To those who do not care about their privacy. Why?

[PrivacyG]

As Bitcoin users, we get the chance to use our financial resources precisely the way we want.  You get to choose whether you want anyone else to be in control of your keys.  You get to choose whether you want to have enhanced privacy or not.  You get to choose where to pay fees from and who to send money to, without a third party's interference.  You get complete freedom over your own assets.

Now let us focus for one moment particularly on the second thing I mention.  You get to choose whether you want to have enhanced privacy or not.

As a community, no matter what aspect and subject we try to discuss we are going to be split.  Although some of us sit at the extremes, there are many who partially care and partially do not.  There are many who are trying to sustain their own mindset and not agree with the opposing view.  But I think privacy is something concerning each and every one of us.  You need privacy, I do as well.  Everyone needs at some point.  You have curtains in your rooms, you never shower in front of a clear window, you never share intimate conversations with anyone surrounding you, you probably have a passcode on your phone and you are maybe afraid of telling everyone about your Bitcoin holdings.

You are doing all of this because you want privacy.  If there is anyone who says 'no' to everything I stated above, you are probably among the extremely few who truly do not care.  But truth is, almost everyone cares.  Whether it is subconsciously or not, there is this feeling of discomfort and / or fear surrounding this idea of having zero privacy.

Bitcoin gives you freedom.  You choose if you want everything about your financial history to be public knowledge or you can choose to break the chain and make every single possible future 'spy' of your account lose your track.  I often hear this idea that zero privacy is not a big deal because you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.  But this has been proved wrong multiple times in our history.  And if you have ever had your identity stolen, you know this saying is false.  Everyone has something to hide, which is not a bad thing.  Privacy exists for a reason and just because a Blockchain is public does not mean you should justify and publish information about you for everyone to see.

Logically and morally, nobody should care about the things you do with your own money.  I am definitely against any kind of crime, but I am aware that if crime is prevented with Bitcoin, all the ex Bitcoin criminals will find an alternative.  Probably Monero.  Probably not.

But realistically speaking, we have been taught to fear hiding anything.  I know, this may sound like I am getting this thread closer to some kind of conspiracy.  But we have all been pretty much brainwashed to believe having privacy is wrong.  Which is insane, because things used to be different only few years ago.  Nobody really cares what you have done with your cash bills, so why would they care about the track of your Bitcoin?  Is it because Bitcoin is not a private ledger?  Or is it just because they like collecting information on us and placing fear under the idea of privacy?

Anyway.  I am personally sitting at the extreme of privacy seeking Bitcoin users.  I know, name checks out.  I am doing whatever I can to cover my footsteps, and I am not a criminal.  It is just so creepy to me knowing that someone out there is trying to untangle my financial records to find out what I am doing with my personal life.  I know what theft of identity is and it is very scary.  It freaks me out that Exchanges get to check out your history and steal your money for believing or pretending your assets come from an illicit source.  It is scary that for anything I do, there is a bot, an AI or a human being trying to link all sorts of meta data and information to my own actions.

In consequence, I chose protecting my privacy and personal life.  I am using mixers and Coin Control to make sure my assets have no link to my identity.  It is a hard work to do because you have to carefully watch every single step you make, but it is worth it in the end since I feel free.  Nobody is watching me closely, which feels incredible.

But I am very conscious there are a lot of you out here who simply do not give a damn.  Which begs the question for me, why is it that you do not give a single damn about your own privacy when using Bitcoin?  Why not protect yourself in front of all sorts of attacks if you have the chance to do so?  Also.  What do you think about us, who try their hardest to 'hide'?  Do you think we are suspicious or are you perfectly fine with our way of living?  Do you think the number of criminals is larger where there are more privacy enthusiasts?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

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[EvryIntl]

Those that do not care about their own privacy are setting themselves up for slavery.  Everything else is irrelevant.  More crimes are committed in USD than anything else.  It makes no difference.

[franky1]

bitcoin the network
- privacy is good. bitcoin does not ask for your birth name or a log of products list or geo-location.
bitcoin has no eyes or ears. it just doesnt care. because it has no brain. its just code. code that doesnt invade your privacy


the ecosystem of businesses at the edges of bitcoin
- privacy is bad when it comes to using services that require names and real life location data

suggesting to break the bitcoin network to break the anti-counterfeit security of showing origins back to the coin creation reward. just for the sake of lazy people that dont want to protect their privacy at the business gateways, is not a good plan
if you want to continue using businesses that ask for KYC and keep your product purchase list and your real life delivery address. but want to break bitcoin.. your priorities are scewed


it should be:
create busineses that dont ask for KYC to preserve privacy
stop using businesses that ask for KYC in situations where real life locations are not required

EG a online game where real life location does not have any effect on the game play/content, should not be asking for real life location data

EG services where no goods are to be delivered to real life location again dont need to know real life location

people need to start making competing services to the ones that ask for KYC. rather than using existing businesses that ask for KYC and then trying to break bitcoin security feature of network wide audit of coin integrity

because if you cannot prove a coins origin back at its coin reward creation. it then becomes alot easier for people to counterfeit/copy/create new coin outside of the coin reward system. which is far more dangerous to every users bitcoin security. at the sake of people that want to keep giving their info away to services. and blaming bitcoin if their data gets passed around

dont blame bitcoin. blame the businesses

again the bitcoin network does not ask for your name/geo-location
so dont blame the bitcoin network
dont try to break the bitcoin network

the issues are with the BUSINESSES that want to grab peoples names and geo location and product purpose lists. and also blacklist certain uses funds

do something about the businesses.

[Despairo]

The reason why most people don't care with their privacy is:

1. Modern culture, everyone really want to flex their wealth in front of anyone, they want to get respect and get a lot friends that also rich.

2. Poor people, they're don't care with privacy since they're poor and only want instant money. They wouldn't mind to trade their KYC just for $5 because they're know they don't have anything, so any criminals wouldn't attack them.

3. Careless people and low knowledge people, they're trust centralized exchanges because they leave their coins inside the exchanges. They think the only one who know their KYC is the exchanges and anyone wouldn't know since they're think Bitcoin is anonymous, while it's actually pseudonymous. We need to use mixer and dex that run in Tor to achieve complete anonymous.

[mk4]

The way I see it — knowing that privacy with Bitcoin (and on the internet in general) takes a good chunk of extra steps(and requires a good amount of knowledge) to achieve, people just end up turning a blind eye. This is why we need privacy by default(or at the very least to be as easy as possible).

[Wexnident]

Convenience I guess if I were to name it? They choose to leave some aspects of their lives in the hands of a third party for a few immediate benefits that they can experience, one of which is the personal handling of their assets. It's linear, straight-up easy to use, and nothing complicated whatsoever to learn. The funny thing is it also sets them up to blame someone else when something happens instead of themselves when they can do something about it in the first place.

Pretty sure setting up your privacy isn't really anything bad, as I've said before, it's simply an option that some people choose to abide by. It's also affected by the culture they grew up I guess? Some of my friends have that social media mindset where they have to share/brag about everything.

[Upgrade00]

You would likely not get an answer directly from those who do store their funds on an exchange, or you'll get the generic one of how it's being used to trade and it's expensive to transfer between exchange and wakey several times.

Convenience I guess if I were to name it? They choose to leave some aspects of their lives in the hands of a third party for a few immediate benefits that they can experience, one of which is the personal handling of their assets.

And this is only an imagined benefit which does not really exist in reality.
I find it way more easier to create an electrum wallet and back it up securely, all of which can be done under a few minutes, than to create an account on exchange, toggle back and forth from my email to the exchange to verify that, and then have to pass a KYC process which could take anything from a few minutes to a couple of days. When making a transaction, one would also need to toggle back and forth from their email to the homepage.

The perceived convince really does not exist in practice. I would be much safer handling my assets myself, than leaving it with a third-party, but that's just me

[Kakmakr]

Well, you basically have two kinds of people with very different views on privacy. On the one hand ...you have the people that believe in centralized authorities and the control that they must have over all citizens (Control freaks) .... and most of those people do not care about financial privacy. (Chinese / North Korea ....etc...)

Then on the other hand.... you have the people that think out of the box ... those people that do not follow like a sheep... and those people that understand that financial freedom are important.

I am not a Sheep... I can think for myself and I do not adhere to the norm. Personal information can be misused and manipulated by centralized organizations. Financial information can be used against you... (Do you donate to Wikileaks? .... can governments use that information against you?)

[crwth]

It's weird to think of a person who doesn't think of their privacy. It's either they are famous or just darn stupid to think of what they will do with their information. It's a good practice to take good care of privacy, but at the same time, it prevents people from doing evil acts that would affect many people.

In essence, it's a matter of philosophy whether it's okay to share your information as long as it's for the greater good, KYC, and AML applications. And at the other end of the spectrum is the private person, who wouldn't want to participate in KYC and AML things because they want their information to stay personal with only them and not give up at all what they hold dear.

It doesn't mean it's not essential; they want to comply because they are using services that would make life easier for them and be in the "system."

The stigma should be removed that if you are interested in protecting your privacy, it doesn't correlate immediately that you are a criminal. But that's the thing with the argument. If you have nothing to hide, why hide it? Is it for the greater good?

This is a dilemma that is not going to be solved lol.

[davis196]

If you ask me, around 90% of all Bitcoin/crypto users care only about the profit, not about their privacy. Maybe a small percentage cares about both the profits and their privacy.
There are several reasons why the people neglect their online privacy:
1. Laziness.
2. Ignorance.
3. The "it's not doing to happen to me" mentality, when it comes to getting scammed and/or doxxed.
4. Putting way too much trust in the centralized crypto companies because they are "regulated". As if being a regulated company can protect the customers from getting scammed.
There's no solution to this problem and the vast majority of the online users will keep neglecting their online privacy.

[rat03gopoh]

May be affected by the environment.
If identity is something that is usually exchanged for something of value even though it is not actually comparable, then you will feel like you are missing something when other people do it. Moreover, they had never heard of the evil of leaking that information around them.

[bakasabo]

I think the answer is simple, because people have lost the edge between privacy and earning. For the majority, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is no longer about privacy, but about how to earn. In addition, people always does not care about privacy much. They try to hide the amount of their salary, but if someone ask, they gladly share numbers. Or without hesitation make a proper mark next to "from - to " answer to a question "how much do you earn" in questionnaires.

In the past, when cryptocurrency wasnt so much familiar, people cared much about privacy. Now, when crypto is known to masses, no one cares about privacy anymore. Specially when everything is transparent and every transaction is visible. I think people think that if everything is so visible, why try hiding.

[Plaguedeath]

Because they still not get any problem when they sold their identity or expose their identity to anyone, it just happen on other people and it's not on his country. It's similar like centralized exchange, everything is good and we can withdraw our coins from the exchange whenever we want, why we need to scare? But when the exchange got hacked and they loss all of their coins, they will learn after it. So we just need to wait until they got a problem after they expose their privacy to public.

[Z-tight]

Some people just want to get rich very fast with BTC and nothing else, that could be a reason not to care about privacy, but just the bucks and how fast it can come. I think it goes without saying that the reason or purpose why someone is using BTC will determine if they will care about certain things or not, for a person who is curious about the technology and how Satoshi was able to achieve it, such person will make research, and in doing so will learn about the importance of privacy when using Bitcoin, and would therefore implement it, but for a person who only wants to trade, make a few bucks, convert from BTC to various other altcoins and back just to make money only, without having any real knack for the BTC network, this person will likely not care about their privacy when using BTC, maybe unless they get burnt in one centralized exchange or token.

[BALIK]

Some people just want to get rich very fast with BTC and nothing else, that could be a reason not to care about privacy, but just the bucks and how fast it can come. I think it goes without saying that the reason or purpose why someone is using BTC will determine if they will care about certain things or not, for a person who is curious about the technology and how Satoshi was able to achieve it, such person will make research, and in doing so will learn about the importance of privacy when using Bitcoin, and would therefore implement it, but for a person who only wants to trade, make a few bucks, convert from BTC to various other altcoins and back just to make money only, without having any real knack for the BTC network, this person will likely not care about their privacy when using BTC, maybe unless they get burnt in one centralized exchange or token.

Certainly not just some people, it could be said that most of the market participants are in it for profit, and not many people care about privacy. I don't know how it is in your area, but in my area the people involved in cryptocurrency are young people and the youth goal is get rich quick not privacy. I asked some investors and they said that privacy is also necessary but if you don't have money then what's the use of privacy? So, the initial goal when entering this market is how to make money is the first thing they think of.

[Ucy]

Privacy is a Right as long as we do it right.


* My few advice to privacy conscious people.

Be very transparent as possible unless bad people want to take advantage of your transparency to harm you or/& others.

