Richard Stallman Discusses Privacy Risks of Bitcoin, Suggests 'Something Much Better' (cointelegraph.com) 168
Richard Stallman gave a new interview to the site Cointelegraph, which asked him his feelings about cryptocurrencies. "I'm not against them," Stallman answers "I'm not campaigning to eliminate them, I just don't particularly want to use them."
Cointelegraph then asks Stallman how he feels about tests underway for the Chinese government's own central bank digital currency: Richard Stallman: "Digital payment systems are fundamentally dangerous if they are not engineered to ensure privacy. China is the enemy of privacy. China shows what totalitarian surveillance is like. I consider that hell on earth. That's part of why I haven't used cryptocurrencies that are issued by the community. If the cryptocurrency is issued by a government, it would surveille people just the way credit cards do and PayPal does, and all those other systems meaning completely unacceptable."
Stallman later says "I don't do any kind of digital payments, and the reason is the systems that exist do not respect the user's privacy, and that includes Bitcoin. Every Bitcoin transaction is published." But when Cointelegraph asks about various Bitcoin modifications designed for privacy, Stallman answers "I am not convinced about them." Richard Stallman: In any case, the GNU project has developed something much better, which is GNU Taler. GNU Taler is not a cryptocurrency. It is not a currency at all. It is a payment system designed to be used for anonymous payments to businesses to buy something. It is anonymous through a blind signature for the payer. However, the payee has to identify itself for every purchase in order to get money out of the system. So the idea is you can use your bank account to get Taler Tokens, and you can spend them and the payee won't be able to tell who you are.
It won't be able to tell that you got the token from a particular bank account at a particular time, even though you did so. To convert your payment into money in its own bank, the store (the payee) will have to identify itself. So this gives privacy in a much more reliable way than cryptocurrencies do, and it blocks the idea of using this system to enable tax evasion.
GNU Taler recently had an exciting milestone. A few months ago the eurozone banking system became interested in supporting Taler payments, and just recently they succeeded using a test setup in obtaining Taler tokens with one bank account and paying them to another bank account through the Taler system. Now, it's not something that anybody can use but it will be, and that will be really exciting.
And in response to a question about Facebook's "Libra" digital currency project, Stallman says he hasn't study the details "because the most important thing about it I already know. It's connected with Facebook, and Facebook means surveillance.
"I urge people to join me in absolutely refusing to use Facebook or rather be used by Facebook. Because Facebook doesn't have users. Facebook has used. So don't be a sucker, don't be used by Facebook."
Cointelegraph then asks Stallman how he feels about tests underway for the Chinese government's own central bank digital currency: Richard Stallman: "Digital payment systems are fundamentally dangerous if they are not engineered to ensure privacy. China is the enemy of privacy. China shows what totalitarian surveillance is like. I consider that hell on earth. That's part of why I haven't used cryptocurrencies that are issued by the community. If the cryptocurrency is issued by a government, it would surveille people just the way credit cards do and PayPal does, and all those other systems meaning completely unacceptable."
Stallman later says "I don't do any kind of digital payments, and the reason is the systems that exist do not respect the user's privacy, and that includes Bitcoin. Every Bitcoin transaction is published." But when Cointelegraph asks about various Bitcoin modifications designed for privacy, Stallman answers "I am not convinced about them." Richard Stallman: In any case, the GNU project has developed something much better, which is GNU Taler. GNU Taler is not a cryptocurrency. It is not a currency at all. It is a payment system designed to be used for anonymous payments to businesses to buy something. It is anonymous through a blind signature for the payer. However, the payee has to identify itself for every purchase in order to get money out of the system. So the idea is you can use your bank account to get Taler Tokens, and you can spend them and the payee won't be able to tell who you are.
It won't be able to tell that you got the token from a particular bank account at a particular time, even though you did so. To convert your payment into money in its own bank, the store (the payee) will have to identify itself. So this gives privacy in a much more reliable way than cryptocurrencies do, and it blocks the idea of using this system to enable tax evasion.
GNU Taler recently had an exciting milestone. A few months ago the eurozone banking system became interested in supporting Taler payments, and just recently they succeeded using a test setup in obtaining Taler tokens with one bank account and paying them to another bank account through the Taler system. Now, it's not something that anybody can use but it will be, and that will be really exciting.
