531–540 of 611 posts
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Authoritarian overreach is itself a routine and widely accepted aspect of democratic governments. Authoritarians get 1 vote/person, same as everyone else. They're allowed to advocate for policies and score the occasional outrageous political win, just like everyone else. There are a lot of them out there and they are a significant political force. Something being routine and done democratically is no defence at all o…
Absolute financial privacy is not a liberal principle. It's a fantasy cooked up by crypto enthusiasts and anti-government ideologues. You cannot enforce sanctions, prevent money laundering, protect consumers, or collect taxes if transactions are private. It's just not going to work.
Alternatively, without those positive incentives towards payment, we might consider the comparative value of evading taxes and taking upon risk vs. paying a less onerous tax. From these exclusively negative consequences, the taxpayer compares the burden of compliance with the effort required and the risks of non-compliance. This is well known in the modern era as The Laffer Curve.
So I have to disagree once again. Empirically, we can see that is possible to collect taxes when there the perceived value of the services provided by the state is a net win for the tax payer. Taxes can also be collected when the burden of payment is less than the cost of evasion.
When states fail to deliver value taxpayers understandably become dissatisfied. When compliance is onerous and rates high, authoritarian enforcement measures become necessary. From this point it is easy to see how cryptocurrencies provide the kind of utility you disparage.
"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks", this is Satoshi's inscription on the BTC genesis block. It may suggest that mismanagement by (arguably authoritarian) central planners gave rise to the popularity of cryptocurrencies. Perhaps the reason cryptocurrencies exist is because of the incompetence or authoritarian means of the state.
There's room in the middle to disagree, but the extreme case you've made here reads as authoritarian. Especially in the context of the article.
Monero fixes that.
Maybe it solves one problem, but it has many other: https://coinpaper.com/10812/qubic-vs-monero-pr-stunt-or-proo... Also, always remember native coinjoin.
Also, what is that problem you mention with coinjoin? Please provide details.
I have deep disagreements with my father on this subject. He worked as a federal agent for 30 years, mostly in digital forensics. He does not believe in the right to privacy in any of the same ways I do. Whereas I believe a right to privacy in your tools and communication is essential, he believes they infringe on the government's ability to catch criminals. Classic justification of "if you're not a bad guy, what do…
Millennials see reality through the lens of 'Squid game' and 'Hunger games.' Meanwhile boomers think we're Snowflakes. They don't understand that we're fighting a relentless psychological war in a hyper-competitive environment of scarcity.
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I looked into this a little more, and these were the final two provisions of the Patriot Act, so the did law expire. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean a whole lot, as many of the provisions live on in the USA Freedom Act.
Was not aware of the USA Freedom Act details on it: Reauthorization of Other Patriot Act Provisions: The USA FREEDOM Act extended two other provisions from the Patriot Act that were set to expire: "Lone Wolf" Provision: Allows for surveillance on individual terrorists who may not be directly linked to a foreign power. "Roving Wiretap" Provision: Enables surveillance to follow a suspect even if they change their commu…
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Apparently I forgot to close my sarcasm tag.
I chuckled, at least. Seeing the rise in the amount of bots on YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, basically all the major and a lot of minor social networks over the last ~decade has really been something, too. Tons and tons of people with account names that all follow similar regex's saying the same things around the same time. I suppose it feels closer to Brave New World than 1984 but it's eerie, and those are jus…
I have deep disagreements with my father on this subject. He worked as a federal agent for 30 years, mostly in digital forensics. He does not believe in the right to privacy in any of the same ways I do. Whereas I believe a right to privacy in your tools and communication is essential, he believes they infringe on the government's ability to catch criminals. Classic justification of "if you're not a bad guy, what do…
Just like many cops (and thieves) invest pretty heavily in physical security.
And why the first thing a cop does if another cop starts hassling them (and won’t back down) is get a lawyer. Because they know.
It’s often less about what you did or didn’t do, and sometimes more about what someone wants/needs to nail you on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolute financial privacy is not a liberal principle. It's a fantasy cooked up by crypto enthusiasts and anti-government ideologues. You cannot enforce sanctions, prevent money laundering, protect consumers, or collect taxes if transactions are private. It's just not going to work.
It may come as a surprise, but there were periods where taxes were contributed voluntarily or sworn under oath that they were accurate tabulations. Early Hamburg is a strong example here. There was an honor associated with paying taxes for wealthy merchants. Alternatively, without those positive incentives towards payment, we might consider the comparative value of evading taxes and taking upon risk vs. paying a less…
I guess you consider it authoritarian when you don't get to bypass those controls by using crypto.
The honors-based tax system that worked in a small oligarchic city-state of 25k is hardly going to scale to modern democracies with millions of taxpayers.
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Strictly speaking, loading an address with many UTXOs has no effect on security of the receiving address at all (beyond increasing its public profile). The security concerns start happening after an address spends a UTXO. Before a P2WPKH (segwit) address is used, only the public key hash is known. In order to spend from it, the full public key needs to be revealed. That's why it's recommended to use single-use addres…
so the risk to the wallet holder is the exact same risk that exists for every single HTTPS connection right now? Post quantum algorithms have been available. You can do it today. Why not for bitcoin? In reality, there are very few current real world implementations. This article makes it seem that RSA is under active exploitation. If it is, bitcoin is not the first target IMO
To attack TLS, you need a network MITM. To attack bitcoin you don't.