I think we can only keep things that are Safe/Good/Just private while exposing evil.

You should only follow the privacy path in the public, dangerous or trustless environments. But make sure what you are hiding isn't evil or unjust.

If you are in possession of hidden things that are evil or unjust make sure you expose them to those more trustworthy, moral and better than you. They would handle that better or guide you on how best to treat the secret for your sake.






It's not right to say "I have nothing to hide,  as you are probably hiding your private bodyparts, Bitcoin keys, digital/online passwords etc.

[franky1]

you have the right to your personal self and your property
this means your personal life and information and your property like bitcoin

but when it comes to FIAT finances.. that is not your property.
yep fiat money is under patent and property of your governments central bank. they have the right to withdraw it out of circulation and control who gets to play with how much of it.

yes bitcoin is different. it has no patent no owner of the network payments system, and so if you are the sole key holder of the coins signing feature. then you are its owner. its your property. no one elses

bitcoin does not ask for your personal information. so it is private.

however as soon as you use a businesses service. you are entering the property of the business. where the business can set its policies on its property.

dont blame bitcoin about privacy risk.
blame the businesses that question, monitor and log customers information and transactions

again for emphasis. for those that are using "privacy" to break the p2p bitcoin network. stop with your childish games of trying to break bitcoin to then promote altnets as solutions to things.

if you are a true privacy advocate you would not be wanting to break bitcoin to then get people to use altnets that are managed by businesses you would instead be trying to start your own businesses or find people that want to have businesses that do not ask for information that is not required to use the service

it does not matter what code the bitcoin network has or doesnt have,. if your giving information to businesses. those businesses swap data with each other and you end up in the same position as before you tried to wreck the bitcoin network.

so go after the businesses asking you for the information. not after the network that doesnt ask for your information

[witcher_sense]

From my point of view, the answer to the question of why most people seem not to care about privacy is very simple - they haven't yet realized they are being seen and used as a product. Adventurous and impudent personalities make money off of those who are passive and ignorant: their data is being sold to third parties, stolen or gathered, and shared without consent or proper warning. Once honest people realize that to live in today's world means striving to be or look like a "useless" product to others, they will start to care about their privacy, and they will want to protect it from invasions. Privacy is not a right, privacy is a goal that no individual will ever achieve completely, but it doesn't necessarily mean you should stop trying to fight for it. It is definitely worth it.

[yazher]

I think some of the people that had passed their details to some exchanges are in a rush and only found out the danger of sending their personal information to the internet, later on, most of them regret it. That is why before doing anything in the crypto industry, it's better for you to learn more and equip yourself with enough knowledge in order to avoid any danger that could damage your reputation in your community with a crime you haven't committed. Because if your KYC details will be sold to some notorious scammers and they will gonna use them for their crimes, you will get involved and it's a long process to explain to the cops that you are innocent about it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The way I see it — knowing that privacy with Bitcoin (and on the internet in general) takes a good chunk of extra steps(and requires a good amount of knowledge) to achieve, people just end up turning a blind eye.

You can get a very good chunk of the way there by simply not handing out your KYC. That doesn't take any effort at all. Just don't do it. The vast majority of privacy which is lost is lost because it is given up voluntarily.

Convenience I guess if I were to name it? They choose to leave some aspects of their lives in the hands of a third party for a few immediate benefits that they can experience, one of which is the personal handling of their assets.

I'm yet to figure out what is convenient about losing all your coins because the centralized exchange you left them on has gone bankrupt or was just an outright scam all along.

If you have nothing to hide, why hide it? Is it for the greater good?

If I have nothing I want to share, why should I be forced to share it?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Great topic. Here's my view.

Internet privacy, if I had to define it in summary, is to have two or more not linked identities, one of which represents your real identity. My suggestion for Bitcoin users is to try as much as possible to begin their journey privately, and keep their Bitcoin activity private-- not linked to their real identity.

The reason I suggest this identity separation is because, truth be told, we can't have good Internet privacy nowadays-- and this might be the reason many have used to give little to no importance. It requires huge effort, and takes only a few clicks to have it infringed. Let alone, today's applications provide comfort in exchange for privacy. So, the conclusion is that you can't have one Internet identity that's private. You need to have two. Bitcoin gives you the option to make transactions with both these identities without linking them together; game changer.

I don't know if I'm the kind of guy who seeks for privacy as much as most legitimate Bitcoiners here. I don't feel bad when I use Google products, or text using Messenger / Viber, browse Twitter etc., provided that the business I do is not considered important from third parties. For example, texting to a friend or a date, or placing an order to buy clothes or food isn't the kind of things that is sensitive. What's sensitive is to let every spying company out there to know which content I like watching when I'm doing private stuff, such as Bitcoin-related, or even worse, to let them know how much bitcoin I have.

How to create an anonymous identity? Easy. We have cryptographic protocols. Everything you do will be routed through Tor. Create a private email, such as Protonmail. Browse using Tor browser. Use random password generators to avoid traceability. Buy a phone number anonymously; there are services that accept lightning in exchange for the option to receive SMSes. Run a lightning node, and use mixed funds for its capacity.

[Doan9269]

It's a thing of shame to those experienced enough in cryptocurrency without having much concern regarding their privacy and this is not only applicable to bitcoin alone but in other areas of live, those that are caught unaware before they discover the need for their privacy are the beginners and once such discovery is made they withdrew from exposing their privacy in all they do, this has to be monitored althrough our entire dealings in this contemporary digital era in other to avoid future regret, when we would have loose it before notice.

[Lucius]

~snip~
But I am very conscious there are a lot of you out here who simply do not give a damn.  Which begs the question for me, why is it that you do not give a single damn about your own privacy when using Bitcoin?  Why not protect yourself in front of all sorts of attacks if you have the chance to do so?  Also.  What do you think about us, who try their hardest to 'hide'?  Do you think we are suspicious or are you perfectly fine with our way of living?  Do you think the number of criminals is larger where there are more privacy enthusiasts?

In order for people to understand the importance of privacy in the context of Bitcoin, they should first understand what Bitcoin is, or better said, what this alternative enables them compared to fiat. I tend to believe that the vast majority perceive Bitcoin as nothing more than a simple investment that will allow them to earn $10 000 from, say, $1000 over a period of time - and such people are certainly not interested in the kind of privacy you are talking about.

In the end, privacy is not something that people should be forced into, so to speak, but should come from some logical life situations where we should understand how exposed we are to various risks and what we can do to eliminate or at least reduce those risks. We have to accept that some people just don't care for one reason or another, but at the end of the day it's just their choice.

[so98nn]

I don’t think we are taught to fear hiding something or everything BUT we are trained to do so since our childhood. Now there should be clear instructions on what should be private and what should be public. I would say finances is something that can be kept 90% hidden and 10% public. Well that is in the sense of contributing to the society that we wander in. Howeve, today’s government would be like if we even move a dollar to buy or sell position then they would be like “yeah get it taxed on both the ways”. That’s insane. That’s why peeps are going crazy and their craziness should be for bitcoin now.

[o_e_l_e_o]

We have to accept that some people just don't care for one reason or another, but at the end of the day it's just their choice.

I get that, and of course people are free to completely give up their privacy for some tiny convenience or so they can show their friends pictures of their Starbucks coffee or some other stupid reason if they choose. But it needs to be an informed choice. And it never is.

Every centralized exchange buries somewhere in their Terms of Use that they know >99% don't read the small print in confusing legal language about your data being confidential and only disclosed with selected third parties under certain provisions. If these exchanges instead put in plain language on their sign up page "Your data will be shared with a bunch of complete strangers for regulatory reasons, sold to a bunch more third parties just because we can, and almost certainly leaked or hacked at some point in the future", then perhaps people would think twice about completing KYC. If all the people who bleat the nonsense "Well, I've got nothing to hide" were instead shown the results of people going bankrupt because of identity theft and having their lives ruined, they would think twice. People who give up their privacy freely are very rarely informed about the risks they are taking, precisely because large companies like Binance, Coinbase, Amazon, Facebook, etc. thrive on people not understanding these risks and handing over their data.

[CryptSafe]

Privacy is everyone's business but not compulsory though. Have you been in a situation of  theft via identity linking to you as a result of lapses from the third party? This is the situation of things now where ones identity is used to carryout crime schemes with third party and they not knowing where it is coming from but still on their platform. In this case, who's to be blamed?

[NotATether]

If you ask me, around 90% of all Bitcoin/crypto users care only about the profit, not about their privacy. Maybe a small percentage cares about both the profits and their privacy.

Profits?? In a prolonged bear market?

I'm pretty sure the reading on the "Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index" spooked out the vast majority of these money-grubbing vultures from Bitcoin and crypto in general.

Everyone else who remains will not make ridiculous decisions like storing their bitcoins on an exchange, especially now that they have seen in real time the consequences of an exchange with your funds on it collapsing (FTX).

[mk4]

You can get a very good chunk of the way there by simply not handing out your KYC. That doesn't take any effort at all. Just don't do it. The vast majority of privacy which is lost is lost because it is given up voluntarily.

Using a typical KYC exchange is still far more convenient(for the typical non-technical person) compared to using a no-KYC P2P trading platform; so it pretty much still comes down to convenience.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Using a typical KYC exchange is still far more convenient(for the typical non-technical person) compared to using a no-KYC P2P trading platform; so it pretty much still comes down to convenience.

Something tells me you haven't tried trading using a no-KYC P2P exchange. I challenge you verify this assertion by trying once.

No-KYC P2P:

• Exchange gives you a temporary user id.
• You make an offer.
• Someone takes your offer.
• The exchange (centralized for the sake of simplicity), swaps your assets.

That's it. I just had a wonderful experience with Robosats, and it costed me 0.

KYC no-P2P:

• You're going so sign up.
• You have to complete KYC, and bunch of captchas.
• You need to verify the account (texts sent to your email address, phone number, bank account).
• You need to wait for a few days for an employee to confirm you're legitimate.
• You make an offer.
• Someone takes it.
• The exchange swaps your assets (which are liabilities at this point), and takes a commission.

Sounds less convenient to me. I can agree that one might think it's more convenient at first, if they don't know how a no-KYC P2P exchange works.

[Zanab247]

They are like people who are working seriously to earn well in the future not knowing that they are working for their enemy by exposing their privacy in public. There are many enemies in some platform showcasing different things that will make people to expose their privacy so that they can have access to their progress or to cause them pain in a way they will  share their experience to stop other people not to fall victim. I guess, is not advisable to display your personal details to strangers in the community than to do everything possible within your knowledge to keep your privacy safe.

[PrivacyG]

people need to start making competing services to the ones that ask for KYC. rather than using existing businesses that ask for KYC and then trying to break bitcoin security feature of network wide audit of coin integrity

because if you cannot prove a coins origin back at its coin reward creation. it then becomes alot easier for people to counterfeit/copy/create new coin outside of the coin reward system. which is far more dangerous to every users bitcoin security. at the sake of people that want to keep giving their info away to services. and blaming bitcoin if their data gets passed around

dont blame bitcoin. blame the businesses

again the bitcoin network does not ask for your name/geo-location
so dont blame the bitcoin network
dont try to break the bitcoin network

Pardon me if I am misunderstanding, but are you trying to say Mixers and overall Bitcoin privacy enhancement tools are 'breaking' the Bitcoin network?  How so?  Coins can still be tracked down to their origins even if they come from Mixers, even if they come from Joins.

Making competing services to the ones that ask for KYC is simply not possible because of Governments.  Binance was a service doing precisely this until a matter of months ago when they HAD to enforce KYC unless they wanted to be kicked out of some not so insignificant countries.  When you grow this big, the Government will want to earn something off you as well.  You will need to adapt to the Government, not the other way around.  If you do not adapt, you are screwed.

The thing is we do have options.  The point of this topic was I wanted to understand why some people choose not to give a damn when they have options.  You have Bisq, you have Mixers, you have stores that do not require KYC.  Then why use Binance, use KYC stores and post the Bitcoin address on this forum although you know the balance has been used for personal expenses?  This opens up a gate that is so unpredictable.  You never know who is playing around with all that information.

If you don’t care about your privacy, you are opening yourself up to an entire market of people who don’t care about you, and use you as you would a cow at the slaughter.

True.  You get someone messing up with your life just because they can and will.  Post your real address on the Internet for everybody to see, but then do not expect peace at your place.

The way I see it — knowing that privacy with Bitcoin (and on the internet in general) takes a good chunk of extra steps(and requires a good amount of knowledge) to achieve, people just end up turning a blind eye.

