This critique is applicable to all forms of comsec/infosec/anonymity/Tor although the incessant promotion various means to escape being hacked, tracked, decrypted, identified appears to be unstoppable due to the monetization and assurances of protection for internet users by predators and bullshitters working hand in hand with authorities which are extremely pleased with the aiders and abetters, not a few which came into prominance and profitability on this shewd mail list and its offshoots, luring gullible readers into capacious honeypots, watering holes, stings, dark markets, cults of dead cows exploitation, enlistment into spy agencies and professorships and law offices and NGOs and financial theiveries..

"PGP and Gnupgp," "PRZ," "RSA," "AES," "open source," "digital cash," "e-gold," "bitcoin," "Satoshi," "work around censorship," "don't trust governments," "write code," "assassination politics," "EFF," "WikiLeaks." Hut, two, three, four.

Some have died on public duty, others smeared, imprisoned and exiled, quite a few gone onto dreary jobs in the security industry bossed, herded, contemned, retired by MBA lunkheads reaping top benefits over the grunts chained to computers deranged by dreams of what could have been and maybe still can be. Get sec vaxed, often, jabbed with updates unending as wars. Best to cooperate, deliver speeches, grab bounties, warn of threats, dismiss opponents.

At 02:05 PM 6/12/2021, David Barrett wrote:
I am very confused why anyone thinks Bitcoin is untraceable, anonymous, or anything less than a privacy disaster.  It is literally the least private currency ever devised: once I know your wallet, I know truly everything you have ever done back to the very start.  Bitcoin is as private as sharing all your credit card purchases via twitter: yes, very noisy, but totally in the open (and "mixing" things between wallets is just silly -- computers can unwind all that in a millisecond). Â

If you have a mapping of "human identity to wallet" (which the government nearly always has because virtually every path to convert BTC to USD/EUR/etc is regulated), then no matter how many intermediate steps and secret wallets are used as some kind of "factoring" approach toward money laundering, you can always figure out who is being paid by whom.  In fact, it's *easier* for the FBI to unwind your laundering via BTC than normal banks, because normal banks *have shitloads of privacy protections and subpoena requirements that BTC doesn't*.

The only way it's private is if you skip every exchange, but that's the classic tradeoff of privacy for convenience -- yes, there are lots of ways to maintain your privacy inconveniently, and BTC is just one more.  And if the only way to truly do anonymous transfers is by meeting up in person to exchange cash for a keydrive containing a wallet private key, then BTC is really no better on the privacy/convenience spectrum than just handing someone a suitcase of gold.

Blockchain is great and all, but in none of the ways people investing in it claim.

-david






On Sat, Jun 12, 2021 at 7:13 AM jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:

The National: Colonial Pipeline’s ransom recovery sparks
debate on Bitcoin traceability.




https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/technology/colonial-pipeline-s-ransom-recovery-sparks-debate-on-bitcoin-traceability-1.1238908