anti-prosecution tactics. (Was Re:)

[rysiek]

Dnia czwartek, 16 stycznia 2014 15:33:07 Troy Benjegerdes pisze:
> > > The vested interests absolutely would love us all to believe privacy is
> > > dead, but will not themselves give it up, making for an extreme
> > > imbalance
> > > of power.
> > 
> > And information assymetry. That's why we have to build our own tools and
> > use them to guard our own privacy.
> 
> pgp and gnupg are 'pretty good'.

Yup. And we can make them better, more usable, etc.

> Bitcoin is a disaster because the vested interests appear to have achived
> complete regulatory capture through FINCEN and the Banking Secrecy Act

Also, FBI has "over9000" BTC from SilkRoad bust. Enough to do whatever they 
want with this market. Who knows how that cash is going to be spent.

> > > I, on the other hand, am a person. I am not, however, particularly
> > > private,
> > > because it costs me too fucking much in terms of money, time, and
> > > paranoia
> > > to actually test and verify that shit I think is supposed to be private
> > > actually is.
> > 
> > Well, there is always the element of trust. I have to (I don't have the
> > time, money, etc to verify myself) trust my hardware and software to some
> > extent.
> > 
> > But I *can* choose hardware and software in a way that should make that
> > trust better founded. Free software, open hardware. I use an "ancient"
> > Nokia N900, which is by far not ideal, still much better than any iPhone.
> > 
> > I can make listeners' lives harder. And I do.
> > 
> > > What I want is for private cypherpunks and transparent cypherpunks to
> > > respect each other's values and spill the secrets of the fuckers who say
> > > privacy is dead but will only themselves give it up in the cold grip of
> > > the
> > > grave.
> > 
> > Abso-fucking-lutely! Still, I would like to know what is the threat model
> > you were talking about. I don't see how advocating privacy and anonymity
> > can be sinister -- apart from using these terms in context that these
> > terms have no purpose other than muddying the waters (i.e. "privacy of
> > government agencies or corporations").
> 
> The cost of privacy is the threat.

Oh?

> There's a lot we can do with things that are Free, as in Freedom (software).
> I think there's also a great advance waiting when a viral-freedom copyright
> license (GPL/AGPL) cryptocoin can figure out how to clearly express the cost
> tradeoff of doing verifiably secure anonymous transactions vs what it costs
> to just tell the world you are sending $20 to your grandma and making sure
> it gets there.

What kind of cost are you talking about. The cost of equipment and electricity 
to mine BTC/whateverCoin? Opportunity cost of some kind? Privacy cost (as in: 
"my address gets written into a public ledger")?

Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerocoin

"Zerocoin is a proposed cryptocurrency that would be provably anonymous. It
 will employ cryptographic accumulators and digital commitments with zero-
 nowledge proofs to eliminate trackable linkage in a blockchain, which would
 make the currency anonymous and untraceable."

> The problem with bitcoin is all the developers who know what they are doing
> are now part of the 1% that benefits from exploiting privacy asymmetry.

Yup.

> I can't trust someone talking with forked tongue about how cryptocoins are
> BOTH a serious business currency, AND protect your privacy.

Makes a lot of sense. Bitcoin is not anonymous, we already know that. It is 
pseudonymous at best.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 316 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/attachments/20140117/016e8620/attachment-0002.sig>