And in response to a question about Facebook's "Libra" digital currency project, Stallman says he hasn't study the details "because the most important thing about it I already know. It's connected with Facebook, and Facebook means surveillance.
"I urge people to join me in absolutely refusing to use Facebook or rather be used by Facebook. Because Facebook doesn't have users. Facebook has used. So don't be a sucker, don't be used by Facebook."
Quick show of hands... (Score:2)
Who is surprised that Stallman got in "Of course GNU has a better methodology" ?
Re:Quick show of hands... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bitcoin isn't private, because every transaction is public, and you can figure out where the money went, and as soon as it becomes cash, you can know who withdrew the money. And he's right that none of the bitcoin modifications really solve that.
So how does Taler make transactions private? We're technical here, we can understand these details.
Re:Quick show of hands... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm fine with that, I just wish he'd explained how his system works.
Wish granted [taler.net]
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"I just wish he'd explained how his system works." - It is right here: https://savannah.gnu.org/cvs/?... [gnu.org]
Amazing, isn't it?
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Re:Quick show of hands... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is surprised that Stallman got in "Of course GNU has a better methodology" ?
That's literally why he set up the FSF, precisely to have better methodologies on exactly things like this. Of all the complaints I've heard about RMS, snarkily whining that he's doing his job is one of the silliest.
https://taler.net/ (Score:5, Informative)
Dear editors,
Please post a link to every project mentioned on /. Not just the click-through interview or review.
LMDDGTFY / LMGTFY: https://taler.net/ [taler.net]
Thanks! :)
Re:https://taler.net/ (Score:5, Informative)
I've been researching this further. If you want to use Taler, read the website. If you want to learn how it works, read this PhD thesis. It is quite readable, and most parts do not need a fancy degree to understand.
download page: https://tel.archives-ouvertes.... [archives-ouvertes.fr]
pdf link: https://tel.archives-ouvertes.... [archives-ouvertes.fr]
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It says "fraud eliminated by design" but the docs don't really explain how that works.
Anyway the main weakness I can see is that it relies on existing banking infrastructure, which means that for example it will have to deal with rules on money laundering checks. Being anonymous isn't really compatible with that. But for small payments those aren't an issue so it's probably okay.
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I would need to be walked through exactly how this is 'anonymous' for customers.
"Blah blah blah blind signature.."
Customer A buys 50 talers from the taler exchange ( you need a 'bank license' which means million$ to pay a thousand lawyers probably to be a taler exchange so there probably is only one or two. Also, they probably don't accept each other's 'talers' )
What info is in a 'taler'? A serial number? Assume Taler exchange knows Customer A got that taler.
Talers aren't 'coins' so they don't circulat
Bitcoin: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly (Score:2)
Plus: it can get value only from existing traditional currencies it can be converted to, currencies which become charged with value only through the ability of the industry within their currency areas to fulfill the promise of giving more of it back to investors investing there.
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Plus: it can get value only from existing traditional currencies it can be converted to,
Currencies ultimately get value from precisely one thing: people's faith that the currency is worth something.
As long as people can buy stuff for bitcoins and generally believe they will continue to be able to do so then it has value.
Often the faith is well placed. For example you need to pay your taxes in the local currency, so you always need some and if the economy is large and stable it's likely to stick around. Tha
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> Real currency has a "substance of value" which comes from the work that has been spent in producing the goods which have been sold for more money than what was put into their manufacturing.
Umm, digital currencies have the exact same value - the effects of currency speculation aside. And currency speculation can hit fiat currencies just as hard, but usually doesn't since the volume of trade is much larger which makes them more stable. But that value is due entirely to people's belief in it - a dollar
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There are only two ways for "digital currencies" to get "substance of value", i.e. non-speculative value – if they would, assured by a major amount of real industries doing a major amount of their business with it and generating profits through it, carry a trustworthy, reliable promise for investors to get invested money back as more money.
