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

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#81

Post by Wistar » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

reedjosh wrote: post #76

xvector wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero is much more private than Zcash. The issue with Zcash shielded transactions is that something like 14% of transactions are shielded, but only 1% are truly private. Optionally shielded transactions make chain analysis much easier and immediately make said transaction suspect. So you cannot comfortably use Zcash for private transactions. See the report by Chainalysis [1]: > 14% of the ZCash transactions use a so…

Arrr or Pirate is Zcash, but with always on privacy BTW. I like it a lot, but it's relatively new. Also, the ZKSnark method that provides the privacy requires that the devs threw away their initial PKs. If you trust they did, then it's a great option.

I think VRSC is similar to ARRR and Pirate.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#82

Post by mattnewton » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

mpol wrote: post #61

So, what is the alternative for PayPal? I sell only small-time. I don't want to do Creditcard, no Stripe either (I don't have a registered company) and iDEAL is only working in the Netherlands. So what is the internet alternative for international selling. And, please, no crypto-currencies :) I am off to sleep, see you tomorrow.

Sounds like you are aware of many alternatives to Paypal. Why not register a company and use Stripe?

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#83

Post by fsflover » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

Many stories how PayPal kills FLOSS projects: https://web.archive.org/web/20191011190010/https://minifree....

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#84

Post by R0b0t1 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

Wistar wrote: post #79

xvector wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero is much more private than Zcash. The issue with Zcash shielded transactions is that something like 14% of transactions are shielded, but only 1% are truly private. Optionally shielded transactions make chain analysis much easier and immediately make said transaction suspect. So you cannot comfortably use Zcash for private transactions. See the report by Chainalysis [1]: > 14% of the ZCash transactions use a so…

"IRS offered $625,000 bounty to anyone who could 'crack' Monero; no one succeeded" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25752042

You can analyze the dust spend in transactions to deanonymize Monero users. You need to be processing a lot of transactions to do this, or have the ability to spy on the processing of a lot of transactions.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#85

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:51 PM 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.

If it were government crypto (or centralized government money transfer), you'd have recourse in the courts.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#86

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #85

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.

If it were government crypto (or centralized government money transfer), you'd have recourse in the courts.

[deleted]

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#87

Post by slownews45 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #18

slownews45 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it is being confiscated? He will have a claim then. What can happen is when your credit card / other payment providers cuts you off is that you go out of business. You might fail to provide services to users - so they do a chargeback / ask for a refund from payment provider. So when a payment provider is shutting you down, they usually want to hold onto some money to be able to handle those refund reques…

So PayPal is holding onto his money in case he incurs expenses as a result of going out of business due to PayPal cutting him off? And this seems normal and good to you?

This is the way many providers that offer recourse settlements handle things.

They have data showing when they cut off a business from processing credit cards etc they may receive claims from customers who have already paid whose money they are either holding or have forwarded.

If they are holding it they refund that customer, and business can ask for payment using another method.

If they are not holding funds, they run into an issue of asking merchant for money (which is difficult to collect).

So most providers of this type when making a decision to end a business relationship hold onto the funds for a while to let everything settle. This is not unique to paypal.

Some providers don't hold funds if payor has no recourse. You usually need to be settling with what are called "good funds" for that to be the case, then merchant is paid out usually within 1 day under all circumstances. A fair number of B2B wire type clearing operations work like this.

I'm just explaining what happens. They don't generally closely evaluate the reasons or likely outcomes of account closures, and there is enough fraud and profit motive / cost cutting in system that the rules tilt pretty heavily against merchant.

That said, if OP is not lying and they really do confiscate the funds there will be an issue for them. Especially individuals, they'll send the unclaimed funds to the state generally even if not claimed by the person.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#88

Post by reedjosh » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #85

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.

If it were government crypto (or centralized government money transfer), you'd have recourse in the courts.

But if it were just crypto, nobody would be able to hold your funds. I don't think transferring the power to an even more inscrutable bureaucracy makes this problem any better.

Most people already acknowledge that the little guy doesn't have the funds to hire the lawyers for a protracted court case.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#89

Post by FridayoLeary » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

gene91 wrote: post #80

FridayoLeary wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like good news. I don't see why i should have to give PP a cut of everything i sell on Ebay.

The cost to seller is mostly the same. eBay is now taking the cuts (the cut they have always taken plus the cut that used to be taken by PayPal) themselves instead.

Oh. That's nasty then.

Re: PayPal shuts down long-time Tor supporter

#90

Post by reedjosh » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #84

Wistar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"IRS offered $625,000 bounty to anyone who could 'crack' Monero; no one succeeded" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25752042

You can analyze the dust spend in transactions to deanonymize Monero users. You need to be processing a lot of transactions to do this, or have the ability to spy on the processing of a lot of transactions.

Even if someone could _see_ the transaction and identify the user behind the wallets, at least a crypto still prevents fund holding and transaction blocking.