But there still are those people I am most intrigued about.  They would give you their ID and phone number if you told them they would enter a $5,000 Bitcoin raffle.  They would give Amazon (I did not have a better example) their KYC documents to buy condoms out of convenience.  So here comes my question.  Why?  What exactly makes it so easy to give up private information, unless they do not know how to value their information.

It's weird to think of a person who doesn't think of their privacy. It's either they are famous

Fame is going to make you value your privacy a million times more.  Because then you know there are some who definitely will reverse search everything and anything about you to gain access to information that is, to them, priceless.

But that's the thing with the argument. If you have nothing to hide, why hide it? Is it for the greater good?

Why would I want you or anyone else know what I am doing with my money and time.  I hide in my bedroom during play, does not mean I am abusing my partner or hiding corpses under the bed.  Why share that information with everyone.  Why would someone be fine with giving away all that information to strangers.  Some things are personal for a reason, including financial history.

Sure, pay the Government whatever you owe, but I think it is not normal to have the Government or any third party monitor you and question you and your choices.  Things may be going great right now for us, but what if tomorrow there is a coup in your country and things change radically.  Reminds me of that time Talibans took control and everyone who posted a certain kind of information on Facebook before (I think it was people who have a history of supporting a certain party) became their target.  They had nothing to hide after all, yet they became targets.

Why have an unnecessary headache.  Things on the Internet 'stay forever' and it is scary and could lead to grave consequences.  Not today, not tomorrow.  It could be the choices you made today that could affect you in a matter of decades.  Companies nowadays look your Facebook profile up and creep up on you as part of the normal recruiting procedures.  Creepy, no thanks.

Something tells me you haven't tried trading using a no-KYC P2P exchange. I challenge you verify this assertion by trying once.

I think mk4 is saying it is more convenient as in, you can trade instantly, you have customer support, you have close to zero fees, the volume is much larger and so on.  The registration procedure is much more complicated with a KYC Exchange, but the overall trading experience is of course much better than a Peer to Peer exchange.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[BlackHatCoiner]

Sure, pay the Government whatever you owe

Well, that doesn't work in practice. If it's possible to avoid taxation, you will, and even if you choose to not avoid it, the government is definitely not going to be content with it. You either have financial privacy and avoid taxes to an extent, or let them know your activity and pay them the respective amount.

The "nothing to hide" argument might seem cunningly intrusive to personal freedom, but that's the treatment which backs taxation by; force. If you don't pay your taxes, you're going to eat breakfast with a police officer one morning. Therefore, anyone who wants some privacy is likely a suspect from a government's point of view. Criminals take innocent people with them.

[mk4]

Something tells me you haven't tried trading using a no-KYC P2P exchange. I challenge you verify this assertion by trying once.

I actually exclusively use no-KYC P2P exchanges when I was slowly cashing out funds through HodlHodl. (Though I'll admit there are a few exchanges that I KYCed in like 2017.)

Yes, KYC no-P2P exchanges sounds tedious the way you described it, but you only do the KYC verification once. Also, take into consideration the UI/UX experience for the end-user. Marketing aside — if no-KYC P2P exchanges was actually the overall better experience, then the masses would be using them rather than the Coinbases and such.

[Poker Player]

Well, I don't quite agree with the OP's position, as I have said in other posts, because I see that he poses it as an all or nothing and it is not so. There are degrees. Between all of your bitcoin being non-kyc passed through mixers, you run your own node etc., and all of your bitcoin being kyc and on top of that you reuse addresses, there are degrees.

For example. Have non-kyc Bitcoin and have another Bitcoin bought with KYC that has gone from the account of the exchange to a single address of yours, and there has remained only moving to return to the account of the exchange to sell.

Then it also makes me laugh because it reminds me of the fish that is in the fishbowl and thinks that the universe is the fishbowl. Nowadays the element that invades privacy the most is the cell phone that billions of people use without the slightest concern for it. Paying for everything with their cell phones and even posting selfies/videos of everything they do on Instagram/TikTok/Facebook.

Sure, pay the Government whatever you owe

Well, that doesn't work in practice. If it's possible to avoid taxation, you will, and even if you choose to not avoid it, the government is definitely not going to be content with it. You either have financial privacy and avoid taxes to an extent, or let them know your activity and pay them the respective amount.

This is key and let's talk straight. It is one thing if you are foolish enough to declare in a public forum that you evade taxes, but there is an unwritten law that whoever can avoid paying taxes does so. I have not met anyone who was paid under the table who has gone to declare it. For example, someone who worked as a waiter and was paid in cash without a contract. And as BlackHatCoiner says, even if you are one of that tiny percentage that has a very easy time not declaring without getting caught but you are so honest that you will declare, the government is not going to be happy with you either.

[pooya87]

I think a lot of people don't know what having privacy means for them because they haven't faced the consequences of not having it yet. It is like health, you don't pay attention to it until you lose your health. Then you realize what it meant to have it. We can ask the same question from these people: why do you not care about your health, why not eat healthy, exercise, etc.

To some extent this is true about those who keep their coins on exchanges. They don't really understand how big a mistake they are making because they haven't lost their coins yet. But when they do, it is already too late.

[franky1]

people need to start making competing services to the ones that ask for KYC. rather than using existing businesses that ask for KYC and then trying to break bitcoin security feature of network wide audit of coin integrity

because if you cannot prove a coins origin back at its coin reward creation. it then becomes alot easier for people to counterfeit/copy/create new coin outside of the coin reward system. which is far more dangerous to every users bitcoin security. at the sake of people that want to keep giving their info away to services. and blaming bitcoin if their data gets passed around

dont blame bitcoin. blame the businesses

again the bitcoin network does not ask for your name/geo-location
so dont blame the bitcoin network
dont try to break the bitcoin network

Pardon me if I am misunderstanding, but are you trying to say Mixers and overall Bitcoin privacy enhancement tools are 'breaking' the Bitcoin network?  How so?  Coins can still be tracked down to their origins even if they come from Mixers, even if they come from Joins.

no no and no

im saying PEOPLE that want to break bitcoin by changing bitcoin protocols of the input output structure of transactions, where the use of UTXO should be compromised to prevent the "taint" tracking..
..is in their mind good privacy..
although it actually breaks bitcoins fundamental security of audit/accounting of coin (used to prevent counterfiet coins (more then 21m control limit))..
.. is thus against everyone elses coin security

..
separately: different scenario/argument/point to highlight
..
these same people should be warned that using mixers is a red flag which exchanges pick up on . thus using a mixer and then taking funds to an exchange causes the exchange to red flag the users account to actually look at with more scrutiny.. more so than a regular account user that has not used a mixer

thus trying to hide ends up getting you noticed more

my overal opinion is this

blockchains purpose is to have chains/taint of transactions to audit and secure funds that cant be created outside the rules or counterfeited or double spent
those not wanting "taint" dont want blockchains.. so those not wanting blockchains should go play on other networks and not try breaking bitcoin protocols

if they do want blockchains and realise one day that bitcoins blockchain does not ask for personal information.. then their other option is to stop using businesses that do ask for ID

as for other posts about privacy for tax evasion(illegal)/avoidance(legal)
bitcoin does not ask for ID and report it to tax agents

dont blame bitcoin about your tax status

if you want to avoid(legally) tax. learn tax law and find the loopholes
politicians and celebrities do it. so learn it.
if trum can learn it between playing golf. so can you. dont blame bitcoin for your desires to avoid tax. own your own decisions and prepare for your own decisions. dont blame something else for your inabilities

there are bigger ways to do it.
for instance 2009-2014 bitcoin was not defined legally as a currency. thus tax and regulatory law did not apply
lobby groups pushed to get bitcoin defined as a currency, which opened the doors to tax and regulation..

if enough people could lobby to reclassify bitcoin as not a currency but something else. such as a property. then it changes the tax/regulatory ability to evaluate you

Eg
currency- SEC
commodity -CFTF

for instance there is no US national regulator for real estate. its regulated at state level by policy set at state level.

defining what bitcoin is. can change its regulatory status of he businesses that operate around it

[aylabadia05]

Personally I really care about privacy when using Bitcoin. Various ways I do to secure the private key. Not enough one place, I keep another place as a backup. I mean, I really care PrivacyG.

Why do I care, because when Bitcoin delivers the system very well, then my job is just to maintain it well.
Those who don't care about this, maybe they won't know how when something bad will happen that they will regret for life.

This I briefly convey that I really care.

[Solosanz]

Personally I really care about privacy when using Bitcoin. Various ways I do to secure the private key. Not enough one place, I keep another place as a backup. I mean, I really care PrivacyG.

It's funny to see someone mixed up between privacy and security

What you're talking about is security, not privacy! is there anyone expose their own password to anyone? even a kid wouldn't did this.

Privacy is where you're don't leave any trace to anyone, including both offline and online. Avoiding to talk Bitcoin, wear anything that has a relation with Bitcoin and show your Bitcoin investment is a part of privacy.

[franky1]

Privacy is where you're don't leave any trace to anyone, including both offline and online. Avoiding to talk Bitcoin, wear anything that has a relation with Bitcoin and show your Bitcoin investment is a part of privacy.

but those privacy concerns are he concerns that only humans and business can change. its not related to the bitcoin protocol

however some silly people are trying to assume bitcoin protocol is at fault by being too transparent. making wild assumptions that bitcoin protocols are requesting and revealing peoples private lives(name location, sexual preference, purchase list of goods).. where they want to break bitcoins protocol to make it less transparent of what bitcoin does show publicly..
.. but doing that breaks bitcoin security(of the account/audit system of all coins back to their generation coin reward) that bitcoin security is the whole purpose of blockchains.

other blockchains that use "accounts" instead of OTXO's dont need a blockchain. because once spending the account. the old blocks are not needed. however the blochains purpose is to keep a record of spends so that you can be secure to know the coins you hold now did infact come from a true block reward in the past. thus securing your holdings as being real and valued. rather than an edit added in randomly to the ledger

[PrivacyG]

Well, that doesn't work in practice. If it's possible to avoid taxation, you will, and even if you choose to not avoid it, the government is definitely not going to be content with it. You either have financial privacy and avoid taxes to an extent, or let them know your activity and pay them the respective amount.

Except there are a lot of people doing work for cash, largest tax evasions happen in the nucleus of politics and banking and the more you get to be monitored and questioned, the more we are moving towards a dystopian world nobody wants to live in.  Because then everything can and will be questioned and you will have completely unnecessary headaches.

We can continue this argument endlessly.  Your Government wakes up tomorrow with the intent to prevent domestic abuse.  So they set up drones that monitor every window of every home in a particularly chosen area every single day at random hours.  Why do you have curtains, got something to hide?  Do not forget to say 'Hi' to your friendly drone 5 times a day!  Next year, I bet the new rule will be everyone has the obligation to have State-installed security cameras all around the house.  What are you, a racist or a Nazi supporter?  Or do you plan to bomb the city?  Then why hide?  The Government only wants prevention.

Want to go alone outside?  Sure, but a mini robot will follow you around and listen JUST to your surroundings to protect you.  Your Government-sent personal bodyguard that you must love!  Oh, you do not like it?  You must definitely be doing and saying things you should not.  Suspect.

I disagree that the possibility to avoid taxation leads to people evading it.  I think if anyone has the courage to do tax evasion they will find alternatives with or without financial privacy.  After all, most of the richest pay fewer taxes than we do because they have alternatives and laws are made in their favor.  I strongly believe that if we want to do something about it, we have to treat everyone fair.  It is completely unfair that our $400 transactions are treated as possibly terrorism funding and tax evasion but politicians get away with millions or even billions of dollars they stole.  See all those sets of papers that have been leaked in the past years.  See the Switzerland banking scandal from last year when everyone was pretending nobody knew politicians and billionaires are using Switzerland as a gateway to tax evasion and money laundering.

Moreover, I often look at the laws like some kind of software source code.  There will always be exploits and 'bugs' no matter how much you change them.  And people will continue using them to their own advantage since they .. well, evade taxes now.  Tell me how much of a difference there is between tax evasion and using exploits in laws to evade them.  Sure, legally you are fine, but you are still doing it.  There are a ton of businesses currently doing this.  The only way to solve this is probably by ruling anything that is not mentioned by the law as illegal.  But then things get creepy.

The same people are questioning us and applying very strict rules and laws that supposedly prevent their own actions.  Money laundering and terrorism funding.  Let us be honest and realistic here.  What I am going to say is currently pure speculation but Monero is currently only alive and unbanned because some important figures of the World's scene are using it.  Mark my words.