A dollar cannot be worth anything "whatever people agree it is". Even monetary policies and exchange rates (influenced by supply and demand) just bias the purchasin
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why i miss the gold standard. currency should be backed by a commodity. wheat would be a good one too ;) but gold ( or any other mineral of realitiviely stable trade value works.
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Problem is, there's no longer actually many commodities with relatively stable trade value. Certainly not gold: whose price has increased by a factor of roughly 6 over the last 20 years before starting to fall again. Wheat is a bit better, but it still suffered a 4x variation in value over the same period, bouncing from $2.50 per bushel to $10 before falling back to the current $5. In some ways it's even worse though, as its value can fluctuate by 50% of more over the course of a single year.
graphs of go
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Not at all. If things were that simple, then money would just be magical, esoteric stuff that could start or stop working from one day to another without real reason. But that is not the case.
Currencies absolutely do start and stop. It's not especially frequent because it's a lot of effort to start one, but it happens. The Czechoslovakian Koruna split into two independent currencies in 1993. The Euro was created during the 90s. Various currencies stopped in 1999 when the Euro took over. The East German mark
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not rely on the controlled infrastructure of society and want to prepare for when the SHTF
Taler is not for these people:
GNU Taler allows customers to remain anonymous, while ensuring that merchants can be held accountable by governments. Hence, GNU Taler is compatible with anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulation, as well as data protection regulation (such as GDPR).
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Not only that, but for the average non-technical user, if they own any bitcoin at all, it's usually through a wallet app. In other words, they're completely at the mercy of whoever controls their wallet. That is completely insane to me and proof to me that they don't understand what the hell is going on.
I send money, recipient doesn't know I sent it? (Score:3)
If I send money to you, but you don't know I sent it, how do you know to send me the thing I just bought?
Does Taler act as the custodian for the product, and product is sent to them, and they send it to me?
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If I send money to you, but you don't know I sent it, how do you know to send me the thing I just bought?
You give them a PO Box # to ship to.
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If I send money to you, but you don't know I sent it, how do you know to send me the thing I just bought?
You give them a PO Box # to ship to.
Ah, that could work, as long as what you are buying fits in a PO Box.
It leaves a bit of a trail I suppose but it's better than a home address.
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You don't need any custodian, just SOME metadata associated with the transaction (obviously there would be some, as there is already, at least the amount). It's the equivalent of sending money to the VPN services (yes, some do that) with a note "this is to pay bill 12345678". Of course there could be much more complicated implementations based on crypto, to even be able to show you are the one who sent it but nobody else (even from the ones receiving the "proof") to be able to impersonate you and claim they
Apple Pay ? (Score:2)
I'm about to consider Apple Pay, which seems to have some privacy protections. I've always avoided using Visa & MC when possible, preferring cash. But cash is hard to use online and in certain types of transactions. I'd love to hear a thoughtful analysis of Apple Pay from a privacy standpoint. Thanks.
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Stallman is ignoring XMR, ZEC, ...? (Score:2)
Has he even heard of XMR? Or ZEC? Honestly.
Free software advocats.... (Score:2)
... still have the idea that a deformed society in which either authorities or businesses (or both) spy on you and exploit you, which, beside everything else, becomes visible in a certain concept (like money), could be bettered by introducing a new, free (as in freedom) version of that concept. But that's not the case. The spying and the exploitation will, at best, change, but it won't stop and it won't become any better, either. For that, society (and at its core its economic system) needs to change, not j
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Small Town gossip has always been part of our society, but there is some deniability in that.
It used to be that a petty-criminal would do a crime and do his time and that would be that. Nowadays, ANY crime comes with a disproportionate life sentence.
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change in what way? ... I don't know of any change that would accomplish that in any meaningful way. Cumminism and socialism are worse at that then others, anarchy basically kills people so that's no good, how do 'prevent crime' while maintining privacy , there will always be a 'tension' between the two,.
Yeah but no (Score:2)
So unless Taler eschews ALL of those things and produces something that fulfills a genuine purpose and builds up to meet demand, then it will die on its ass like so many other FSF efforts. Maybe it will confound expectations but I'll wait for some genuine buzz before
Why are they supporting financial crimes? (Score:2)
Sounds less anonymous than existing systems.... (Score:3)
"So the idea is you can use your bank account to get Taler Tokens, and you can spend them and the payee won't be able to tell who you are.
