Comment by yujzgzc

Comment by yujzgzc 12 hours ago

Actually that's a problem for a lot of libertarian minded tech, it starts being thought of as enabling freedom from oppressive governments and ends up being adopted by criminals - Bitcoin, Tor, etc.

In the tech industry you also find a bend of very economically self interested version of privacy, which is that giving privacy to your users is a great way to claim you didn't know anything bad was happening. I'm pretty sure that, not high minded ideals, is why Meta invests so much in e2e encryption and privacy for WhatsApp, and publicizing it - when the next horrible thing is planned using Whatsapp, it lets them disclaim all responsibility for moderating what's happening on their platform

AnthonyMouse 8 hours ago

> Actually that's a problem for a lot of libertarian minded tech, it starts being thought of as enabling freedom from oppressive governments and ends up being adopted by criminals - Bitcoin, Tor, etc.

This is such a sham though.

You have some privacy-protecting technology everyone would benefit from. Ordinary people don't really understand it but would use and benefit from it if it was the default.

Laws are passed that make it illegal to use or otherwise highly inconvenient, e.g. you have to fill out an onerous amount of paperwork even if you're not doing anything wrong. Ordinary people are deterred from using it and ordinary systems don't adopt it. Criminals continue using it because they don't care about breaking the paperwork laws if they're already breaking the drug laws.

Then people say look at this evil technology that only criminals use! As if the reason others don't use it wasn't purposeful.

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derektank 7 hours ago

I'm not disagreeing with your general point but in the specific case of Bitcoin I can't think of any laws that have been passed which make it highly inconvenient to use relative to other financial assets. If anything, it seems like legislators (at least in the US) have taken something of a laissez faire attitude toward the technology. Regulators have been more aggressive (e.g. the Treasury) but they're largely just enforcing existing laws which, again, apply to other financial assets.

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- AnthonyMouse 6 hours ago
  
  > I'm not disagreeing with your general point but in the specific case of Bitcoin I can't think of any laws that have been passed which make it highly inconvenient to use relative to other financial assets.
  The issue is that it's treated as a "financial asset" to begin with, which de facto inhibits its use as a currency. You want to pay for a sandwich with cash? Hand them bills, get sandwich. You want to pay with cryptocurrency? File securities paperwork. Who is going to do that?
  By comparison, things like foreign currencies that float against the dollar aren't reported when the transaction amount is below a threshold.
  
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lazyasciiart 7 hours ago

Criminals use privacy protection that is not illegal too.

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- AnthonyMouse 6 hours ago
  
  Indeed, criminals use things like HTTPS and ad blockers and lock the doors to their cars and homes. But so does everybody else?
  
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  lazyasciiart 3 hours ago
  
  Yes. I am disagreeing with your assumption that all "libertarian minded tech" must be illegal and only used by criminals. VPNs, Signal, ...
  
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xp84 10 hours ago

> starts being thought of as enabling freedom from oppressive governments and ends up being adopted by criminals - Bitcoin, Tor, etc

Yes. Both are real facets of this type of tech. For all the handwringing about "but what if fascism" that we have here in the US, I'm pretty sure 90% of the actual worries American cryptocurrency users have in their hearts is either about tax evasion, money laundering, or using crypto to buy/sell something illegal (Granted, there are some things illegal to buy/sell that there could be an ethical argument shouldn't be illegal -- probably certain drugs for instance). If someone has made bitcoin transactions to say, donate to EFF, Planned Parenthood or ACLU, I would take a bet of 5 Bitcoin that he isn't going to be imprisoned for that fact in this country. Yes, even though Trump is President.

But I think we who believe in privacy make ourselves look bad if we try to pretend that there isn't a ton of that stuff going on.

It's a reasonable opinion to say that privacy is good, but I think the thing to argue and "prove" is that it outweighs the fact that this technology also enables all this bad stuff. Which is a value judgment and thus you need to convince people, rather than just point to the word "Freedom" and assert.

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ipaddr 4 hours ago

Donating in public associates you with that charity. If that charity happens to be politically different from people in power it can use it against you.
We have to decide what kind of society we want. One with locks on doors or a world where that is illegal. Bad guys use locks and so do regular people. Taking away everyone's freedom and safety because it makes it easier to catch "bad guys" is not worth the tradeoffs in terms of safety / privacy or creating a society worth living in.

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heavyset_go an hour ago

> If someone has made bitcoin transactions to say, donate to EFF, Planned Parenthood or ACLU, I would take a bet of 5 Bitcoin that he isn't going to be imprisoned for that fact in this country. Yes, even though Trump is President.
This is archaic thinking, today all it takes is the president tweeting about your donations for your family to have to into hiding forever.

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feoren 8 hours ago

> If someone has made bitcoin transactions to say, donate to EFF, Planned Parenthood or ACLU, I would take a bet of 5 Bitcoin that he isn't going to be imprisoned for that fact in this country. Yes, even though Trump is President.
Yet. They want to execute people for being trans in Florida, by separately passing laws that child abusers get executed, and that being trans == child abuse. It's not hyperbolic to worry that donating to a trans rights organization could make you a governmental target. Scammers might steal some of my money, but they're not going to abduct me off the street into unmarked vans in front of my kids.

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