Act to defend privacy or resign ourselves to its loss?

[freedomgo]

I don't know what we can do to preserve privacy because, in the end, it's still the government who can control use with their regulations. Bitcoin's purpose is for decentralization, we don't need a 3rd party to transact but sadly the government intervened when they saw that bitcoin is getting a massive adoption already.

We are living in a centralized world where there's a leader in a certain country, and some countries are allies with others that follow a certain set of standards, therefore it's really hard to fight for privacy when in the end it will only make the government ban bitcoin since we don't want it to be regulated.

[Yogee]

It sucks to see Wasabi succumb to regulatory pressure.

I think it's important to point out that they are not being pressured, and are now voluntarily anti-privacy:

However, zkSNACKs co-founder and CEO Bálint Harmat told Bitcoin Magazine that the decision to prevent some users from leveraging Wasabi for their privacy needs was a proactive one as there is no current legislation obliging them to do so.

Doesn't that also mean they are thinking in advance that regulators will eventually come after them in the future? I don't get why they have to prevent users from leveraging their wallet for privacy. Did they not create it for that very reason?

This move by Wasabi reminds of what some privacy coins did before. They became "compliant" when they made the privacy feature optional.

[Fundamentals Of]

I would like to ask, why is it that our loss of privacy is inevitable? There are things that are designed to be private even in the middle of law enforcement operations. Privacy is considered sacred. Even in our current banking laws, there is such a thing as bank secrecy law in which a person's bank account cannot just be divulged, even to government authorities. So I think there will be a meeting point on this. Privacy will remain, but in favor of the government it will also be limited. There's always a healthy compromise on this. And it has already been implemented.

[Minecache]

I don't know what we can do to preserve privacy because, in the end, it's still the government who can control use with their regulations. Bitcoin's purpose is for decentralization, we don't need a 3rd party to transact but sadly the government intervened when they saw that bitcoin is getting a massive adoption already.

We are living in a centralized world where there's a leader in a certain country, and some countries are allies with others that follow a certain set of standards, therefore it's really hard to fight for privacy when in the end it will only make the government ban bitcoin since we don't want it to be regulated.

We live in a world dominated and controlled by the government, to be honest, I don't think we can stand against them. Maybe they can't control bitcoin but they can obviously ban it and interfere with our privacy through centralized exchanges and moreover they can issue a bitcoin ban if we try antipathy against them. Government power comes from centralization so not only bitcoin but anything that compromises their power they will find a way to manage or destroy it.

[Kakmakr]

I say, grant "Bitcoin" users the same level of pseudo anonymity, that all users of "Cash" is getting. 

If they do not want to give Bitcoin users pseudo anonymity, then we as voters should make sure that we do not support them in the next election.

They will eventually close all the loopholes for people who wants to be pseudo anonymous, but developers will find ways to circumvent that, by creating something that cannot be tracked and also something that cannot be traced back to them. 

[ranochigo]

Is the BTC community really going to succumb to all these measures without a fight? And I mean put up a genuine fight, not a "phony war" or half-hearted struggle.

So you want to save BTC's functionality? Then everyone should run CoinJoin nodes en masse. Replace zkSNACKs with 3rd party coinjoin nodes and share them on reddit, bitcointalk, and other places.

Want to accomplish big things? Then decompose it to small steps and accomplish those. Wasabi's, and specifically zkSNACKs, initiative can be thwarted by the community by running independent CoinJoin services on random leased servers.

But it will *only* work if dozens of people do this. Perhaps even one person running multiple nodes. So people must symbolically take back their privacy (to use Wasabi's words) by running their own CJ nodes and putting them inside Wasabi.

And if they try to change the source code to forbid this, then we shall fork it to preserve or enable that functionality.

Privacy is a fundamental right, and we can't allow govs and corps to take BTC from us by making it more restrictive than cash and bank accounts.

That is wishful thinking. Bitcoin isn't designed to provide privacy, though the nature of it does provide some privacy.