"
I can already do this with no fees involved by walking into any number of stores and buying a digital gift card with cash and then using that gift card online. You can even do this using cryptocurrencies in some places.
This would be a lot more anonymous than tying your bank account to any system.
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Bitcoin is over ten years old now (Score:5, Insightful)
Go Taler! (Score:2)
China v. US as Repressive Systems (Score:2)
Both China and the US have repressive governments, and residents of each claim the other is worse (believe it or not). China has more restrictive laws and seems to suppress individual dissent more widely. However, when the true measure of freedom, the incarceration rate, is considered, the US is a miserable failure.
Of course, the US's high crime rate is part of the equation, but even if that is factored out, the US still has the higher rate of interaction. Some loyal Americans will argue US prisoners are mo
Re:I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're not. You're the cow they milk. I'm a customer of Facebook. I buy ads from them. I buy the milk that Facebook is taking from you. They're just feeding you cheap grass, but you're dumb and happy enough.
Moo.
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Nope, you're the fool showing me an ad for a product I won't buy while enabling me to connect with my friends. So yeah thanks, fool.
Re: I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hate to break it to you, but ads also work in influencing you even if you don't buy the product.
The create brand awareness, set expectations, make you inadvertedly conpare other products you buy against their competition's ad, suck out attention, track you and feed your behavior as data...and, last but not least, not buying because you saw an ad is also modified behavior as a response to the ad.
So you're a fool if you think you're oblivious to ads, or that you have it all figured out and that your ad response isn't pretty much in the range and purpose of what's expected of you by the ad publisher.
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That may be true of the average person, but it's not universally true. Some of us go to great lengths to banish advertisements from our lives.
It takes time and effort, but you can definitely reduce your ad exposure to pretty minimal levels. Adblock on the internet, DVR shows on TV, etc.
Not everyone lives a consumer-centric lifestyle. Some of us are very hesitant to part with our money, and buy only what's necessary most of the time, and base purchasing decisions on price and performance. When you're not imm
Re: I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:2)
Well put
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They're just feeding you cheap grass
So what you're saying is Facebook actually provides something to people which keeps them happy? What's the problem there? Also what's so cheap about the grass they offer? Can you get better social network grass elsewhere?
I mean there was once an alternative pasture that everyone said offered better grass, but grass is just part of it. What if I actually wanted to be around other cows? I heard the other pasture with better grass simply had a few cows with one breed of Eastern Finncattle which is apparently w
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Yeah... that's not milk.
Re: I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:2)
What? This is /. I don't FB but my family does, and they don't see any ads because daddy fixed that a long time ago.
They don't use Gmail either; buying your own domain and hosting your emails with someone reliable and discreet costs pennies.
Done be cheap...it always ends up costing you more.
Re:Mod parent down (Score:5, Insightful)
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but that one had the exact level of respect that was deserved.
By calling someone who correctly pointed out there's a consumer / business relationship with Facebook that exists independently of the business to business relationship and that they are sick of being told they are just some product without ever being given an alternative?
The guy's right, but Slashdot's echo chamber is all about criticising users of companies we don't like without understanding them so I guess more modpoints to you and your fellow judgmental arses.
I think the problem isn't a lack of respect (Score:2)
I'm not saying that FB is without fault, but I'm also saying that
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So what you're saying is, you want his milk.
Re:I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not on facebook. I have never been on facebook. I have seen, with my own eyes, facebook correctly guess who I was and try to tag me in a picture from a party, as demonstrated by my sister. Turns out their image algos are real good at that once one or two people have tagged you elsewhere.
You can justify the ceding of your personal information to a corporation however you wish, and I'm glad your comfortable to shovel the data of your life into a black box which you have zero control over, nor knowledge of it's moving parts. Hell, I have a shoebox here you are welcome to blindly feed your credit cards and email addresses into as well of you're this much of a fan of data gloryholes, but I'll fuck you with a sideways rake if you dare to suggest I should be happy that I now apparently have a profile on that site, despite having absolutely zero interaction with it. I do not want to use them, and I want that shit banned, because I never got a fucking choice.