To me it is extremely dystopian if I think about a world where all my activity is monitored.  I decide to give my kid $10?  The Government knows where that came from and even what the kid is going to spend it onto.  Your kid has no bank account and you withdraw $10 and give it to the kid in cash?  What are you doing, using cash to buy drugs?  Then why do you not want to open your kid a bank account, got something to hide?  Someone wants to give me $50 for my birthday or borrow me $100 until next week?  Knock knock, IRS here, we want explanations.  Do you have a document signed by both parties proving this was a birthday gift or do you have a contract for borrowing money?  That is a world in which you are afraid to do anything because any action could have a strong reaction from the Government.  It is a world based on fear.  It is mind boggling and exhausting.

Everyone knows part of the inner workings of the Government and the Rich.  We all know that art is currently one of the biggest gateways to tax evasion and money laundering.  Yet, it is still going on and nobody gives a damn.  And you can not afford to evade taxes by buying art, nor can I.  They can.  The Rich, and implicitly the Government.  But they do give a damn if I mowed my neighbor's lawn because I ran out of food 3 days before my paycheck due to extremely high costs post inflation and earned $10 for mowing that I did not pay taxes for.  Where is the fair treatment.

Funniest thing is.  We will likely get to live this kind of dystopian world one day and financial crimes will continue to exist.  Scams, fraud, tax evasion, whatever you want.  They will know every single thing about every single citizen and you will continue to hear about the rich stealing money and evading billions.  But now everything is monitored already, so what happens is they will only get more and more intrusive.  Because if you wanted to prevent 99 things, why not prevent the 100th as well.  It is a scary loop of infinity.  The ones who suffer at the end of the day will, just like today, continue to be us.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[LoyceV]

You get to choose whether you want to have enhanced privacy or not.

For most people reading this, it's probably too late already. Since I started with Bitcoin, I kept my real identity away from my online identity. But still, I wish I would have been more thorough, such as using Tor by default. Once your privacy is compromised, you'll never get it back.

But we have all been pretty much brainwashed to believe having privacy is wrong.

In my experience, exercising your right to privacy in real life is generally considered to be a nuisance. It makes you the exception, while it should be the other way around. Most people are so used to it, they don't even understand how dumb it is to say "I have nothing to hide". If everyone would value their privacy, social media wouldn't exist.

1. Modern culture, everyone really want to flex their wealth in front of anyone, they want to get respect and get a lot friends that also rich.

That's not my experience. In many cases, "flexing their wealth" is more like faking their wealth.

You either have financial privacy and avoid taxes to an extent, or let them know your activity and pay them the respective amount.

That's actually a danger to crypto owners: I am required to report my finances to taxes, but the tax agency doesn't log which of their employees access what data.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Except there are a lot of people doing work for cash, largest tax evasions happen in the nucleus of politics and banking and the more you get to be monitored and questioned, the more we are moving towards a dystopian world nobody wants to live in.

I didn't say that the largest money laundering comes from cashless societies. It is well known that the largest commercial banks are the root causes of money laundering.

Your Government wakes up tomorrow with the intent to prevent domestic abuse.

The reason this hasn't happened yet is because my fellow citizens (who're eligible to elect) don't want it either, and the elected party ought to follow the voters' desires. I'm pretty sure that if we had no problem to have a spying drone outside our houses, like we live in China, the government would be the first to proceed to that implementation.

See the Switzerland banking scandal from last year when everyone was pretending nobody knew politicians and billionaires are using Switzerland as a gateway to tax evasion and money laundering.

Recent scandal: FTX. A private company was taking users assets, donating them to the democratic party which collects taxes to fund the war of Ukraine, the country which partners with FTX. Money laundering 101.

That's actually a danger to crypto owners: I am required to report my finances to taxes, but the tax agency doesn't log which of their employees access what data.

What does the tax agency knows about LoyceV?

[Welsh]

Well, that doesn't work in practice. If it's possible to avoid taxation, you will, and even if you choose to not avoid it, the government is definitely not going to be content with it. You either have financial privacy and avoid taxes to an extent, or let them know your activity and pay them the respective amount.

The "nothing to hide" argument might seem cunningly intrusive to personal freedom, but that's the treatment which backs taxation by; force. If you don't pay your taxes, you're going to eat breakfast with a police officer one morning. Therefore, anyone who wants some privacy is likely a suspect from a government's point of view. Criminals take innocent people with them.

Complete privacy is almost completely impossible in the internet age. However, I do think there's being responsible about your privacy, as well as being a law abiding citizen. I for one don't mind paying taxes, it's going to something I care about, the NHS, and various other things, but mostly the NHS. I understand that other countries don't have something like that, and therefore it's harder to justify it, but as long as taxes are spent well there really shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, they're mostly never spent well, and that's including the NHS funding.

That said, I don't avoid taxes for a reason, because I want to be a law abiding citizen, and don't mind compromising a certain amount of my privacy for something that is suppose to go to public funding. While you have to reveal how much you've earned in a year, you can still maintain certain levels of privacy outside of that. Basically, my rule of thumb is privacy against the government is virtually impossible, and most people probably accept that. However, Bitcoin does allow you to maintain your privacy from third parties like banks, exchanges, and what not. Those are the more likely to use your information maliciously. The government, are pretty much happy as long as you pay your taxes, which I'm personally okay about, however I will admit most people I talk to complain about it. I think that's the general consensus.

However, I wouldn't have the same confidence with trusting my sensitive information with third parties, and exchanges. That's where that level of trust vanishes. However, I can't, and won't advocate using cryptocurrency for avoiding taxation.  

At least taxes are for public funding. If people were really concerned about their privacy, they'd never leave their country, they'd never have a ID, and they wouldn't put fingerprints on their phone just to quicken the process. Most people are oblivious to privacy, and even the minority that advocate privacy, you find still compromise it for convenience. For example, people that want holidays, have to have their picture, and fingerprints taken at the airport. That's just something that people accept.

That's actually a danger to crypto owners: I am required to report my finances to taxes, but the tax agency doesn't log which of their employees access what data.

Isn't that a danger to all? Since, employees could effectively use your information for whatever reason they intend to use it. I don't think that's exclusively a cryptocurrency problem. There probably should be more scrutiny on who has access to the data, but then wouldn't we complain that more logging would be taking place to prevent that?

[franky1]

your identity information is out there. governments had it since you were born (birth certificates)

bitcoin does not ask for this information..

but how about instead of crying about businesses that have your information because you gave it to them when you signed up to their service. .. instead think about making a new way for people to verify their ID

EG your parents form a multisig address, where the address becomes "you"
much like how block9 coin reward address became "satoshi"

you then can signmessages to prove ID control. which then stops any ID fraud because those trying to use your address cant sign for it

EG asking CSW to prove 'satoshi' by signing an address. he cant so yep he is not satoshi

give the ID network some protocols and rules. such as if you give your ID to a business. you sign a messages allowing them usage. where they can validate their usage to your address without needing your seedkey
(they have a message giving authority+signature)

if others use your ID. but you do not authorise their use. simply asking for them to show the signature and message authorising them. and when they cant. boom sue them.

you can then monitise it by selling access to your signatured messages of authorisation

code can do wonderful things. use it make, it commonly used and break the cycle of ID abuse

note there a infinite ways of making a ID network that can allow/resrict other parties from using your public ID. i just gave a most basic of all example

[LoyceV]

What does the tax agency knows about LoyceV?

I don't know. Luckily, they're not very efficient, so chances are that stops them from collecting too much information.

Isn't that a danger to all? Since, employees could effectively use your information for whatever reason they intend to use it. I don't think that's exclusively a cryptocurrency problem.

"This guy has money on a Swiss bank account" makes him less of a target than "this guy has money that can't be frozen".

There probably should be more scrutiny on who has access to the data, but then wouldn't we complain that more logging would be taking place to prevent that?

The logging should be for their own employees, not the rest of the population.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I understand that other countries don't have something like that, and therefore it's harder to justify it, but as long as taxes are spent well there really shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, they're mostly never spent well, and that's including the NHS funding.

I don't have a right to change to what they're being spent to. I'm not at the state budget's office. I don't get to choose who's going to be at that position, I'm only presented some choices, and I get to vote for whom I believe is capable of choosing wisely who to hire.

However, I do know one thing; spending money that isn't yours is prone to be done recklessly. It requires less caution to spend somebody else's money for their own good, than it is to spend your money for your good, and is therefore more likely to act inefficiently and improperly for the others. Evading taxes, in that case, is reasonable, whenever possible with minimum risk.

That's just my perspective.

[coupable]

But I am very conscious there are a lot of you out here who simply do not give a damn.  Which begs the question for me, why is it that you do not give a single damn about your own privacy when using Bitcoin?  Why not protect yourself in front of all sorts of attacks if you have the chance to do so?  Also.  What do you think about us, who try their hardest to 'hide'?  Do you think we are suspicious or are you perfectly fine with our way of living?  Do you think the number of criminals is larger where there are more privacy enthusiasts?

People cannot get rid of the banking culture, where they always think that their personal data is in safe hands, or that they do not care about that data as long as their savings are safe. When the use is popular, do not expect to find everyone preferring Bitcoin because it gives more privacy, but only because it can be used instead of money and provides an available investment. These same people are the ones who save large amounts of crypto on trading platforms and do not have the courage to be responsible for their money in private wallets.

[Welsh]

I don't have a right to change to what they're being spent to. I'm not at the state budget's office. I don't get to choose who's going to be at that position, I'm only presented some choices, and I get to vote for whom I believe is capable of choosing wisely who to hire.

However, I do know one thing; spending money that isn't yours is prone to be done recklessly. It requires less caution to spend somebody else's money for their own good, than it is to spend your money for your good, and is therefore more likely to act inefficiently and improperly for the others. Evading taxes, in that case, is reasonable, whenever possible with minimum risk.

That's just my perspective.

Yeah, I do understand I think it's been quite well documented in pretty much every country that taxes aren't always spent well. I've always suggested that people to get to choose where their taxes go. However, the problem you have then is more people will pick healthcare, and no one will pick bin collectors, so within a month everyone's bin will be overflowing. That's just an example. As much as I would like to see taxes being spent wisely, I think most people are to set in their ways to actually think about splitting up their taxes contribution, and picking the services that they don't deem as vital as others.

So, I would agree that taxation, and the way it's spent definitely has to be improved upon. I still personally don't think that's a reason to avoid it. Since, while it might be being mismanaged it's still contributing to society. I'm quite passionate about the National Health Service, and I've actually been called a communist for that funnily enough . The NHS is a socialist idea, and therefore requires everyone to contribute, taxation is similar. Now, I know the NHS is grossly mismanaged, and therefore my taxes are being horribly misspent (probably intentionally to move to private healthcare), but this doesn't prevent me wanting to contribute. I want it to be improved definitely, just like with taxation.

Would you be more comfortable with taxes if they were spent correctly? Or is it mainly a privacy thing? Since, I see those at separate issues. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for privacy, and I'm a big advocate for it. Especially, when it comes to not relying on third parties like banks, and all that which fiat basically forces you too. However, I do think compromises need to be made, and I'm not against compromising on certain things.

The thing is we don't live in a perfect world, so even if the government anonymised tax collection to an extent, people would just abuse it, and that's the sad reality of our lives these days. Socialist concepts are being labelled as communist, and people helping out others is practically vanished when it comes to finances. 

[Obari]

It took me so much time to read this topic and readying it twice was worth it.
Everyone truly wants privacy especially in a county like mine where every young and excelling youth is tag a criminal ad been molested by the security agency (police) who is supposed to be protecting it's citizens.
It now seems like almost a taboo for a young young to be rich or living comfortably without any physical source of income as everyone earning a living online is been tagged a criminal or a possible scammer.
I'm also a strong advocate and privacy enthusiast but most time I can't speak about this in my neighborhood because you'll seem suspicious and people might start tagging you with negativity and that's why most times we act as if we don't care about our privacy but deep down, we truly care about our privacy.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Since, while it might be being mismanaged it's still contributing to society. I'm quite passionate about the National Health Service

I haven't lived in a regime of completely free enterprise, and I don't know how would that work for stuff such as education and health care. Free enterprise is known to be working more effectively and efficiently than the state, because the "invisible hand", as Adam Smith had named, is always one step forward than a single entity, and it is impossible for that entity to know everything. I don't want poor people to not have access to those two, but studies have shown that what's keeping them poor is the bureaucracy that's supposed to do good to them.

It's always a matter of sincerity and result in the end. I don't question some left-wing politicians' sincerity, which is to thrive social equality, but that never happens! In fact, there isn't one time in history I've known that introduction of bureaucracy, which involved free market regulation, didn't result in social inequality overtime.

Would you be more comfortable with taxes if they were spent correctly?

Taxes are spent correctly according to one group, and incorrectly according to another. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay taxes at all, but the more the taxes each party introduces, the more the chances to be recklessly spent. I'd be comfortable if we lowered the government spending by a lot, for stuff such as energy, national defense, and basically everything that includes bureaucracy which rises operation costs, and makes things more opaque to work.