The reality is that majority of the Bitcoin users actually doesn't care about privacy. Even if you do, there is nothing much you can actually do. Regulations, as it stands currently is sufficient and palatable for most Bitcoin users because there is no such thing as going dark or leave no actual digital trace in the internet. This is moreso with Bitcoin, perhaps you can get more privacy with privacy coins, but that is it. People who cares about privacy wouldn't really be using Bitcoin when there are alternatives.

These policies (AML/KYC) as it stands act as a relatively okay deterrent against illegal activities provided that sufficient screening is done. I'm all for a suitable compromise with government policies and this "intrusion" of privacy, because after all, if you're using an exchange then you probably don't care about privacy. I'd very much rather have the government reaching this compromise and the middle ground rather than clamping down hard on crypto because they cannot fulfill the basic social obligations and these illicit activities start running rampant.

[buwaytress]

Yeah, think most people here got it. There is no ultimatum with many of the choices we make in our lives. There is a more conscious way to ensure there's check and balance in the various governments that try to govern us -- not just with privacy (though that's probably the most important aspect they need to maintain surveillance and exert control over all other aspects).

I admit in the last 5/6 years I've definitely been more lax with privacy, due to relocation to Europe, where everything almost requires identification for the rights to reside. Lived and worked about 15 years prior in the global south and have managed to largely get by without so much as an email address.

Now I've willingly, even eagerly KYC'd on certain services, if only for ease of daily life, and those who depend on me. Crypto exchanges. Tax. But as soon as I'm done with the service, or their retention period is over, I request to be forgotten. Can't verify they forget me, but at least if it should come to a point later I discover they haven't, I have legal recourse.

Where possible, I make it very difficult to ID, or give an old document or wrong address etc.

So it's not one choice or the other. As long as everything you do in either direction is conscious, deliberate, and weighed in on cost-benefit, then you've done your part. No need to resign yourself, and no need to fight tooth and nail.

[Bitstar_coin]

It is pointless to even think of the first option honestly because as much as we try majority already gone through different forms of identity verification et all at some point.
For you to be completely private there are multiple of things to do or avoid and that is not an easy task or normal way of living imo, but it is up to an individual to decide the level of privacy they want to maintain. Personally, option two is more appropriate at this stage.
The government will always have the power of control and implement regulations whenever they feel the need to.
Try to maintain complete privacy in the crypto space is one thing, applying it to the rest of everyday life is another, except you are ready to forgone certain important things because you want to maintain a complete private lifestyle.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So you want to save BTC's functionality? Then everyone should run CoinJoin nodes en masse. Replace zkSNACKs with 3rd party coinjoin nodes and share them on reddit, bitcointalk, and other places.

The problem with that is that every Wasabi coordinator is a separate instance. If everyone fires up their own one, then each one will have a tiny amount of liquidity and therefore be useless. If we all agree on the same one to use, then we are back to using a single centralized coordinator which can decide to start censoring users. Better instead to encourage people to move to a decentralized coinjoin implementation such as JoinMarket.

Doesn't that also mean they are thinking in advance that regulators will eventually come after them in the future?

Probably. Which means that they have plenty of time to consider their options and move to a model which prevents regulators from impacting the operations of their coordinator or the coinjoin process, such as by setting up decentralized coordinators which are not under their control. But they chose not to do that, and instead to spy on and censor their users.

I don't get why they have to prevent users from leveraging their wallet for privacy.

Profits.

These policies (AML/KYC) as it stands act as a relatively okay deterrent against illegal activities provided that sufficient screening is done.

KYC is fine. I will never complete it, but if you want to accept the risks it brings to make your life easier then go ahead. Makes no difference to me. But taint analysis is something different entirely. Trying to dictate that some bitcoin are clean and some are not is an attack on the very fundamentals of bitcoin, and should be opposed by everyone in this space.

[freedomgo]

I don't know what we can do to preserve privacy because, in the end, it's still the government who can control use with their regulations. Bitcoin's purpose is for decentralization, we don't need a 3rd party to transact but sadly the government intervened when they saw that bitcoin is getting a massive adoption already.

We are living in a centralized world where there's a leader in a certain country, and some countries are allies with others that follow a certain set of standards, therefore it's really hard to fight for privacy when in the end it will only make the government ban bitcoin since we don't want it to be regulated.