And I'm sorry bud, but they are making far more money off you than you ever will off them, Personally, I usually avoid grocery stores that charge me $50 for a can of lima beans, but if that's your jam, don't force me to eat it with you.
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Well sue your sister for publicizing your picture. If she put up your photo around town, do you sue the the lampposts she pasted it on?
Re:I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:5, Informative)
She didn't post picture, she called me to ask how fakebook knew who I was as she knows I am so staunchly against it.
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And I should be clear. I have no problem with her uploading my picture, I do not expect her to shop me out of everything, that would be unrealistic and a little bit autistic. In this scenario a mutual third party acquaintance uploaded an image, and fakebook suggested my sister tag me, presumably because it has inferred some sort of family link somehow. That? I have crazy big problems with.
Re:I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe they stopped the facial recognition thing after a lawsuit https://techcrunch.com/2020/01... [techcrunch.com] (conceivably also euro gdpr).
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Well sue your sister
Yeah blow up all personal and familial relationships. Good idea!
Re: I am not, or are, the product .. so what? (Score:2)
I am not on facebook either, but I was under the impression, as in having been repeatedly told, you could not be tagged without having an account. In order to associate your image with an account, said account must exist.
Is this incorrect or has it changed? I may need to use a liveCD to post several different images of strangers and associate them with my name if there is hearsay admission of identity going on. Make it so they wont even know what ethnicity you are.
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I was under a similar impression. When we were poking around with it, the popup had something like "Is this BlacKSacrificE?" where my name was a hyperlink. Clicking this returned a "somethings not right" equivalent page. Not a hard 404 but not a profile with all of my glamour shots and the millions of likes they would garner either. They prolly took it down due to server load.
The fact fakebooks machines could even get my name associated with that image to begin with was enough for me. If there was another B
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sounds like we need to start seeding the facial recognition engine with false tags to start breaking the system.
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Lots of people make more money on Facebook than Facebook makes on them. They are using it for free advertising, by posting in relevant groups, or they are using Facebook marketplace to sell their stuff, which is also free.
I use ad blockers so Facebook makes less money on me than usual. I still have access to all the stuff I want to use, some of which saves me money. My identity had already been stolen long before I used Facebook.
Sucks if people are tagging you in photos without your permission. If you had a
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To remove the privacy agitations, you propose that I must knock on the door of the agitator, submit myself to their verification (facebook often ask for scans of photo ID to verify new accounts and the associated photos), and IF they deem my credentials to be valid, I get to ask them to kindly stop splashing my shit everywhere. Then spend the next 20 minutes pulling tracking cookies from all my orifices and reblocking domains. I have to provide them with 50 units of data to ask them to remove 20, which aren
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To remove the privacy agitations, you propose that I must knock on the door of the agitator, submit myself to their verification (facebook often ask for scans of photo ID to verify new accounts and the associated photos), and IF they deem my credentials to be valid, I get to ask them to kindly stop splashing my shit everywhere.
Don't get me wrong, that's sleazy AF. But you're still clearly not accomplishing anything by refusing to use Facebook at all.
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I am not on facebook. I have never been on facebook. I have seen, with my own eyes, facebook correctly guess who I was and try to tag me in a picture from a party, as demonstrated by my sister. Turns out their image algos are real good at that once one or two people have tagged you elsewhere.
And Facebook removed the feature of blind tagging someone. If your sister came up to me showed me a picture of you and told me your name is Ivan, if I crossed you in the street expect me to say "he, I know you!" That doesn't make *me* the bad person. Maybe if you're trying to stay incognito you should have a word with whoever it was that tagged your name to your photo (which they can't do anymore if you don't have an account and aren't friends with them).
People don't use Facebook to make money (Score:2)
I'm a nerd, and I'm an introverted nerd. I prefer to be left well alone.
But I know several extroverted nerds. People who are nerds not because they want to be alone but because, well, they're kind weird. Usually they're physically unattractive and sometimes they just have very abrasive
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Every consumer of anything is the product in a different reference frame. The "you are the product" nonsense is BS. I'm the consumer of a service provided by Facebook. I am trading some info about myself so they can make money .. but then when I buy groceries, I am giving the grocery store something (money, the fruit of labor) that they can trade for money. When you work, you are producing a product. What's the difference? I don't care. I should be allowed to not care, it's my business. I can defend myself. Just fuck you. Stop trying to ban facebook just because YOU don't wanna use it.
