Mozilla says they'll accept Bitcoin & crypto donations

[PrimeNumber7]

I am not aware of any evidence that Kape actually created any malware

As I said before, I find it irrelevant. Either way, they were allowing their paying customers to be infected with malware. This is significantly different to the analogy you give you people downloading malware via a torrent. This company was doing zero due diligence to the product they were offering consumers.

From what I can tell, those who were using the software distributed on their platform were not paying Crossrider (now Kape). It is unclear if they had paying customers (startups often offer their services for free as a ways to get a userbase), however it appears their customers were the developers who would host their software on their platform. I haven't seen any evidence they were offering any kind of warranty on software being distributed on their platform.

Unless you expect someone to cross-reference satellite images of people spinning while looking at their phones to their gyro-sensor data, providing this data is not going to result in any loss of privacy.

So it's fine for your VPN to collect a bunch of data unnecessary data on you if they aren't going to use it to invade your privacy? I don't accept that reasoning for a second.

I am saying it is not possible to use the data to invade your privacy. You are saying it is unnecessary. Most, if not all of this data is also collected by theymos on this forum. Most of this information is sent to the website you are visiting by default.

It is not possible to reliably convert fiat to coin or coin to fiat via a DEX. You will ultimately need a centralized exchange with a payment provider, or accept an elevated risk of being scammed (by someone who is not the exchange).

It is totally possible with Bisq exchange, and if done correctly it can be even more reliable, because you can't get your account terminated or coins frozen, like in centralized exchanges.

Apart from the speed issue related to using Bisq, and the issue that centralized exchanges ultimately are necessary to provide a price reference for professional traders on Bisq, I think there is a very real risk that you will have your money stolen. The incentive structure on Bisq means that you will probably not have anyone scamming for $1, but for larger amounts, the risk is real. Bisq allows for many reversible payment methods that can be potentially reversed long after the fact. Bisq also mentions that sellers accepting higher risk payment methods may ask for things such as "proof" of identity, and giving your information to these types of people is especially risky, far more risky than giving your information to Binance or Coinbase, IMO

[o_e_l_e_o]

I am saying it is not possible to use the data to invade your privacy. You are saying it is unnecessary. Most, if not all of this data is also collected by theymos on this forum. Most of this information is sent to the website you are visiting by default.

They want you to create an account with your real name and full address. How is that not invading your privacy? It is unnecessary for a VPN to collect that information en masse from every customer, since a good VPN will accept anonymous crypto payments.

And if you look at the other information I quoted in the linked post:

"data relating to the browser you are using, mobile/desktop device, general properties and metadata, OS version, preferred language, the date and time of your visit, battery charge, screen resolution, Google Advertising ID, Gyro-sensor data, screen size, Connectivity (WLAN), Mobile service provider"

It is absolutely possible to invade your privacy using all that. And no, most websites do not collect all the information because my set up prevents them from doing so. Far harder to do that for a piece of software you install on your device than from a website.

If you trust this shady company enough to install their software on your system, then go right ahead, but when there are dozens of far better VPN providers out there then there is absolutely no reason for anyone to use any VPN owned by Kape. You couldn't pay me to install this privacy invading nonsense.

I think there is a very real risk that you will have your money stolen.

I've literally never been scammed once.

Bisq allows for many reversible payment methods that can be potentially reversed long after the fact.

Bisq specifically do not accept payment methods which are easily reversible:

The top consideration for maintaining payment methods is chargeback risk. PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App are not supported on Bisq because chargebacks for payments made with those services are relatively easy.

I feel far safer trading on Bisq than I do risking all my coins and risking my identity being stolen by using a centralized exchange. The list of centralized exchange hacks (for either coins or data) is endless.

[dkbit98]

Bisq allows for many reversible payment methods that can be potentially reversed long after the fact. Bisq also mentions that sellers accepting higher risk payment methods may ask for things such as "proof" of identity, and giving your information to these types of people is especially risky, far more risky than giving your information to Binance or Coinbase, IMO

You probably never used Bisq in your life, maybe you read few lines how it works in theory and you are just making an assumptions, like if I would say that you could lost your money when you purchase vegetables in your local shop.
If trading on Bisq something goes wrong it would probably be my own fault for being stupid, and on centralized exchanges I don't have any control and I can lose everything without.
How many times you heard that someone got hacked or scammed using Bisq?
I never eve heard something like that, but I hear all the time about people getting scammed, or accounts get frozen or lose money on centralized exchanges.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You probably never used Bisq in your life, maybe you read few lines how it works in theory and you are just making an assumptions, like if I would say that you could lost your money when you purchase vegetables in your local shop.