[aysg76]

I get that, and of course people are free to completely give up their privacy for some tiny convenience or so they can show their friends pictures of their Starbucks coffee or some other stupid reason if they choose. But it needs to be an informed choice. And it never is.

Every centralized exchange buries somewhere in their Terms of Use that they know >99% don't read the small print in confusing legal language about your data being confidential and only disclosed with selected third parties under certain provisions. If these exchanges instead put in plain language on their sign up page "Your data will be shared with a bunch of complete strangers for regulatory reasons, sold to a bunch more third parties just because we can, and almost certainly leaked or hacked at some point in the future", then perhaps people would think twice about completing KYC. If all the people who bleat the nonsense "Well, I've got nothing to hide" were instead shown the results of people going bankrupt because of identity theft and having their lives ruined, they would think twice. People who give up their privacy freely are very rarely informed about the risks they are taking, precisely because large companies like Binance, Coinbase, Amazon, Facebook, etc. thrive on people not understanding these risks and handing over their data.

People are actually not serious about their privacy and have false belief that these exchange or centralised services just need to have your documents in order to compile with the AML policies and other nonsense they come up with in order to fool people.They submit their documents and get their funds and that's it they are happy without even realising the fact they have completely compromised their security with it.

You are right on the part that these exchanges have small points and breakpoint that users don't pay attention to while signing up there and also submit documents through KYC process but these data stores and then handed over to governments in order to keep track of your activity and on dark web to be utilised in illicit activities and is that fine with people? They are actually taking it on a very funny note that it's the process and you have to go through it without even realising how dangerous it could be for them.

The word privacy don't have any meaning for them because they are not even analysing the risk of taking their funds over these CEX so what else security we can expect from them and big data companies and government are taking advantage of it with their data.

[AicecreaME]

Most people do care about their privacy, but they don't know if they have some privacy if they are doing something on the internet or maybe some really doesn't care at all. Some people are too confident that they are safe as long as they are not doing any shady things in the internet, but that's not the case. All of us are not safe in the internet if we're not aware about possible things that could happen if we are not going to be careful, like randomly clicking links, deep diving in the dark web without proper knowledge and skills to stay anonymous, etc...

Fiat doesn't have any security at all, compare to cryptocurrency, that is why I love to store Bitcoin rather than fiat because it is more convenient and has a lot more value than fiat itself.

[franky1]

due to laws like the bank secrecies act*.
you have no privacy when using currency..

*which is what allows financial services/exchanges to gather information on customers and look for suspicious activity and report it to governments.

due to property laws*
your a slave to a businesses policy

* businesses are the property of the business owner. and the business owner has full rights over what they allow and disallow when it comes to their property. dont enter/use the business if you dont like the terms. but atleast know the terms to know what your getting into

what people need to do is learn these basic stuff that have existed far before we were all born. and instead of crying that its a fight.. instead USE the laws to OUR advantage

disrupt the norm
much like how Uber disrupted the taxi cab regulations

when bitcoin was lobbied to be classified as a currency in 2013-14 that "mainstreaming" promotion was actually the gate opening to allow the SEC in

yep before 2014 exchanges were not money transmitters. they were treated like merchants/auction houses/ retailers selling a good/product/property

we could lobby again to re classify bitcoin back to being a property. where we gain more control over the system and its utility and control.

as for the businesses that have policies that upon deposit the coins become theirs and its at business discretion what they allow users to do inside their service.. or not allow them to do.. set up new businesses that in policy treat customers fairly with easy to read terms which are in aid of the customer not against the customer

[BlackHatCoiner]

The word privacy don't have any meaning for them because they are not even analysing the risk of taking their funds over these CEX so what else security we can expect from them and big data companies and government are taking advantage of it with their data.

I think the reasons they don't care are two:

• They have already submitted KYC to some other financial service.
• They don't know that DEX exist.

But, think about it. If you've already handed over tons of personal documents and information to institutions like Revolut, Paypal, bank(s) etc., then what's so bad with adding another one in the list?

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

Just as earlier said about many people coming into the crypto space without giving a damn about privacy, because to me, this could only be cause as a result of two main factors, that is, ignorance, wrong attitude and not knowing how it feels like living a private crypto life, because to most people, in as much as they are making a decent profit, they forget about the importance of privacy, which is what Bitcoin offers, especially to those who uses decentralized exchanges which required no KYC

[o_e_l_e_o]

But, think about it. If you've already handed over tons of personal documents and information to institutions like Revolut, Paypal, bank(s) etc., then what's so bad with adding another one in the list?

For the exact reason you outlined in your earlier response: Separate identities.

As much as I preach about all things privacy and against ever completing KYC, I also admit I have a bank account. To have a bank account, I've completed KYC with the bank. It is entirely logical, as you point out, to want to keep my banking activities separate from my bitcoin activities, and just because I've completed KYC with a bank does not mean there is zero additional risk to completing KYC with a crypto exchange. On the contrary - go and do a quick web search to see how many major banks have leaked scans of their customers' passports or similar. Not that many. But when it comes to centralized exchange, there is a new leak or hack pretty much every week, if not more.

But even considering if you are already KYCed on one more CEXs - every time you complete KYC on another CEX you take on ever more risk. You expose your documents to more people, have them duplicated on more servers, and give them a bigger attack surface.

[buwaytress]

I hope this isn't unrelated (I almost want to say this could be one reason not to care, if this is a reverse play on the privacy game), but this is something I've been doing for a while. And I'm not sure it helps, I certainly know it makes me feel safer that in a world where I have to identify or verify myself, in some cases, I provide information that actually obscures, rather than exposes me.

e.g. several email identities, several birthdates, usernames, some never important, some location identities, all purposely fed to different browsers, different Google trackers.

And sometimes, it even helps me to see who's tracking what. An ad to my email that came from a VPN I used last week. Spam to my ethereum address that I entered on some list. Phishing taking on the guise of an online service. Even someone wishing me happy birthday on this forum recently (of course it's not the right date, or is it? haha).

Opens my eyes to who tracks me, what they track me for, and perhaps more importantly, multiple reminders of why my privacy is important and what's out there to identify and possibly harm me later.

I do care a lot about my privacy, so even when I'm forced to identify, I do all I can to satisfy the requirement without actually exposing what truly pins me down.

[The Cryptovator]

A few people are aware of privacy in crypto, a few people are forced to breach privacy, and a few people are simply unaware of what privacy in crypto is. We are sometimes forced to breach privacy, such as when using centralized exchange. You may say that you do not use centralized exchange, but there are many factors involved. We do not find all tokens in Dex, and there is a liquidity issue. I am aware that some people strictly protect their privacy. But it's also a matter of experience.

[BITCOIN4X]

Just as earlier said about many people coming into the crypto space without giving a damn about privacy, because to me, this could only be cause as a result of two main factors, that is, ignorance, wrong attitude and not knowing how it feels like living a private crypto life, because to most people, in as much as they are making a decent profit, they forget about the importance of privacy, which is what Bitcoin offers, especially to those who uses decentralized exchanges which required no KYC

Don't ever think that everyone who enters this crypto space is using bitcoin as a means of payment, investing or trading. Actually bitcoin is not the only reason why they are here, and the most popular reason is because they want to make profit by trading and investing in crypto.

Most of them will be offered to trade on centralized and reputable exchanges regardless if they are local or international exchanges. But when they are able to understand something right, then a decentralized exchange is recommended. KYC is unavoidable due to government regulations but I would never think it's the biggest mistake if actually they only do it in one centralized exchange. The worst thing about privacy failure is when users here are willing to give KYC on some failed bounty projects and do a lot of KYC on various other centralized service platforms non reputable.

[Ultegra134]

I honestly don't know how to explain my stand regarding privacy. As PrivacyG already mentioned in their initial post, I agree with all the points regarding our personal privacy stated in the second paragraph. However, for some reason, I'm not too bothered regarding the privacy of my cryptocurrency funds in general. I've never used a Bitcoin mixer and I'm not planning to anytime soon. Anyone can easily see how much BTC I own, and that address can easily be traced back to my BTT account.

On top of that, I've also submitted all necessary information in my Binance account, which holds a relatively decent sum of money. I later realized that this was a mistake, since any money can be easily traced back to me and be subject to questions on its acquisition. On the one hand, I acknowledge that it's probably not the best option, but on the other hand, I'm not bothered to change it. Perhaps I'm way too comfortable with that idea, thinking that nothing unfortunate will happen to me (identity theft, FTX incident, etc.).

[KingsDen]

On top of that, I've also submitted all necessary information in my Binance account, which holds a relatively decent sum of money. I later realized that this was a mistake, since any money can be easily traced back to me and be subject to questions on its acquisition. On the one hand, I acknowledge that it's probably not the best option, but on the other hand, I'm not bothered to change it. Perhaps I'm way too comfortable with that idea, thinking that nothing unfortunate will happen to me (identity theft, FTX incident, etc.).

When I never entered the cryptocurrency industry I never cared about my privacy and identity. I was of the opinion that the people that needed to hide their privacy are criminals so as not to be caught by the law enforcement agents and made to pay for their crime.

But my appearance in this community made me to understand the essence of privacy but before I could get this expensive idea and understanding of privacy, I have already submitted some kind of kyc to some institutions.
Not withstanding, you can start now to preserve your privacy because your data when it stays for sometime in any database without revalidation it becomes invalidated and which could make your identity to return affresh

[PrivacyG]

e.g. several email identities, several birthdates, usernames, some never important, some location identities, all purposely fed to different browsers, different Google trackers.

I have also started doing this, but I am still having a tough time getting rid entirely of my old e-mail account.  Everything I had was on it back then, and getting rid of it all is difficult since some people or companies still e-mail me there and there are some accounts I simply can not get rid of.

It does do a great job at telling you who is messing up with your data.  It is frustrating to find out, but you at least know whose services not to pay for anymore.  There is a GIANT drawback to this.  You get to generate so much different information you start losing the trace of it all.  I have a lot of semi important information I just forgot about because I make a new e-mail account for every new account I make, generate a new password every time I am asked to choose a password et cetera.  And I sometimes do not have the time or simply forget to write it down.

In fact, I just realized a few days ago that I never wrote down my Bitcoin Talk login link anywhere, which scared the freak out of me simply because I hate Google from the bottom of my heart.  It happened to me before that I formatted disks I later realized had extremely important information on.  I could of swore they were empty before the formatting however.  I threw away at least a hundred post-it notes containing logins for accounts I could not remember about.

Would still recommend doing this though, even with this drawback.  It is worth it in the long run.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[BlackHatCoiner]

For the exact reason you outlined in your earlier response: Separate identities.

Correct. But, I presume that whoever has a bank account takes it for granted that holds no privacy in his electronic transactions (such as for exchanging at Bisq), right as well as he won't bother to care about identity hacks. Majority of people use Facebook and Google as intermediaries to exchange stuff such as selfies, passports, drivers licenses etc., which are enough for someone to impersonate you. Although, I do agree that centralized exchanges fail to keep their shit secure more frequently than these few companies.

I have a lot of semi important information I just forgot about because I make a new e-mail account for every new account I make, generate a new password every time I am asked to choose a password et cetera.  And I sometimes do not have the time or simply forget to write it down.

Use an encrypted directory to save things like account credentials, and obviously password generators for the most part.

[lovesmayfamilis]

e.g. several email identities, several birthdates, usernames, some never important, some location identities, all purposely fed to different browsers, different Google trackers.

With so many browsers, emails, and everything else, it's desirable to provide different devices. Mac addresses and other computer hardware, as well as browser fingerprints, give away a lot of information about the owner of the hardware and are very difficult to change. For tracking services, having different browsers on the same computer does nothing. Anti-fraud system sees you as one person, not different people.

On top of that, I've also submitted all necessary information in my Binance account, which holds a relatively decent sum of money. I later realized that this was a mistake, since any money can be easily traced back to me and be subject to questions on its acquisition. On the one hand, I acknowledge that it's probably not the best option, but on the other hand, I'm not bothered to change it. Perhaps I'm way too comfortable with that idea, thinking that nothing unfortunate will happen to me (identity theft, FTX incident, etc.).

I agree with you here. If you once left information about yourself, you are already on the list. If tomorrow you decide to start behaving "correctly", the Internet still remembers everything about you. We enter the Internet with wide eyes, and with great naivety tell the world about ourselves. And growing up, changing views, there is a big problem with the destruction of information about yourself. Everything that we posted on the network is recorded and practically never deleted.