All you are saying is corporate spying isn't so bad. This is true. The real problem is government spying. Following the money is a great way to flesh out networks of political opponents, and most of the world lives where this is rampant. We have more than a few examples in supposedly stalwart constitutional nations like the US where this is done.
Will this really allow tax verification but no way to do that?
Re:And this is why it will fail (Score:5, Insightful)
No business will ever accept GNU Talers, precisely because it's anonymous.
Are you sure? These "GNU Talers" can be redeemed for cash. Are you saying businesses won't accept cash because they don't know where it came from. They'll say no no no, we don't know where this CASH came from, we really don't want it! Are you high?
The only businesses that wouldn't take it are the ones where they're taking something from you more important to them than your cash.
Re:And this is why it will fail (Score:4, Insightful)
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PayPal takes your money out of your account directly, and holds it in escrow. Their is no "exchange" involved. Essentially, the only service PayPal provides is making it easy to send someone else money quickly. They're pretty-much just like Western Union. We wouldn't have PayPal at all if Western Union had "internet-ified" themselves.
GNU Taler would require banks and merchants to accept it as a valid form of currency. Just like Bitcoin. And while there are some banks that will deal in Bitcoin, there aren't
Re:And this is why it will fail (Score:5, Informative)
PayPal takes your money out of your account directly, and holds it in escrow. Their is no "exchange" involved.
PayPal is the exchange. They charge exchange fees. That's their service. Real money out of a bank account goes into their escrow and exchanged into PayPal dollars which you do business with. Then you exchange your PayPal dollars back into currency.
GNU Taler works the exact same way. [taler.net] The banks don't have to accept Taler, that's not how it works. The banks would accept real money from a real escrow account from a Taler exchange. The difference is you retain your privacy as a customer.
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Except banks don't have to accept cash from Taler's escrow account. Money laundering regulations and other such things mean that they refuse all sort of transfers.
Re: And this is why it will fail (Score:2)
Except paypal actually bought a bank. This is how they issue debit and credit cards. Paypal is directly tied into the banking network. I can take payments from someone who does not have a paypal account. My only issue with paypal is that at some point they decided to dictate what types of businesses they will let you conduct transactions with. Its virtue signaling of course, as you can still use your paypal debit card on that website just fine.
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There is no such thing as "PayPal dollars" Dollars are dollars.
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Paypal deals in cash not imaginary funds.
Paying with dollars, just like MasterCard and Visa (Score:2)
Taler is a payment processing system. Like American Express, Visa, travelers checks, or Western Union.
You don't pay with Talers, you pay with dollars, using Taler.
The difference being they don't tell the merchant the name of the customer.
Anyone with an argument for why businesses wouldn't accept payment via Taler would need to ask "does my argument also apply to American Express?". If so, the argument is no good, because business DO take American Express.
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Even more - do we actually want a currency that's not possible to trace? This from the point of view that cybercriminals really loves that.
Are we willing to pay extortion fees now and then, like most recently Garmin did in order to avoid disruption?
Re:And this is why it will fail (Score:5, Informative)
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Exactly. Anonymous digital currencies aren't some radical new change, they're a return to the currency status quo under which humanity has operated since currency was invented at least last 5,000 years ago. Wear a hooded robe to the marketplace and nobody knows who just bought their goods.
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hard to buy things online with cash, ( at least anonomously ) I think that is the problme this is meant to sovle.
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Cash - the metal and paper that acts as filler in the wallet these days.
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Others have responded about the anonymity of cash, a standard and desired feature to aid against oppression of a government panopticon, for all human history until recently.
But I'll take the bull by the horns, and flat out declare: look around the world. Are we to allow government computer scouring of every transaction just to find crime, even to terrorism?
Before you yelp "Yes!", keep in mind billions are living George Orwell's dream right now: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping
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No business will ever accept GNU Talers, precisely because it's anonymous.
I own a business. You can pay me in GNU Talers if you want.