A common theme. People constantly say how risky DEXs are and how likely you are to be scammed using them, having never actually used them themselves. Or people say that bitcoin doesn't work as a currency and no one uses it a currency, having never actually tried to use it as a currency. And then people like me, who use DEXs constantly and spend bitcoin as a currency constantly are just sitting over here like , while every centralized exchange in existence continues to leak or sell user data and arbitrarily lock accounts and seize coins.

How many times you heard that someone got hacked or scammed using Bisq?

There has been one successful hack against Bisq, due to a flaw in the code which allowed an attacker to modify the address of the timelocked escrow transaction to their own wallet. They used it to steal 3 Bitcoin and 4000 Monero. A proposal was quickly made and accepted to use funds from the Bisq DAO to fully reimburse all affected users: https://github.com/bisq-network/proposals/issues/209

[leea-1334]

Mozilla is one of my favorite software and I still go to use it sometimes even though now Chrome is what I use (because of work),,, just I wish they did not say about DOGE first before Bitcoin. But I guess these days if you do not pay heed to the trendy things going on,,, people ignore you and move on.

Nice to hear, and I guess this is the reason for the DOGE boost?

[RickDeckard]

Apparently we had a recent update from Mozilla[1] - 7th of April - regarding their stance on accepting BTC and other crypto as donations. Combining the announcement[1] and the wiki entry[2] we get this:

I’m writing to share the results of that review. Starting today, we are updating our donation policy:

• Mozilla will no longer accept 'proof-of-work' cryptocurrencies, which are more energy intensive.
  Given the energy intensive nature of their design and technological process, accepting donations in proof-of-work cryptocurrencies has the potential to significantly increase our GHG footprint. While we currently do not receive very many cryptocurrency donations, almost all of the ones we do get use proof-of-work. We have decided not to accept proof-of-work donations in order to ensure that our fundraising activities remain aligned with our commitment to moving towards net zero emissions. This includes Layer 2 cryptocurrencies built on top of proof-of-work networks as they rely on the same underlying energy consumption patterns.
• Mozilla will accept 'proof-of-stake' cryptocurrencies, which are less energy intensive. Mozilla will develop and share a list of cryptocurrencies we accept by the end of Q2 2022.
  In addition to making the above commitment to ourselves, and within our own products, we encourage others in the technology industry to develop more sustainable products. We see increasing use of less energy intensive methods of verifying blockchain transactions such as proof-of-stake as a positive development. While there are still questions and issues to be solved related to the evolution of cryptocurrency, we believe that accepting less energy intensive currencies is in line with our climate commitments. We also believe we can play a positive role in the industry by encouraging those cryptocurrencies that we do accept to be transparent about their energy consumption patterns.
  

If anyone is interested to see the presentation used at the Mozilla cryptocurrency donation policy and review you can check it out here[3]. Some key figures that I highlight:

• On average they receive $1.000 in cryptocurrency donations (they don't specify by type);
• In all of 2021, Mozilla received 41 transactions, split between BTC (28), BCH (12) and LTC (1). They represented a total of $1,524;
• Out of a total of $3,473,949 received in donations in 2021, the crypto donations represented only 0,04 % of the total balance. In slide 13 they state that 0,04 % belongs to BTC but that's not quite right due to the fact that there were some other coins being donated (BCH and LTC for instance).

After some slides they go into a speculation field where they somehow leverage their average donations and attach a certain kg of CO2 but I don't think that such measure could be made, specially considering that they didn't posted the assumptions that they've used to obtain these figures. They do note that this are "informed estimates" but not much is explained past this field.

I guess we'll have to wait by end of Q2 2022 to see which coins they deem that are a better match for their climate stance.

[1]https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/reporting-back-on-mozillas-cryptocurrency-donation-policy/
[2]https://wiki.mozilla.org/Foundation/Cryptocurrency_Donations
[3]https://wiki.mozilla.org/images/8/80/Mozilla_Foundation_Cryptocurrency_Donation_Review_%28MoFo_Meeting%29.pdf