PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#171

Post by xvector » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #155

xvector wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you reverse fraudulent transactions? How do you reverse paying someone with cash? You don't. You can ask for a refund and hope they give it to you. If you're transacting with a trusted business, you can expect them to adhere to the law and reverse the payment. In this sense, crypto transactions are no different than how humans have transacted for thousands of years. Chargebacks and reversals are a convenienc…

I feel like you make a better argument against using cash rather than for using crypto. I don’t use cash anymore because I do want transaction reversibility and fraud/theft/loss protection. You say it isn’t “necessary” but in the same vein nothing that crypto offers is “necessary.”

I am just not willing to give up my privacy and financial freedom for a tiny bit of purchase protection that I have literally never needed. I know I’m not the only one. Cash is still pretty commonly used, anyways.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#172

Post by high_priest » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

55555 wrote: post #154

convery wrote: post #20

Holding the money hostage for half a year on a 20 year old account? Not surprising. Paypal and their other entities like Ebay are pretty shit when it comes to nuance and their impact on others. Had a 15 year old Paypal business account (parent started it and I took it over ~7 years ago) and last year they shut it down because I, as the new owner, was not 18 when the account was created. Nothing from the support but "…

A while ago I used paypal for transactions and I left some in the account so there was 100 grand. Six months later I tried to take some of it out and they froze the account despite no other recent activity. They said they'd keep it six months. Eight months or so after that, I asked about it, and they said they needed to freeze it for another six months. So soon we'll be at basically 18 months after the funds were ear…

Looks like these frozen funds resulted in gamedex.co not being paid for

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#173

Post by DavideNL » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #47

News like this is proof that cryptocurrencies like Monero are necessary. It’s proof (not that we needed any) that centralized finance does not have your best interests at heart, and they can and will abuse their power.

The main problem is politics and laws;

Whenever a solution pops up that has a negative impact on the finances of the richest 5%, like cryptocurrency, politics/laws will come up with a new method/law to suppress it.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#174

Post by qualudeheart » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

wydfre wrote: post #121

qualudeheart wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not pollute the informational commons.

Have you ever read about a Tor network in the news and wanted to drink until you have liver damage? Quit being smart enough to justify evil apparent. At least I don't have to worry about where my monero or zcash is going; you do. Cash is anonymous - but mine at worst came from a strip joint, drug deal or hooker. And you work in national security at Anduril. Please be a normal consistent person.

What are the exact problems with tor? That it ennables immoral behavior?

So does cash. So do these strip clubs and drug deals that you talk about.

I mean I`m a libertarian and sex positive person and I think drugs should in most cases be legalized but I don`t see how that makes me somehow problematic or inconsistent!

Can you elaborate?

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#175

Post by BelenusMordred » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 11:46 AM UTC

gonational wrote: post #135

I see a lot of outrage in here and I truly love that. Honest question: would you express the same level of outrage, if the service in question was primarily a purveyor of political content that you disagreed with, or "hate speech"? I see a lot of libertarian-minded comments whenever the service in question is some form of file sharing/hacker related service, but I don't really see much outrage when the same culprits…

> Too many seem to be OK with others' rights being taken away, as long as they disagree with those who are losing their rights

It's human tribalism in a nutshell. They'll argue until they are blue in the face for their team to not be persecuted but the moment it's "the others" they cheer it on.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#176

Post by richardwhiuk » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 12:12 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #102

richardwhiuk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal are legally obligated to hand back the money after 180 days. Nothing stops an exchange refusing to do business with you.

At least cryptocurrency prevents censorship when sending funds, unlike centralized solutions. Ideally, in the long run, cryptocurrency takes on a value of its own, reducing the need to use exchanges.

Cryptocurrency will still have payment processors for sending money.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#177

Post by toss1 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 12:15 PM UTC

meowster wrote: post #136

toss1 wrote: post #99

At least I'm not being held hostage, but PayPal has just had their last interaction with me. After few sales of an un-marketed old product for most of the pandemic, someone tracked me down and wanted to purchase. Agreed on options and I said I'd have an invoice out in minutes. Should be easy, right? Login to PayPal, fill out invoice info, hit [Send] . . . . Nope, something wrong, contact support. Phone w/half-hour+ w…

I think support people will claim they can't hear you in order to get the caller to hang up so it improves their metrics (short call time and the caller hung up). I always say "I have plenty of time and will wait until you can hear me, and I won't hang up" or something along those lines. The connections always seem to magical improve after saying that.