There goes your "no business ever".
Black Market (Score:2)
New York State's largest Black Market is in Raw Milk (Non-Pasturized)
What the Black Market is, is trading of goods and services that will not be backed up by law.
So if you buy Raw Milk in New York, and you get sick from it, you have no legal recourse to get compensation. If you turn the person in, you will also get legal backlash as you too were part of the illegal activity.
Hyper Anonymous Payments create a similar problem. You buy a product with Anonymous payment system, there is a problem with the produc
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Dude don't put Stallman in with libertarians .. pretty sure he's a socialist.
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How interesting, Stallman as a socialist... I really have to warp, twist, and darken much of my mind to see how that works, but, whatever works for you.
There's no denying that Stallman is an interesting duck. There's also no denying that he is not a corporate fascist.
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He says to vote for Green party .. he is constantly touting green party candidates.
Re:Libertarian psycho shit (Score:5, Insightful)
He set out to destroy the profit motive for software development
Stop it with the hyperbole and misrepresentation. He set out the protect the rights of software developers and users from the abuse of unchecked profit motive. Checks and balances. You don't like the way he's done that, and that's fine. But please stop lying and exaggerating to make your points. He's not "trying to destroy profit motive" and you know that. You are a smart cookie and you can do better.
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He may not have believed he was setting out to destroy the profit motive for software development, but if it's collateral damage he doesn't care.
His "freedom" is bullshit, really. I like to say, "think freedom as in working for IBM without getting paid".
There has always been an interplay between proprietary technology and open knowledge. Windows is full of stuff that people learned in text books--common knowledge that can't be copyrighted.
Sometimes things move forward best when knowledge is shared. Other
Re: Libertarian psycho shit (Score:2)
He set out to destroy the profit motive for software development
Stop it with the hyperbole and misrepresentation. He set out the protect the rights of software developers and users from the abuse of unchecked profit motive.
Well, speaking of hyperbole!
Charging money for the right to use software has historically been an awfully damned big motivator for software development, and this is simply indisputable. Look at the scale and history of the commercial software industry that sells licensed software.
A model of shifting profits from usage to after sales support, data collection, advertising, hardware costs, you name it, HAS NOT protected developers or users from the abuse of unrestrained profit motive. I use unrestrained inst
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, just to support these poor little companies, I'm sure that we all want to go back to the days where you had to go down to your local Babbage's and shell out the equivalent of $500 in today's money just to get ahold of a rudimentary, bug-ridden C/C++ compiler.
Re: (Score:3)
He set out to destroy the profit motive for software development,
That's why redhat didn't exist!
Before GCC, there were at least two dozen vendors like Aztec C, BDS C, etc. When GCC came out, it sucked all the air out of the room
The only thing that sucked was the old compilers. Also you're an idiot. I looked up the first one and saw it was a compiler for " MS-DOS, Apple II DOS 3.3 and ProDOS, Commodore 64, early Macintosh, CP/M-80, Amiga, and Atari ST.", which mean it became functionally dead in the early 90
Re: (Score:2)
You can't be free from a society while living in a society....
It is quite possible to be surrounded by water and not be a fish, or more fitting in our current age, it is quite possible to be adrift in a sewer and not be a turd:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/ar... [mentalfloss.com].
If you think Diogenes too outdated, here's a more modern version that inspired the likes of Ghandi and MLK:
https://www.fff.org/explore-fr... [fff.org]
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Re:Libertarian psycho shit (Score:4, Informative)
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If you want to use currency, society need to know about it.
That's a statement that requires some qualification. I can put a dollar in a vending machine and get a soda, no one needs to know all about me. Society will still function.
Not completely wrong (Score:2)
But then again, how do societies function at all when there is still so much cash floating around, totally unaccounted-for, not even mentioning the times when cash use to be the default method of payment whereever money existed?
Anyway, existing societies are – to different degrees – lacking in many aspects as the basis for their members' wellbeing one could expect them to be, and they – whether through their authorities or their business entities – cannot totally be trusted to not us
Re: If it's good enough for extortion... (Score:2)
Just shut the ruck up and go to reddit. The only pedophile is you apparently you see pedophilia everywhere.