pull down to refresh
1 sat \ 10 replies \ @mewtwo 17 Apr 2023 \ on: No Privacy? No Freedom. No Freedom? No Wealth. -- sats forward to ODELL bitcoin
@ODELL
Just to play devil's advocate... Let's just say you don't give a shit about what anyone thinks - do you lack freedom if your transactions are public? Is there a transaction you can only make in private?
The privacy conversation is truly interesting. When you think about what makes something a viable currency... Privacy has never been a part of the conversation. It needs to be salable across time and space (finite and divisible)... But privacy interestingly isn't a factor into whether to not something can [technically] behave as global currency.
It's only a part of the conversation now because cryptocurrency is digital.
Isn't embracing a public, immutable ledger the same as embracing 100% public transactions?
Without privacy there is no fungibility. So it has been part of the conversation, at least to the extent that fungibility is an essential property of money.
reply
did you read the post? it does not refer to bitcoin specifically
When you think about what makes something a viable currency... Privacy has never been a part of the conversation
both gold and cash are private by default, the two dominant monies before the digital era
privacy is not secrecy, it is the ability to selectively reveal yourself to the world
reply
It is not a given fact that freedom requires privacy. The relationship between the two is a function of power.
The trivial example is that of an all-powerful tyrant. Suppose you had god-like or superman-like powers; in this case, you could not bother to keep anything secret about yourself, and it would not affect your (total) freedom to act however you like.
Back to the real world, you can find corners of real life where this situation applies: one I like to mention occasionally is: suppose a dissident is on a plane out of their despotic country, the fact that the tyrant government sees them making a BTC transfer out of their wallet to another address, because their BTC privacy is poor is no longer relevant (while, if still in country, the government could use the blockchain surveillance effort to pinpoint them, hunt them down and imprison them perhaps, or just convict them of some made up crime).
Here, it's the power (or absence of it) to control the blockchain which is the crucial property.
"Privacy for the weak, transparency for the powerful" has sometimes been mentioned as an idea. You could imagine this being very relevant to the blockchain. The "weak", people with few resources, might use exclusively L2 because they don't need the perfect, iron clad security guarantees of L1, while very large, powerful entities do make that choice. Yes I know "corporations need privacy for business secrets", I'm not saying powerful entities will not engage privacy techniques, but the precise reason we have a transparent base layer is in the above sentence: "the power (or absence of it) to control the blockchain which is the crucial property" - we do not have CT on chain today because nothing is allowed to stand in the way of perfect verifiability and immutability - not even privacy!
For myself I have never liked Hughes' descriptions as per the "manifesto" whereas Timothy May I thought was always exactly on point. "A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know." - meh, this is somehow not the point, there's nothing wrong with some things being 'secret' (secret keys for example), the point is that privacy or secrecy can enable a changed power dynamic. The normie reader will think that there is a normative distinction being made (are secrets "bad" while private matters are fine? yeah I know that's nonsense but why make the distinction?).
reply
Yeah I read the post - you're not answering the question though. What freedom do you lack if your transactions are public?
As soon as someone known your single-sig public key, privacy is kinda toast, isn't it?
reply
No. Read up on coinjoin. Search for some articles on bitcoin privacy.
reply
I'm aware of things like this - so the assertion is that bitcoin can only be successful w/ mixers?
reply
I think we need to drop the idea that freedom is a boolean. It is a sliding scale and privacy is linked to this. Same goes for money. Same goes for privacy, and even success. Unless you are defining what these terms mean with very specific language we will just waste everyone's time.
reply
I'm not the one making any assertions here, I'm asking questions and trying to figure out what the actual claim is, because bitcoin is not inherently private.
reply
Coinjoin is different from a mixer. No I don't think that is the assertion.
reply
That's fallacious logic rooted in a classic mind control technique called public confession. The only requirement is auditability of supply, privacy is about using the network properly.
Transparency inherently creates information warfare asymmetry for those who hide their communications and capture information using their above the law government privilege.
Same thing as cult mind contrtol and confession/humiliation rituals. No, privacy is essential to a civil society. Otherwise it will steadily decline into totalitarianism.
reply