Yup, but in this case, they hung up while I kept trying to talk.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#178

Post by unionpivo » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 12:15 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #144

benja123 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is a popular belief but it’s actually the exact opposite… The reason PayPal holds funds is that a consumer is allowed to reverse a bank and credit card transaction for a few months after the transaction happened. This ability exists to protect consumers from fraudsters, scammers and bad businesses (ones that don’t provide service etc.) which is much more common than people realize. With crypto, the abilit…

> With crypto, the ability to reverse a transaction disappears and with that the ability to protect consumers. Now who do you think will thrive in a world where a consumer has no protection? For thousands of years humans have transacted with physical currency, in which transactions cannot be "reversed" once the payment is made. Even today, many people pay and transact with cash. Second-layer financial institutions pr…

> For thousands of years humans have transacted with physical currency, in which transactions cannot be "reversed" once the payment is made. Even today, many people pay and transact with cash. Second-layer financial institutions provide holds, reversals, and chargebacks but they are by no means necessary for a robust financial system.

That is simply not the case. Even in old ancient civilizations and feudal systems you usually had a way to reverse a transaction by going to court (in the old times literal court of the king, nowadays judge). This was and is possible because when you pay in cash you know who you pay to, and authorities (king and/or police) can lay hand on them. So even if you pay cash in brick and mortar shop you can get refunds (usually :) ).

One of the reasons why a lot of people are comfortable buying online is easy refunds. And if crypto can't provide that, I don't ever see it catching on in mainstream.

And if you want refunds and you are marketplace like eBay , the easiest way to offer refunds is to keep money in escrow which is what is happening here.(Except that their home brew escrow algos seem to not be that great, but crypto won't change that either. )

Bottom line is, crypto either won't go mainstream or will be co-opted by mainstream and will have all of the same problems/features as current currencies.

And it's not because governments. It's because people want and expect their government to be able to protect them.

And government don't censor things because they don't have nothing better to do. At least in democracy's they start censoring, when enough people cry to them to start censoring. Don't expect that to ever change with or without crypto.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#179

Post by unionpivo » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #102

richardwhiuk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal are legally obligated to hand back the money after 180 days. Nothing stops an exchange refusing to do business with you.

At least cryptocurrency prevents censorship when sending funds, unlike centralized solutions. Ideally, in the long run, cryptocurrency takes on a value of its own, reducing the need to use exchanges.

> At least cryptocurrency prevents censorship when sending funds, unlike centralized solutions.

right now, because it's not widely used. If it ever gets mainstream, people will give governments whatever power they need to censor and try to stop things like child pornography. And once they can censor that, they can censor other stuff as well.

And I am sure you can come up with technical reasons why monero can't be censored. But i remember when China started their big firewall of china, people where laughing how trivially easy it was to bypass. And that their strategy will never work. Now 15-20 years later, nobody is laughing anymore. In fact a lot of countries seem to be moving into same direction.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#180

Post by gonational » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

pitay wrote: post #166

gonational wrote: post #135

I see a lot of outrage in here and I truly love that. Honest question: would you express the same level of outrage, if the service in question was primarily a purveyor of political content that you disagreed with, or "hate speech"? I see a lot of libertarian-minded comments whenever the service in question is some form of file sharing/hacker related service, but I don't really see much outrage when the same culprits…

Well as someone who does that on occasion, not very often, far more on this site than real life, the answer is fear. If I was to do argue for free speech, I'd think twice because from experience I know that I will get called names and have terrible arguments against me that sound good but don't apply to what I said. In the IRL space (the actual like 2 times I've done this rather than the who knows how many times I ha…

If fear is the poison, then courage is the antidote.

You're right, 100%, but it's easy to lose sight of the fact that bullies, especially in this modern era, are the weak ones, and when you stand up for yourself you'll be surprised at how many of them cower in fear.

You'll also be surprised to see how many more you inspire to stand up next to you. Everybody is waiting for somebody else to stand up. Be that person and you'll soon be addicted to the results. One example, and of course this is controversial these days and itself, is that once we reached the point in the "pandemic" where it was obvious that the virus wasn't the real threat, I decided to go grocery shopping with no mask. I expected to be screamed at, but not one person said anything in a gigantic store filled with dozens of people. Not only that, but by the time I got to the front of the store there were two other people whom I encountered in the isles, who also had no mask on, but who did have a mask on while in the isles. I know this sounds made up. It's the honest to God truth. So I did it again in Home Depot, and it had the exact same affect. For those who disagree with my mindset about masks (which have been clinically proven to be ineffective), this sounds like an asshole move, but regardless of whether or not you agree with the principle behind the move, the methodology was effective. It's the same thing that triggers riots; people see others doing what they want to do and they are inspired to do it themselves. Why not use the same principle to inspire things that are not distractive?