interpreted that in the literal sense that it "CAN" be used and not "MUST". If the only possible way to use the OpenBazaar client is to log into Tor, that would understandably raise skepticism about its ambitions for legal trade. A representative from OpenBazaar is in this thread and maybe he can clarify that technical detail. As for hiding my sales of legal items, maybe I don't want my friends to know that I sold that ugly shirt they got for my birthday. I'm sure there are all sorts of legitimate reasons for being an anonymous seller of legal goods.

narrowrail 12y ago
Just as an aside, use of Craigslist obviously avoids these fees, with the caveat that market participants be within the same physical vicinity. I wonder if there could be a potential for some sort of integration. I bought my truck in another state using CL, and flying one-way with cash in hand.

dionyziz 12y ago

OpenBazaar developer here. This is the "nothing to hide" argument that we've seen used to much by the NSA and governments. The answer is that we believe people simply have the right to privacy in trade. Here's a discussion by the OpenBazaar team on the matter: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar/issues/189 https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar/issues/189 Do you want your credit card company to know exactly where you've shopped for the past two years? Would you like your employer to know what porn movies you enjoy? Would you want your neighbourhood burglars to know exactly how much money you spent on your brand new Swiss watch this month? Is it OK if your super-market chain only offers discounts to you on the condition that you don't buy anything from other super-market chains? Should your wife be able to scrutinize what trips you went to and how much you spent on expensive chocolate and alcohol without your permission? Discover before her birthday that you bought her a ring as a present? Would you feel alright if Google used all your shopping history to show you targeted ads? As a seller of rare books, do you want the prices of all purchases to be published to potential candidate sellers instead of being treated as trade secrets? Would you want your annoying jealous nephew to know you've booked snowboarding tickets to Austria without inviting him? Is it acceptable for these things to be posted on the Internet and commented-on by Redditors? Please, I invite you to post your credit card records for the past year here. We'll be happy to look over them and leave some comments for you. After all, you've got nothing to hide, yes? Anonymity is important for people. For some people, it's more important than others. Different people have different needs. Sometimes anonymity is a matter of life and death, sometimes it's just a matter of personal privacy and the right to be left alone. Users can use the anonymity feature as they see fit, but we need to be there to protect them if they require so. And, yes, some trade can be only marginally legal or completely illegal. Sometimes illegal trade is ethical, and laws vary from country to country. At least at the trade level, we should be free and anonymous. What if your Internet provider disables the Internet in your country by secret warrant request of the government if you live in North Korea, or Turkey in the times of Twitter-censorship, or Egypt in the time of the revolt, or Iran at times of war? Is it OK to leak to your government that you purchased an antenna off of OpenBazaar to access the Internet through mesh networks? Sometimes the penalty can be death. Not everyone lives in free regimes where privacy is a matter of a warm, cozy feeling and convenience. People need privacy in trade to be free. That said, freedom comes at a cost, and the price for being free is not low :)

jeangenie 12y ago
Well said!
martinrd 12y ago
Thank you for your work on OpenBazaar, and for your comment here.
csandreasen 12y ago
> Please, I invite you to post your credit card records for the past year here. We'll be happy to look over them and leave some comments for you. After all, you've got nothing to hide, yes? That's a ridiculous counter argument. If I buy a bunch of towels/etc. from an online merchant, I have every reason to believe they will not use any information they gather to publicly embarrass me or otherwise do me ill will. Their business relies on them not abusing their customers. If they showed any indication that they aren't trustworthy, I wouldn't do business with them. On the other hand, I don't have any reason to trust someone on the internet requesting my credit card records in exchange for the privilege of being publicly embarrassed when they post it on the internet. The argument is never "I've got nothing to hide", the argument is that I have no reason to hide my Amazon purchases from Amazon. Most of your examples are either non-issues or not realistic. My credit card company does have a right to see how much and where I'm spending - I'm borrowing their money when I make a purchase. I don't know of any service I use that sends my porn history to my boss (unless I decided to do it at work on computers owned by my employer). I don't know of any supermarket discount program that prevents you from shopping elsewhere - every rewards program I've ever seen is structured to encourage you to shop with them more, not punish you for shopping elsewhere. My wife has every right to scrutinize our bank account - if I didn't trust her I wouldn't have married her. If she finds out what her birthday present was, that's her loss for ruining the surprise, not mine. My annoying jealous nephew can get over himself - if he wants to come on trips with me then he needs to be less annoying. If I don't want any of these things posted publicly on the internet, I a) won't post them publicly on the internet, and b) won't share the information with anyone that I don't trust to refrain from posting it publicly to the internet. Anonymity is not the same as privacy - privacy comes from keeping personal information to yourself. So, to reiterate the grandparent poster asked, why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?

