Privacy cost: was Re: anti-prosecution tactics

[Troy Benjegerdes]

> > > 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")?

The code bloat of <bitcoin-privacy-of-the-week>, the blockchain bloat of new
addresses all the time, and the biggest one:

The god damned mental anguish I have to deal with because the fricking bitcoin
client generates a new address for every damned transaction. I just want a
couple of well known addresses to keep track of my stuff.

If I want privacy (and for the record, I don't), I can hide in high-frequency
automated trading and buttonwood exchanges. Otherwise known as 'tradecraft'.

The software attempting to 'do it for me' makes for worse privacy and opsec
for EVERYONE, at substantial mental, storage, and computation cost. I dunno,
maybe I'm missing something here, but then, if I am missing it, how the hell
are non-coders (aka, the real world, or journalists, or dissidents) supposed
to figure it out?