[aysg76]

As much as I preach about all things privacy and against ever completing KYC, I also admit I have a bank account. To have a bank account, I've completed KYC with the bank. It is entirely logical, as you point out, to want to keep my banking activities separate from my bitcoin activities, and just because I've completed KYC with a bank does not mean there is zero additional risk to completing KYC with a crypto exchange. On the contrary - go and do a quick web search to see how many major banks have leaked scans of their customers' passports or similar. Not that many. But when it comes to centralized exchange, there is a new leak or hack pretty much every week, if not more.

But the thing is we need to have bank account to operate in the day to day activities for processing payments for different purposes and use of digital payment as well as cards for which we need to submit to documents with the banks.But if we speak about CEX then we have different options to store our coins with our custody so why choose these exchanges who are more prone to hack and data leak.

The banking institutions can sell your data but comparatively they will not be intentionally doing so like in the case of these exchanges who are into selling your data to third parties and even on dark web and still can restrict you of funds usage from your account.

I have checked about the bank and financial sector breaches then mostly the cyber attacks are from users side and insiders who sell data or customer fill out their details on some fake website from which the hackers usually take the dump data for your personal information.But if we say that we can submit KYC over exchange then we are not having any separate indentity and all your footsteps are traceable so avoid doing this because you can have your privacy and should focus on there.

[DaveF]

I have brought up a similar question and at times it's not that you don't care about privacy, it's that you can't un-ring a bell.
How many people got into BTC / crypto and then figured out that they have now leaked out a lot of personal info.
Yes you might be able to start new accounts and move funds to them in untraceable ways and so on.

But, the 1st time you mess up and NewDaveF is found out to be DaveF you are back where you started.

You never know what leaked where, and how it can be traced.

-Dave

[PrivacyG]

But, the 1st time you mess up and NewDaveF is found out to be DaveF you are back where you started.

Are you though?  Because if you care about your privacy, you will dispose of almost anything you do after your action is complete.  As a result, you will only link the 995'th DaveF to the original DaveF by mistake.  All the other 994 DaveF's are still unknown.

If every time there is a new name, a new address, a new e-mail, a new password et cetera then you can not go back straight to where you started from.  And if your new Bitcoin address got linked to your old address by accident, just as you say there are ways to break again the link right there.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Welsh]

The banking institutions can sell your data but comparatively they will not be intentionally doing so like in the case of these exchanges who are into selling your data to third parties and even on dark web and still can restrict you of funds usage from your account.

How do you know that? There's been plenty of incidents where data has been sold or misused from other companies, so why wouldn't banks do it? I personally don't trust any website or service with my data. Unfortunately, to remain legal you have to give your data to certain parties, which I'm not against, since I understand the need too. Although, banks you don't need too. You don't need to use banks, and you certainly shouldn't trust them with your data.

We're are talking about a business that actively uses YOUR money to take risks, and reward you with 0.000001% interest per year. I think it's quite common knowledge now that banks reinvest your money in an attempt to earn more money, hence the reason they offer interest rates. They don't offer interest rates if they wasn't doing that, since your money sitting there isn't appreciating in value it's deteriorating at a record breaking rate the longer it's stored there.

Remember, banks had to be bailed out not so long ago, basically because they made horrible business decisions, and quite frankly follow the industry standard of shady business practices. Selling your data or using your data for reasons that you haven't given them permission to do so, definitely isn't out of their scope.

Unfortunately, most of us are forced to use banks, and therefore give up a certain amount of data, since they're usually required to get paid by most jobs.

[Ultegra134]

I agree with you here. If you once left information about yourself, you are already on the list. If tomorrow you decide to start behaving "correctly", the Internet still remembers everything about you. We enter the Internet with wide eyes, and with great naivety tell the world about ourselves. And growing up, changing views, there is a big problem with the destruction of information about yourself. Everything that we posted on the network is recorded and practically never deleted.

On the one hand, it's somewhat how I see things—exchanges already have my information, and even if I withdraw all my funds from there, they already know that at some point, I had the X amount of money deposited. Fortunately, I haven't deposited my bitcoin on any exchange and it is still considered somewhat private. On the other hand, however, I believe that it's never too late to spice up your privacy. Although, as you've already mentioned, nothing is deleted from the internet.

When I never entered the cryptocurrency industry I never cared about my privacy and identity. I was of the opinion that the people that needed to hide their privacy are criminals so as not to be caught by the law enforcement agents and made to pay for their crime.

That was also my number one excuse, I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care? Boy, was I wrong.

[franky1]

im calling B.S on privacyG laughable attempt to pretend that he is private and uses disposable ID every time he uses a CEX or even a DEX

firstly when using a CEX that asks for KYC they dont ask for just a scummy name and disposable email.
they ask for name location and.. get this. photo ID a recent picture of self holding the ID and an email that they send a verification too

take coinbase. when you first set up. you are kind of in limbo for 14 days you can exchange bot not withdraw

what privacy is really peed off with is not that his life is easy because. well if it was easy then this topic would not exist..  he does what he said today.. but that life is not easy to do as he pretends to do  today.

he is peed off that exchanges both CEX and DEX are not as he dreams and protests as the way his life works. and he in many months, along with people near him, have been trying to push the blame onto bitcoin network, rather then the businesses.

in like 2014 many people learned the hard way what DEX is soon to learn
its the example of localbitcoins.com

al those independant exchanges using independant bids and asks to transfer p2p..

their banks soon start asking questions about the wire transfers
why is this person that paid you asking for a refund(chargeback scam)
why on a personal account are you getting and giving so many wire transfers to/from so many unrelated people
why you are you getting random incomes amounting to over $XXk not from a company/employer but so many different people

what then happens is they need to register for a business account set themselves up as a money transmitter and start KYC their customers
not just for regulation. but to prove to a bank that the customer legitimately bought something because they had all correct ID to prove they are the buyer using the buyers account. thus to deter chargeback scammers

DEX is only not noticing this because most personal account users are only doing silly small amounts of trade. not $1.5k+ week for over a year to hit certain banking thresholds

DEX has not hit the headache that localbitcoin users did.. due to lack of popularity/use
as soon as users are doing multiple wires that total ~$£75k a year banks start to notice things on personal accounts.. sometimes alot sooner depending on bank terms of use of wire transfers

[SeeBiscuit]

"Secret secrets are no fun, secret secrets can hurt someone".

^they gotta stop teaching this bullshit. And no, I don't mean lie to your significant other, business partner, or friends.

Instead, we need to teach our youth proper passphrase hygiene. We need to teach our youth that they live in a world where a single method of security does not cut it. There are ways to beat security, and ways to prevent hacks, and those two worlds are constantly colliding. That's why the fundamental concept of communicating amongst adversaries is so beautiful.

The word adversary is not negative in connotation like most people thing when it comes to privacy. They are just group "C" that lies in the midst of "A" and "B" communication. Group "C" isn't anyone in particular, but all of the possible adversaries out there.

Like I said before, there are people out there in which their sole purpose lies within the harm, suffering, and trolling of innocent people. It is what it is. Sort of like in an open-pvp game that has no function to disable pvp, or has no safe zone. What happens in those games, in those environments? You get players at the top of the ladder who go out there just to kill. Because they can!

There's discussion alot about games that are like this, and some like Runescape and WoW have communities that have various takes on how they regulate pvp.

The difference between games and life, is that the pvp is never turned off. It's on forever, even if there are people in the media, government, your family, your professors, and your friends that try and convince you otherwise. The worst part is you never really know who the Group "C" is, even when you think you do.

[DaveF]

But, the 1st time you mess up and NewDaveF is found out to be DaveF you are back where you started.

Are you though?  Because if you care about your privacy, you will dispose of almost anything you do after your action is complete.  As a result, you will only link the 995'th DaveF to the original DaveF by mistake.  All the other 994 DaveF's are still unknown.

If every time there is a new name, a new address, a new e-mail, a new password et cetera then you can not go back straight to where you started from.  And if your new Bitcoin address got linked to your old address by accident, just as you say there are ways to break again the link right there.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

I'm not saying that it really can't be done. But, IMO since I am so far down that road already it's going to be a lot more difficult then had it been done from the beginning.

Off the top of my head, I have met F2F at least 6 people on this board and had dealings with a lot more. So if DaveF disappears and someone else from this area starts occasionally buying and selling collectables and hardware sooner or later someone may figure it out.

I drop off all the exchanges and move all my existing coins through enough hops and places tat they could never be traced back to me.
And so on.

It's not that I don't care, just that past a certain point, at least for me, it's going to be a major battle.
Do I give up the 10% cash back on gas with my Gemini card? And a dozen other things.

So I'm not saying it can't be. But, since you asked shy don't I care, it's not that I don't it's just that since I am so far down the road the time and cost and effort for me now is just going to be greater then the benefits. For now. If I retire and wind up with more free time that may change.  

-Dave

[o_e_l_e_o]

I have a lot of semi important information I just forgot about because I make a new e-mail account for every new account I make, generate a new password every time I am asked to choose a password et cetera.  And I sometimes do not have the time or simply forget to write it down.

Then use a good password manager such as KeePass. Every new account goes in there automatically, meaning you never lose track.

Unfortunately, most of us are forced to use banks, and therefore give up a certain amount of data, since they're usually required to get paid by most jobs.

This is something I accept. As much as I hate banks, I couldn't get paid for my job without one. I know I have zero privacy with my bank, I know I can be censored, and I know my funds can be frozen against my will. These are all significant drawbacks, but drawbacks I must accept to be able to by paid for my job. However, the whole point I got involved in bitcoin was that it does not possess these drawbacks. The whole point I got involved in bitcoin was to regain some financial privacy, to hold my own coins, to be censorship resistant, to be free of third parties, to be free of arbitrary seizures, and so on. Why would I get involved in bitcoin for all these reasons, and then immediately give them all up and go back to a fiat model by using a centralized exchange?

[DaveF]

Unfortunately, most of us are forced to use banks, and therefore give up a certain amount of data, since they're usually required to get paid by most jobs.

This is something I accept. As much as I hate banks, I couldn't get paid for my job without one. I know I have zero privacy with my bank, I know I can be censored, and I know my funds can be frozen against my will. These are all significant drawbacks, but drawbacks I must accept to be able to by paid for my job. However, the whole point I got involved in bitcoin was that it does not possess these drawbacks. The whole point I got involved in bitcoin was to regain some financial privacy, to hold my own coins, to be censorship resistant, to be free of third parties, to be free of arbitrary seizures, and so on. Why would I get involved in bitcoin for all these reasons, and then immediately give them all up and go back to a fiat model by using a centralized exchange?

That does bring up an interesting point. At least here in the US there are a lot of 'unbanked' people, usually not by choice. It just costs them more to exist so to speak. There are check cashing places that do exist that will give you cash for your paycheck, but they charge a hefty fee. Local banks will cash checks written by their customers, but if you work for a large company your payroll check might be written from a corporate bank on the other side of the country.

Some places give you a payroll debit card, but that brings in another set of issues.

Would you take 10% off the top of your pay to not have to use a bank?

-Dave

[o_e_l_e_o]

Would you take 10% off the top of your pay to not have to use a bank?

Hmm. Probably not at the end of the day, for the reasons you discussed above - I already have sacrificed my privacy to be part of the fiat banking system, and trying to disentangle myself from it now would be exceedingly complicated and does not allow me to fully reclaim that privacy. All the solutions which avoid having a bank account that you mentioned still carry exposure to all the same risks - third parties, non-ownership, censorship, etc. - and indeed make these risks that much more significant. And of course I can still move my fiat in to bitcoin any time I like in a private way using peer-to-peer trading.

If I had an option to avoid fiat altogether and to be paid directly in bitcoin, I would take that.

[Haunebu]

Personally, privacy matters a lot to me which is why I absolutely detest KYC and provide it only when absolutely necessary. The truth is that most people around the world don't mind giving up their privacy to reliable, central authorities.

Why? Because their mindset was tweaked to trust such authorities since they were born through education etc. Basically, they were brainwashed smartly.

The silver lining here is that more and more people are questioning this very issue as time passes.

[LoyceV]

As much as I hate banks, I couldn't get paid for my job without one.

Would you take 10% off the top of your pay to not have to use a bank?

If I had an option to avoid fiat altogether and to be paid directly in bitcoin, I would take that.

What happened to cash? Here, since 2015, only the amount above the minimum wage can be paid in cash. But I don't know of any company that (still) does this, and I think that's quite bad. Abandoning cash in favour of banks gives more power to banks, which allows them to further increase fees. None of that is in our interest.

[o_e_l_e_o]

to reliable, central authorities.

I was not aware that such a thing existed.

The silver lining here is that more and more people are questioning this very issue as time passes.