We live in a world dominated and controlled by the government, to be honest, I don't think we can stand against them. Maybe they can't control bitcoin but they can obviously ban it and interfere with our privacy through centralized exchanges and moreover they can issue a bitcoin ban if we try antipathy against them. Government power comes from centralization so not only bitcoin but anything that compromises their power they will find a way to manage or destroy it.

That's the reality, at first, during the early stage of bitcoin, I thought it would be untouchable by the government because it's the opposite of what the government is practicing, bitcoin promotes decentralization, but how can we enjoy it when anonymity will become a crime every time we transact bitcoin.

The privacy we are fighting is not legal, so anything not legal is punishable by the law.  

[aoluain]

Some great points made by many on the thread. My take is similar to others. ATM privacy
is becoming more and more inconvenient, divulging personal information makes it
easier to conform.

I personally am becoming more and more conscious of my privacy, that I have learned
from this forum. I have started removing profiles from various sites, forums and exchanges,
back tracking.

Regards Bitcoin we have to fight to hold on to what privacy we still have by trading
peer-to-peer and using trusted escrow's for example.

Even if we have gone through KYC/AML policies we xan abandon the services which
they are attached to and opt for the alternatives above

[DooMAD]

I'm reasonably confident about the preservation of our privacy (for those who are determined to keep it, at least).  As a general rule, technology currently develops at a faster pace than regulators can react to it.  They'll always be a few steps behind the cutting edge.  But it does require a fairly strong will to avoid using all those services on the regulators' leash. 

The main issue is the readiness of those who are willing to relinquish their privacy in exchange for convenience.  Once you hand it over, you may find it difficult to get it back.

[taufik123]

I would like to ask, why is it that our loss of privacy is inevitable? There are things that are designed to be private even in the middle of law enforcement operations. Privacy is considered sacred. Even in our current banking laws, there is such a thing as bank secrecy law in which a person's bank account cannot just be divulged, even to government authorities. So I think there will be a meeting point on this. Privacy will remain, but in favor of the government it will also be limited. There's always a healthy compromise on this. And it has already been implemented.

Banking laws that talk about privacy are just clichés that don't apply in some situations at all.
I have a bank account and personal data and only the bank knows, but in reality there are many insurance calls that come in so that my data must be leaked and sold to other parties. don't really believe about privacy being guarded. Government interests have no limits, they have control and have the power to do anything even if it's about our privacy. Expected privacy will not exist. Loss of privacy is inevitable.

[justdimin]

We live in a world dominated and controlled by the government, to be honest, I don't think we can stand against them. Maybe they can't control bitcoin but they can obviously ban it and interfere with our privacy through centralized exchanges and moreover they can issue a bitcoin ban if we try antipathy against them. Government power comes from centralization so not only bitcoin but anything that compromises their power they will find a way to manage or destroy it.

That's the reality, at first, during the early stage of bitcoin, I thought it would be untouchable by the government because it's the opposite of what the government is practicing, bitcoin promotes decentralization, but how can we enjoy it when anonymity will become a crime every time we transact bitcoin.

The privacy we are fighting is not legal, so anything not legal is punishable by the law.  

Privacy is the part of crypto that government is fighting, the financial part is not. It could stay decentralized and definitely be in the asset market as a whole, literally could have ETF soon, all of that is fine as long as government knows who is investing and how much.

They do not see crypto as a threat, there are a billion other fiat currencies outside of your own currency as well, wherever you live, your fiat needs to be strong against others, not just strong because mainly all fiat devalued in the recent 3 years, but just be stronger compared to others, this now includes bitcoin as well. As long as there is no privacy, governments are fine with it.

[carlfebz2]

I would like to ask, why is it that our loss of privacy is inevitable? There are things that are designed to be private even in the middle of law enforcement operations. Privacy is considered sacred. Even in our current banking laws, there is such a thing as bank secrecy law in which a person's bank account cannot just be divulged, even to government authorities. So I think there will be a meeting point on this. Privacy will remain, but in favor of the government it will also be limited. There's always a healthy compromise on this. And it has already been implemented.