pmorici 12y ago

Using Tor isn't required.

adrusi 12y ago

I'm not familiar with the architecture of openbazaar, but whereas with centralized services like amazon and ebay only your credit card and the marketplace have access to your full history (and people tend to trust these entities, begrudgingly or not), in a p2p model, the marketplace is everyone in the network. While for most people its reasonable to trust a reputable organization for their legal transactions, very few people would be comfortable letting any scriptkiddie with an hour of time analyze the public network activity and get access to their entire purchase history. In order to avoid this drawback of a p2p architecture, additional privacy guards must be used.

anon4 12y ago

Well no, but if I'm doing nothing wrong, then you have no need to see it.

adekok 12y ago

> Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels? Yes. When I sell towels, I put my business reputation on the line. Not my personal one. The customers don't know my real name. Tell me this. When was the last time you knew the full name of a store clerk you interacted with? The name tag might say "Sally", but is it really "Sally"? Or is it "Sally Smith" or "Sally Jones" ? You don't know, and you don't care. All you know is you went to a business (with a prominent name and location), and bought a towel. If you're happy with the towel, you'll go back. If not, you'll write bad reviews. At no time do you know the full name or address of the store clerks you interact with. Therefore, it is completely appropriate for the clerks to demand the same level of anonymity online. Now, this isn't always true. You might have a neighborhood hardware store you've been going to since you were 5. You might know the full name and home address of the owner. But that is his choice. It is entirely inappropriate for you to demand to know his full name and address, or to forbid him from operating behind an anonymous "Hi, I'm Bob" nametag.

csandreasen 12y ago
You don't currently need to reveal your identity to customers when doing business online, but complete anonymity is something else altogether. I might not know the full name and address of the store clerk, but his employer certainly does. That clerk is representing his business and should be held accountable to business for anything he does. If I have I bad experience purchasing from that store, it doesn't matter to me that it was a bad clerk - it's Local Towel Sales, Inc. that's not going to get my business in the future. I also as a customer don't need to know that "Sally Smith" owns the corner store, but the owner of the lot that she's renting out for her storefront certainly does. If she's running her business in such a way that it affects the value of the property or will result in legal action, she needs to be held accountable to someone. It works exactly the same online. When I buy a product that Online Towel Sales, Inc. posted to eBay, I don't care about who posted the product online or packed it up and shipped it, I only care that it came from Online Towel Sales, Inc. and will choose whether or not to do business again with them based on that experience. Likewise, if the owner of Online Towel Sales is using eBay to peddle illegal counterfeit towels or something, eBay needs to know who to hold accountable because they have a vested interest in not having their website associated with illegal activity. I'm not going to come back to eBay if it gets a reputation for being a criminal safehaven.

gubatron 12y ago

In my world view (also OpenBazaar developer) I think OpenBazaar shouldn't make false promises on delivering anonymity, not even Bitcoin can do that. I believe that OpenBazaar's initial motive was to distance itself from DarkMarkets as the opportunity to directly link people worldwide for trade without intermediaries, or barriers of entry to the market outweight the needs of those looking to trade anonymously. I foresee market forces killing off the sellers that prefer to remain anonymous and misterious unless they're selling special items. In practice I believe people will be less scared to transact with someone who has an identity, who can be accountable. Honor and trust are necessary for all kinds of commerce. If it were up to me, I'd build OpenBazaar to work flawlessly on the OpenInternet, if anybody needs to use the technology in a different way the code is open and I'm sure they'll find a way to try to hide themselves, but I think it's a fool's errand, no amount of Tor will hide you from the authorities if they want to get you. I think the size of illegal markets as big as they can be are minuscule compared to the new era of trade I envision, never in our history we have been able to directly trade with anybody else out there. Centralized ecommerce outfits like ebay and amazon have only given us a glimpse of what's possible, but as good as they are, they can't scale to 100% of the planet, I believe a great p2p solution can do this and the consequences of this will be of historic importance. This slide stack will give you the bigger picture OpenBazaar should be going after http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/the-emerging-global-web http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/the-emerging-global-web Worrying ourselves with pleasing users that want to be on Tor, at this point in time, I believe is a waste of time that draws the wrong kind of attention to the project. There's a much bigger opportunity to be seized, a truly world changing one.