True, but you have to do more and more just to stay at the same baseline. Someone who questions this issue now and goes to great lengths to reclaim some of their privacy probably still has more data gathered on them than the least privacy conscious individual 30 or even 20 years ago.

What happened to cash?

Employers stopped offering it, and most employees didn't care or even welcomed the move. I'd probably have as much change of being paid in cash as I would of being paid in bitcoin.

[abel1337]

I have the same case above. If my company has an option to pay me on cash I would grab that but my current stable job is only paying using a specific bank. I also do care about my identity and if it is not necessary, I wouldn't submit KYC to any banks out there. Another one is the convenience of services like exchange. I'm KYC'ed in Binance and yeah there's a risk in it but I can't resist the convenience of using since most of the things I do in the space is available there. It's hard to balance the convenience and privacy of platforms since I'm a busy person, I need an all in one application that suits my needs.

[PrivacyG]

im calling B.S on privacyG laughable attempt to pretend that he is private and uses disposable ID every time he uses a CEX or even a DEX

Quote the part of my post where I said I use a disposable ID every time I use a CEX.  First off, I am not using any CEX as of now.  Any of my old Exchange accounts have been closed, any account that is still open and can not be closed has been left behind for probably years now.

firstly when using a CEX that asks for KYC they dont ask for just a scummy name and disposable email.

Never have I ever completed KYC anywhere Cryptocurrency related.  I actually think I have never completed KYC anywhere on the Internet.

along with people near him, have been trying to push the blame onto bitcoin network, rather then the businesses.

Quote me where I blame Bitcoin.

al those independant exchanges using independant bids and asks to transfer p2p..
their banks soon start asking questions about the wire transfers

I have never received or sent money to or from my bank account for anything Cryptocurrency related.

im calling B.S on privacyG laughable attempt to pretend that he is private and uses disposable ID every time he uses a CEX or even a DEX

Rather a laughable attempt on your side to prove something out of pure speculation.  I never said I ever had perfect privacy.  I consider I still do not.  There are probably still a lot of mistakes I make.

I never said I have never had or do not have accounts on centralized services that never respect privacy of their users.  But I am trying my best to avoid them every time I can.

-----

It's not that I don't care, just that past a certain point, at least for me, it's going to be a major battle.
Do I give up the 10% cash back on gas with my Gemini card? And a dozen other things.

So I'm not saying it can't be. But, since you asked shy don't I care, it's not that I don't it's just that since I am so far down the road the time and cost and effort for me now is just going to be greater then the benefits. For now. If I retire and wind up with more free time that may change.  

Fair enough.  Really appreciate giving out an explanation.  I will write down my thoughts on the Gemini cash back part.  If you are willing to use a Credit Card, then your information is out there anyway whether it is Gemini or any other issuer.  They know everything anyway, so I would take that 10% as well.

What I disagree with is signing up for a grocery store loyalty card.  In that situation, I believe no.  It is not worth it.  The cash back is not worth the information you give away.

Would you take 10% off the top of your pay to not have to use a bank?

It is known already that you have a job, it is known already that you earn a specific amount of money.  By having that money go through a Bank account, it is a matter of Do you care that much if one more party knows about your dealings?

I would not take the 10% off the top of my pay check, but I would only use my Bank account for that payment.  Withdraw the full amount once the payment is there.  For most of us, accepting a 10% cut just for the sake of not having a bank account is luxury.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Party24*7]

Think a little more simply, people come here for profit or to stay anonymous. If anonymity is not profitable and anonymity can't feed you, do you need anonymity anymore? Anonymity is necessary, that is important, but profit comes first, like the subject of money, wthout money you will not be able to do anything in this life or you will not be respected by anyone. You don't have money people also want you to disappear from their eyes, you don't have to be anonymous. Anonymity should only be for those who already have a lot of money and are afraid of being robbed by others, but for those struggling to make a living, it doesn't really matter.

[Tazzy4050]

Well we make it by using the very technology that affects our privacy. But, we like that technology and we like the benefits we get from it, especially if it means having our privacy diminished. And that’s what bothers me. You can’t cry your eyes out about being targeted online while enjoying that voucher for the seaside hotel you’ve been eyeing on or getting to work faster. That’s not how this works. People don’t realize the Internet is one giant marketplace where you make transactions: your information for everything else. We live extremely convenient and effective lives thanks to this new age of technology where we, the users, are crowdsourcing the information. Here’s the kicker: EVERYBODY wants to be part of that. I guarantee you that if the massive convenience factor was suddenly left out of the equation, there would be a far more louder outcry than there ever was for privacy or the perceived lack of it. People are hypocrites. Every day we do countless actions that are virtually open invitations into our life, yet when we realize there’s someone in on this on the other end, suddenly there’s panic. Suddenly there’s the all too familiar rhetoric “they can’t do that” because we didn’t allow them to use that information. But we did. We let them willingly. It’s a trade-off where we transact our information for all the good stuff we get in return. There are two options: continue using the technology the way you’ve been using it and stop bitching about privacy or stop being a part of the system. It’s that simple - nobody is forcing anybody. It’s very hypocritical to be a small part of this hugely efficient system, to feed off it and then whine about how it’s unfair that your information is being used. I hate that and it doesn’t make sense.

[franky1]

im calling B.S on privacyG laughable attempt to pretend that he is private and uses disposable ID every time he uses a CEX or even a DEX

Quote the part of my post where I said I use a disposable ID every time I use a CEX.  

so its a case of "do as i say" not a "do as i do" case.. ok got it

firstly when using a CEX that asks for KYC they dont ask for just a scummy name and disposable email.

Never have I ever completed KYC anywhere Cryptocurrency related.  I actually think I have never completed KYC anywhere on the Internet.

so you never bought anything with bitcoin or fiat online requiring some kind of info ever. ok got it.
sucks to be you. you could get great deals on things both in bitcoin retail and fiat retail online.

in my case i USE bitcoin. i buy things. you know things that need delivery to me.

along with people near him, have been trying to push the blame onto bitcoin network, rather then the businesses.

Quote me where I blame Bitcoin.

in every subtle questioning of "bitcoiners dont care about privacy" you imply bitcoin doesnt have any.

you need to separate "bitcoiners"(network currency users) from "crypto service users" there is a major difference. by just implying bitcoiners cant be private if they are not doing XYZ. you imply bitcoin has no privacy. when infact its the crypto businesses and services that are the information gatherers of personal datapoints. not bitcoin

the reason i am directing certain subject lines at you is because i see you in many topics toe a party line of a certain group that want to break bitcoins consensus and accounting ledger protocol, to make bitcoin a more privacy enhanced tool.
which i feel this topic was trying to be a subtle introduction to. with its subtle implications on "bitcoiners" rather then "crypto service users"

[PrivacyG]

so its a case of "do as i say" not a "do as i do" case.. ok got it

Can we be realistic for one quick moment?  If you create a new account for a Centralized Exchange every time you trade, you will either get banned or have your funds stolen (frozen) as soon as you create the second or the third account.  Because no way in hell will any Exchange not put a red flag over your IP.

I challenge you to do this on Coinbase.  Leave some funds on your main account if you have one, and then start creating 49 more accounts.  See how quickly you can donate some money to Coinbase!  There are some things you can simply not dispose of.  One of them is Centralized Exchange accounts.

But I am going to pretend you did not ignore the part of my post where I said I am not using any Centralized Exchange.  I am also going to pretend you did not intentionally skip words out of my replies, this time to Dave, in order to take things out of context.

'Because if you care about your privacy, you will dispose of ALMOST anything you do after your action is complete.' source

so you never bought anything with bitcoin or fiat online requiring some kind of info ever. ok got it.
sucks to be you. you could get great deals on things both in bitcoin retail and fiat retail online.

in my case i USE bitcoin. i buy things. you know things that need delivery to me.

I am not from the United States where KYC is requested for almost any action.  There are parts of the world where you can do stuff without having to upload your ID, they do not care if you order on your real name, on your real address, on your real e-mail address, where you can get free SIM cards from mobile phone operators you can then dispose of.

Would appreciate if you stopped assuming things.

in every subtle questioning of "bitcoiners dont care about privacy" you imply bitcoin doesnt have any.

The average Bitcoiner does not care about their privacy.  Exchange hacks and bankruptcies would not be such a spearhead to the market if there were not so many Bitcoiners who had their funds stored over there instead of Bitcoin Core or a Cold Wallet.  They do not use Bitcoin Core, they rather use Electrum.  They complete KYC for Altcoin bounties that end up being scams.  They use no Coin Control, they just do not seem to care.

Nowhere did I say Bitcoin has no privacy, nowhere did I blame Bitcoin for anything.  If that was the case, unlike SnowShow I would have spent my time doing something else right now.  You can have excellent privacy, if you care.

the reason i am directing certain subject lines at you

Yes, I did notice you are taking things I said out of context.

i see you in many topics toe a party line of a certain group that want to break bitcoins consensus and accounting ledger protocol, to make bitcoin a more privacy enhanced tool.
which i feel this topic was trying to be a subtle introduction to. with its subtle implications on "bitcoiners" rather then "crypto service users"

You just caught me red handed.  Got me.  Truth is, I am the beginning of a cult whose ultimate purpose is destroying Bitcoin.

We agree to disagree.  I find it funny how you are somehow spinning this into some weird conspiracy.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[uneng]

But I am very conscious there are a lot of you out here who simply do not give a damn.  Which begs the question for me, why is it that you do not give a single damn about your own privacy when using Bitcoin?  Why not protect yourself in front of all sorts of attacks if you have the chance to do so?

I think if I were a wealthy investor I would be more concerned regards this matter, but since I'm not, I see no reason to care so much for privacy. Moreover, I invest bitcoin for extra interest, because I need the income to pay for basic needs, so I have to sacrifice my privacy, otherwise I would have to sacrifice my holdings.

Also.  What do you think about us, who try their hardest to 'hide'?  Do you think we are suspicious or are you perfectly fine with our way of living?  Do you think the number of criminals is larger where there are more privacy enthusiasts?

Honestly, I think it's a hobby of yours or it's like you are playing a character from a spy action movie for real, so you can feel the adrenaline and excitment as if you were being watched.

I don't think it's suspicious, it's just that you are giving it more importance than it deserves for average citizens, but as you said it's a way of living. Most people aren't worried if someone knows how much they earn or have on their accounts.

And the number of criminals per area isn't related to privacy concern. Actually, there are also criminals who don't give any importance to privacy. They love ostentation!

[BlackHatCoiner]

I don't think it's suspicious, it's just that you are giving it more importance than it deserves for average citizens, but as you said it's a way of living.

That's a sincere response, I ought to say. But here's a question: what makes average citizens... average? Average according to their income and lifestyle I suppose.

It is commonly referred that they don't need privacy (or Internet privacy in this matter, since no privacy at all is rare phenomenon even nowadays), because they don't have something to hide there. But, I'm afraid this is just a reason. They don't have something to hide, because they are average. The cause is not they don't have something to hide; instead, it's the feeling that they don't have something to hide. Them being acknowledged as average, insignificant, weak human beings is what narrows their mind down.

You shouldn't want privacy because you have something to hide, in and of itself. You should want privacy, because you recognize yourself as a strong, dignified, autonomous, personal-growth thriving entity.

[PrivacyG]

I think if I were a wealthy investor I would be more concerned regards this matter, but since I'm not, I see no reason to care so much for privacy.

Since you are here, I presume you already know Bitcoin typically brings significant profit during bull runs and have this hope that one day your investment will be a success.  You also seem to be conscious that once you become wealthy privacy will be a concern.

But if you do not care now while hoping for success, are you not afraid of the possible repercussions if you become wealthy?  Like people linking your real identity to old addresses and information you currently put out there on the Internet?

Let me put out an example.  If you do not practice Coin Control and do not have a healthy behavior of address management overall.  And you mix up coins you earn and move through Bitcoin Talk with addresses used for other accounts such as Exchanges.  Should you ever become a millionaire, it becomes just so easy for me or anyone else to track uneng's Bitcoin Talk address to millions of dollars.  You can then start taking care of it all and trying to break links, but no matter what you do, uneng will be tied to a huge potential bag of wealth and that is a link you can not break.

It is commonly referred that they don't need privacy (or Internet privacy in this matter, since no privacy at all is rare phenomenon even nowadays), because they don't have something to hide there. But, I'm afraid this is just a reason. They don't have something to hide, because they are average. The cause is not they don't have something to hide; instead, it's the feeling that they don't have something to hide. Them being acknowledged as average, insignificant, weak human beings is what narrows their mind down.

You shouldn't want privacy because you have something to hide, in and of itself. You should want privacy, because you recognize yourself as a strong, dignified, autonomous, personal-growth thriving entity.