Banking laws that talk about privacy are just clichés that don't apply in some situations at all.
I have a bank account and personal data and only the bank knows, but in reality there are many insurance calls that come in so that my data must be leaked and sold to other parties. don't really believe about privacy being guarded. Government interests have no limits, they have control and have the power to do anything even if it's about our privacy. Expected privacy will not exist. Loss of privacy is inevitable.

Exactly and on point thats why whenever i do make out some fill-ups that in related with some personal information whether it is attached with  some casual day to day living kind of transaction then i do already

anticipate that those informations would really leak out.I dont really believe into those privacy laws that we do have on the country as of this moment which it is indeed true that government does always have

the power and whenever they do prefer on doing something then there's no way in hell that you could stop them and as a citizen then there's nothing you can do.

[PrivacyG]

I admit in the last 5/6 years I've definitely been more lax with privacy, due to relocation to Europe, where everything almost requires identification for the rights to reside. Lived and worked about 15 years prior in the global south and have managed to largely get by without so much as an email address.

Overall I think all of us are more lax with privacy in some situations.  It is nowadays just impossible to stay fully private because at the end of the day that means fully isolating yourself out of society.  This can go from basic things like ordering something online on a fake name and address to extreme situations like not willing to go out without covering your face or using these anti surveillance eyewear to make sure cameras do not catch you.

The reality is, the more paranoid and extreme you are, the more isolated you will end up from the society.  And just like you say, there are places where you simply can not go through the daily life as a normal citizen without having to show your ID somewhere, pay with card or whatever else.  Maybe 30 years ago it was different.  But with technology, it becomes just so hard to be fully free and private and some situations require you giving up this paranoia or you will not be able to do usual stuff like taxes and all of that.  Sucks, but it is what it is.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[buwaytress]

I admit in the last 5/6 years I've definitely been more lax with privacy, due to relocation to Europe, where everything almost requires identification for the rights to reside. Lived and worked about 15 years prior in the global south and have managed to largely get by without so much as an email address.

Overall I think all of us are more lax with privacy in some situations.  It is nowadays just impossible to stay fully private because at the end of the day that means fully isolating yourself out of society.  This can go from basic things like ordering something online on a fake name and address to extreme situations like not willing to go out without covering your face or using these anti surveillance eyewear to make sure cameras do not catch you.

The reality is, the more paranoid and extreme you are, the more isolated you will end up from the society.  And just like you say, there are places where you simply can not go through the daily life as a normal citizen without having to show your ID somewhere, pay with card or whatever else.  Maybe 30 years ago it was different.  But with technology, it becomes just so hard to be fully free and private and some situations require you giving up this paranoia or you will not be able to do usual stuff like taxes and all of that.  Sucks, but it is what it is.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

Some parts of the world still possible to maintain privacy more than others, today, as much as 30 years ago. I wasn't really paranoid or extreme in my pre-Europe life (circa 2016). It was simply that it was either possible to live without social media or smartphone (very successfully even without television or much internet for me up until 2013), or impossible to connect to them (no internet infrastructure).

And just simple practices made necessary by living conditions as a foreigner in impoverished places -- never take the same route same time, never let a taxi drop you off exactly at your address, never wear any branded clothes etc. As you say simple things like using a fake name/phone even persona.

Wasn't paranoid or extreme, just the way things are to be safe and mindful. Everyone did it =)

Europe and the added levels of security and state responsibility and welfare made it not only a necessity to be identified and verified constantly -- it also lulls you into a sense of comfort and safety, so you're always getting more lax. I now don't think twice about taking the same routes. Taking uber directly to my door. Signing in with my name.

I'm definitely less careful these days about Bitcoin use. Don't really know why, also the same laxness from this feeling of safety and comfort? Used to be always a new address, always separating wallets, no satoshi parked at an exchange even for a minute longer than necessary.

Now I reuse addresses. I label addresses for different uses rather than separate wallets. I do leave BTC in exchanges for days and weeks without active trades (Localbitcoin but it still counts).