In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously • Hacker News Board

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#291

Post by conradev » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:19 AM UTC

xanaxagoras wrote: post #260

conradev wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pay for digital goods with cash? Are you suggesting that every single online business that exists should have a mailing address to mail cash or checks, and have people to process them? I imagine that you pay for software in some form, as an example of a digital good. Do we need to go back to burning CDs and buying software in physical stores with physical money? Reject it all you want, but there is no goin…

All of these scenarios can be addressed with a fungible cryptocurrency.

Yes, that is the argument I am making.

But it is important that these fungible cryptocurrencies are as cash-like as possible. So, no global ledger.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#292

Post by daenz » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

adriand wrote: post #57

I agree that this needs to be taken very seriously. However, the author overstates his case significantly when he writes: > Doing this to someone—a small business owner in BC, a public servant in Winnipeg, a student in Halifax—who made a small donation to support the convoy is a clear abuse of power. However: > The RCMP, banking sector and federal government said Monday that account-freezing powers bestowed under the…

Here's David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He was asked directly whether or not people who donate to the movement should be worried.[0]

>If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried.

Can you understand now why people may be concerned about the scope of who is being targeted, regardless of what the RCMP claims they're doing? A high ranking official made it clear that donators are under the microscope based on their political affiliations.

0. https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/14941153331368673...

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#293

Post by bugbuddy » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #142

throwaway22032 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How precisely do the police seize the assets of tens of thousands of people simultaneously? They can't. This is a completely different issue, one which doesn't go away if cash isn't involved. The police could just as easily decide to seize your car or your watch or your computer or the clothes off of your back. On a one-by-one basis. It's mass surveillance vs. targeted all over again.

By ordering the banks to close their accounts. People are not holding significant portions of their wealth in physical cash outside of the banking system. Apart from it being absurdly dangerous, there's also not anything like enough physical currency to do that. Not to mention investment accounts, deeds to property, etc. Businesses being forced to accept all the risk and inconvenience of accepting cash to protect peo…

Businesses should accept cash as a signal to potential customers that they are not some snobbish high-tech cashless only establishments.

Also, there are a million other regulations that businesses have to deal with from license and insurance to the number of fire extinguishers. Asking businesses to accept cash is not a life-or-death decision from a business cost point of view. If anything, it means more potential customers and better PR.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#294

Post by suifbwish » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:24 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #288

throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…

"But yeah, if you want to seize assets, get a court order and go and lock someone in a box and take their things, don't take the cowardly way out and pretend that you've just flipped a database key and it's not really a big deal." Dont worry, soon everything from your toaster to your car will be internet connected and will be disabled on command

Don’t forget the toilet. Potty privileges will be the first thing to get shut off.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#295

Post by suifbwish » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:25 AM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #78

chowells wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carrying cash is exactly how you lose it all to police corruption, sometimes called civil asset forfeiture. Cash is no answer without sufficient legal protections. And if you have sufficient legal protections, cash mostly just buys you inconvenience. The problem isn't businesses going cashless. The problem is leaving structural control over money to profit-seeking enterprises.

We can fix that, and it is being addressed. Cash is a great answer to a whole lot of basic commerce, small scale, freedom style, between adults just adulting. The problem IS businesses refusing cash. The public really does not benefit and we have not shown we are able to avoid abusing electronics. One day maybe. Right now? Not a chance. Cash remains necessary and the costs are not crazy enough to warrant all the abus…

What businesses don’t accept cash? Everywhere I go does. In fact it is illegal for them not to do so.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#296

Post by Gadiguibou » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:26 AM UTC

Since I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere in the comments so far, it's worth noting that the author has clear political allegiances.

From the author's bio near the bottom of the article:

> Howard Anglin is a post-graduate researcher at Oxford University. He was previously Deputy Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Principal Secretary to the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, and a lawyer in New York, London, and Washington, DC.

I don't think this invalidates the argument in any way. I do think that it should raise a red flag however. Comparing the October crisis to the freezing of trucker funds partially raised by Nazis still seems a bit far-fetched to me after reading the article.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#297

Post by radford-neal » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:26 AM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #202

api wrote: post #31

I'm really happy to see that many people from many places on the political landscape see "debanking" as a line that should not be crossed. A great point I overheard recently was that this precedent is likely to be used in Canada against indigenous peoples protesting resource extraction and other incursions onto their land. Now a blockade can be a "terrorist act," etc., and their finances can be frozen among other thi…

> likely to be used in Canada against indigenous peoples Actually the emergency powers declaration specifically excludes indigenous people - that is, they can protest, but others can’t.

I think this is a misinterpretation. The exemption applies only to the new regulations regarding entry to the country, probably because there are some cross-border reserves.

It is, however, very likely that these new powers will be applied selectively, not according to how disruptive protesters are, but according to whether their message is congenial to those in power.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#298

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:27 AM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #78

chowells wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carrying cash is exactly how you lose it all to police corruption, sometimes called civil asset forfeiture. Cash is no answer without sufficient legal protections. And if you have sufficient legal protections, cash mostly just buys you inconvenience. The problem isn't businesses going cashless. The problem is leaving structural control over money to profit-seeking enterprises.

We can fix that, and it is being addressed. Cash is a great answer to a whole lot of basic commerce, small scale, freedom style, between adults just adulting. The problem IS businesses refusing cash. The public really does not benefit and we have not shown we are able to avoid abusing electronics. One day maybe. Right now? Not a chance. Cash remains necessary and the costs are not crazy enough to warrant all the abus…

> I do not connect payments to my phone for example. Everyone I know who did has a story to tell about how doing that cost them.

I do this and all my friends have done this, and I haven’t heard any costing stories. I guess you could be in some kind of high risk group or area for digital theft (Russia?), but I’m curious what specific things have happened to all your friends.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#299

Post by pvarangot » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:27 AM UTC

varenc wrote: post #137

walterbell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient. Incorrect, the battle is partly won in several U.S. cities (including NYC & SF) which passed laws to mandate acceptance of cash. However, cash-acceptance laws were mostly motivated by the unbanked, who are now being used to justify the introduction of nation-state CBDCs. China's CBDC is two-tier and preserves retail bank competition. People close to t…

> the battle is partly won in several U.S. cities (including NYC & SF) which passed laws to mandate acceptance of cash In SF, despite the laws, many businesses openly had a no-cash policy once the pandemic started. "Sorry, Credit Cards Only. Touching money might transmit Covid" is too easy of an argument, even though it's essentially a non-concern now. And I haven't seen businesses go back to accepting cash as lockdo…

Yeah. I only saw that sign a couple times during the early COVID days and just payed with cash to see what happened and they took it without questions.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#300

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #77

incompatible wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next step will be somebody who is in "digital jail" and can't pay taxes so ends up guilty of tax evasion too.

Inability to pay taxes is not tax evasion, of either of the recognized types in the US (evasion of assessment, i.e., concealment of facts that would indicate tax is due, or evasion of payment, i.e., concealment of or movement out of reach of taxing authorities of funds with which taxes that are due could be paid.)

In theory, sure.

In practice that's bullshit and you know it. The .gov, be it state local or fed, has show time and time again that it's not above prosecuting someone for a "failure to X" crime of which the failure was caused by the .gov's own action.