You put it in such a fascinating way.  The possible tie between the need of privacy and human strength and power.  Very curious and very interestingly said.  Is it possible that some of us give up the idea of having privacy because we are already 'all in' in the hands of those at the top of the pyramid?  Because we already gave away so much that our brain considers there is nothing left they can take anyway?

-----

I want to personally thank every one who gave their sincere explanation.  I find this topic and trying to understand the opposite extreme very fascinating, as I feel like I am sitting at the exact opposite end caring maybe too much in some situations.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[darkangel11]

I don't think it's suspicious, it's just that you are giving it more importance than it deserves for average citizens, but as you said it's a way of living.

That's a sincere response, I ought to say. But here's a question: what makes average citizens... average? Average according to their income and lifestyle I suppose.

It is commonly referred that they don't need privacy (or Internet privacy in this matter, since no privacy at all is rare phenomenon even nowadays), because they don't have something to hide there. But, I'm afraid this is just a reason. They don't have something to hide, because they are average. The cause is not they don't have something to hide; instead, it's the feeling that they don't have something to hide. Them being acknowledged as average, insignificant, weak human beings is what narrows their mind down.

You shouldn't want privacy because you have something to hide, in and of itself. You should want privacy, because you recognize yourself as a strong, dignified, autonomous, personal-growth thriving entity.

Average = sheep in the way the rulers of this world see us.

It's enough that we're being fucked from left and right all the time, we have to be average on top of it all. On one hand it's unlawful scammers and thieves, on the other lawful ones like the government. You earn some money in your life, half of it is taken by the government, then you get to be scammed at least once in your life and what's left is yours to enjoy you slave. And then we get this little thing that's our privacy that we get to keep and people choose to give it away, to sell their bitcoins or to donate it to scammers like Sam the Scamman Fraudster and go back to living our mediocre lives.

[franky1]

so its a case of "do as i say" not a "do as i do" case.. ok got it

Can we be realistic for one quick moment?  If you create a new account for a Centralized Exchange every time you trade, you will either get banned or have your funds stolen (frozen) as soon as you create the second or the third account.  Because no way in hell will any Exchange not put a red flag over your IP.

I challenge you to do this on Coinbase.

i was not the one telling people to use different ID's for each daily action/event with a service.
it was you that was telling people to do it. and i was the one telling you the pitfalls in your idea.. which is why i said "i call BS" because if you were to be doing it. you would have found the pitfalls and realised its not an idea worth promoting as it doesnt work

its actually you that should challenge yourself to do the things you say before you suggest it to others.. just test out your theories before implying its a working idea, implying that it has proven itself effective.

by testing your theory so you can see the result of the actions you are asking others to do..you then realise the pitfalls of your idea's..

but it seems however, you quickly realised your mistake.  you have now realised your request of others to destroy an identity per action would actually get an exchange to notice their attempts of service abuse more and cause the service to flag people MORE and link their accounts. and put them on a watch list

so you have learned .. good. your idea does not work with CEX services
you are willing to learn and correct yourself +1point

But I am going to pretend you did not ignore the part of my post where I said I am not using any Centralized Exchange.  I am also going to pretend you did not intentionally skip words out of my replies, this time to Dave, in order to take things out of context.

'Because if you care about your privacy, you will dispose of ALMOST anything you do after your action is complete.'

much like those advertising using a mixer pre custodian. such actions of mixers and using isposible ID's are not privacy concerving. but instead red flag triggering to get you noticed more out of the noise of millions of normal users

did you know that exchanges dont actively have employees watching their customers trades 24/7.
you are not being "watched"
yes they keep data logs. but as long as there are no red flags that data just stays logged and is not seen by a human eye or reported.

however using false ID or mixers are red flags that do start investigations..

much like wanting to not be seen when walking down the street your advising others to run around and do extra work and do things that look out of the ordinary like sneak behind bushes, shimmy under parked cars.. yet those activities actually catch peoples eye more and they start looking at you wondering what you are upto.

.. sometimes in life.. less is more. the less attention to attract to yourself the more you get to hide in the noise of normal activity which no one listens to because they are prefering to concentrate on other more important things.

in every subtle questioning of "bitcoiners dont care about privacy" you imply bitcoin doesnt have any.

The average Bitcoiner does not care about their privacy.  Exchange hacks and bankruptcies would not be such a spearhead to the market if there were not so many Bitcoiners who had their funds stored over there instead of Bitcoin Core or a Cold Wallet.  They do not use Bitcoin Core, they rather use Electrum.  They complete KYC for Altcoin bounties that end up being scams.  They use no Coin Control, they just do not seem to care.

maybe write cryptocurrecny users that use services.. just to be clear.

rather then specifying a certain group.
oh and more coin is stored in exchanges over on the ethereum network than the bitcoin network. just saying

but you are calling out "bitcoiners"

oh and last time i checked of all exchanges combined only 16% of coins were ever custodianised at its peak. and since the fiasco of some exchanges that is down to ~13% as of today.. so its not a majority of bitcoiners that are using exchanges as custodians. should you dare check

again. go check ethereums exchange market reserves.. and separate exchange custodian staking hoard

you will see a higher percentage of ethfairy's(people of ethereum) dont care much about their privacy because more of them use custodians

by you implying that because bitcoinser dont employ tactics of XYZ there is a privacy issue for bitcoiners.

again clarify that its SERVICE USERS you are addressing rather than brushing majority of bitcoiners into your minority category
......
oh one last thing

i have a stash of many bitcoins gathered since 2012. probably alot more coins than you have..
i dont use mixers or coinjoins. but i do spend with bitcoin merchants..

i dont use disposable IDs per action..

soo.. find my stash.
heck ill even give you 5 hints
a. funds are in addresses only used 2012-2022
b. funds were added over those years but mainly 2012-2014
c. the hoard:spend ratio is   20:1
d. i dont have that many address
e. no its not the 1frank vanity. as that was just a joke address for 'penny grabby' play money amounts i never intend to spend

also find my birth certified name

.. goodluck

but mainly .. atleast try to not imply things.. and instead use the term "cryptocurrency users of services" rather then targetting "bitcoiners"
there is a HUGE diference

[o_e_l_e_o]

Most people aren't worried if someone knows how much they earn or have on their accounts.

No? You aren't worried about your insurance companies looking at your incoming and thinking "Well, we can jack his prices a bit, he can afford it." You aren't worried about your boss seeing that you donated to a specific political party or candidate, and deciding to let you go because of it? You aren't even worried if the dodgy characters in your neighborhood know that you are secretly quite wealthy? Nobody ever posts their bank statements on social media. Why would you be fine with your bank statements being shared among data brokers?

soo.. find my stash.

A false equivalence. Asking a random internet user, who probably at most has access to some posts you made on here and a blockchain explorer, is not the same as the global surveillance committed by nation states who have access to all that, to the best blockchain analysis companies and software, to IP addresses, browser fingerprints, and other information gathered and sold by your OS, browser, installed software, and so on, information from your ISP, etc., etc.

If you asked a random person on the street to break in to your laptop, they would struggle. If you asked the FBI to do it, they would likely have no problem.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Is it possible that some of us give up the idea of having privacy because we are already 'all in' in the hands of those at the top of the pyramid?  Because we already gave away so much that our brain considers there is nothing left they can take anyway?

Maybe.

Or maybe having your privacy infringed is a new trend. We're surrounded by "social media influencers" who go on to the extremes, to gain recognition. Extremely sculpted men. Extremely hot women. Extremely fascinating holidays. Extremely cute pappies. Extremely good food. Extreme tendency to show one's wealth. And that sells, because... apparently extremeness sells. Now think that if a person is constantly brainwashed with this extremeness, he's likely to strive for it too, because that's what he thinks is normal. The result is masses of people who try out to look good, irrespective of them being special or not; in exchange of course of their privacy. The genius thing behind Instagram, TikTok, Facebook etc., is the fact that it encourages you to screw your privacy up. It is to make those who demand it weirdos.

After all, a more effective approach to encroach on someone's freedom, is to have them voluntarily hand it over to you.

A false equivalence.

Even that way, I'm sure you can find part of his stash. He's reusing Bitcoin addresses. From a quick search: 1FrankZ7t5Wbf5uTMxMtCiQy9eKDsj1fUn. Now I know that franky has received a total of 9.39 BTC, and has kept 0.014, from 38 transactions, 20 of which came from a mining pool. Happy hashes franky. If I wasted a few more minutes, I could find out which pool was that, and according to the difficulty, how much part of the hash rate does franky own.

[franky1]

A false equivalence.

Even that way, I'm sure you can find part of his stash. He's reusing Bitcoin addresses. From a quick search: 1FrankZ7t5Wbf5uTMxMtCiQy9eKDsj1fUn. Now I know that franky has received a total of 9.39 BTC, and has kept 0.014, from 38 transactions, 20 of which came from a mining pool. Happy hashes franky. If I wasted a few more minutes, I could find out which pool was that, and according to the difficulty, how much part of the hash rate does franky own.

il give you a hint. mining in 2012 = gpu mining.. not rocket science.. you dont even need a calculator or to investigate that

i was saving you time by highlighting:
dont be lame and lazy wasting time on the franky public pseudonym/play money.. thats easy.. instead find the stash and name of the human behind the pseudonym typing the posts

and another hint. read my part (e) of my last post
hint being my(human at keyboard) stash was separate wallet to the 1franky(just a nickname) wallet
the 1franky play money went into btc-e and i traded that then another exchange then another.
it was my "dont give a crap" play money address
the associations i did not give a crap about nor the amount. both were insignificant.

last time i used 1franky address was the forum anti-hero competition reward because i did not give a crap for those coins and didnt want them associated with my(human) stash because they were coming from things like chipmixer. which is a no-no for exchanges.. so i threw that reward in an address that proves they paid out to the competition winner (pseudonym) but where i dont care to use them

i dont even think i kept the key for that addresses privkey either in last 4 years, nor do i care to find it. those coins are dead to me. much like my pseudonym doesnt have a heart

the whole reason i said find my(human) stash and birth certified name. is because if people think that not using mixers means their stashes and real life info can be found.. try it.

do you get it now angelo

[o_e_l_e_o]

the whole reason i said find my(human) stash and birth certified name. is because if people think that not using mixers means their stashes and real life info can be found.. try it.

The same false equivalence as above. Just because I personally have no desire to spend my time with the limited tools and information available to me to try to locate your stash, does not mean that a nation state which spends hundreds of millions of dollars on surveilling the blockchain and gathering data from a multitude of resources hasn't already located it.

It was also significantly easier for the majority of users to maintain anonymity in 2012 when they could, as you've just pointed out, GPU mine from their own computer, than it is for the same majority of users today, most of whom will be buying bitcoin through fully KYCed accounts at centralized exchanges. Now I know your next argument and I agree that that isn't bitcoin's fault, but that doesn't mean people can't use tools like mixers or coinjoins to regain that lost privacy.

[franky1]

nation states dont watch everyone. they delegate services like exchanges to watch their own customers.
nation states are not interested.. ministers/senators dont read reports or keep records..

you will find that regulators(separate from politics) are run and operated like businesses too. heck the CEOs of the two main US regulators are not politicians but banker lineage

you will find its regulators (group of non politicians that are mastered by ex bankers)
 that are not actively watching everything you do. they are reactive to reports handed to them by businesses, they are only interested in the juicy reports of suspect behaviour because even regulators dont have the man power to watch everyone. its far cheaper for them to reward businesses with a commission/bounty for handing them a suspect report

this is why nations(politicians) say if you do nothing wrong you got nothing to fear. because your name and shopping list doesnt even reach the political ranks. they just dont care about you.

yes your data sits on exchange/business platforms and those businesses can trade your data(even to regulators).

but atleast understand that its the BUSINESSES that you should point fingers at.. not bitcoins blockchain or a senator/ministers. because both are not asking for your real life information  or your shopping habits
they dont care. senators/ministers are just voted in guys that have other agendas. they dont care to look at your shopping list

i am not worried thinking that some government minister has my data. .. its more of a concern about businesses that have my data

if you are worrying that some senator/minister has your data.. your wasting worries and time. if you are worried your data is on the blockchain(name and product purchase list) you are wasting your time too
your data is with businesses. once you realise who and where data can be found. then you can start to preserve it by not giving it

[uneng]

I see your points and they do make sense, without any doubts. You are right thinking and living the way you are.

And I thought really interesting the part that to care for privacy is to care for your self-esteem, to have self-respect. That is an admirable point of view very few individuals have.

Although for the average person, the one who is struggling to survive, living one day at a time, it's hard to have this discernment, because there are so many problems and difficults, that privacy becomes the least of our concerns.

But at some point I hope to reach at this mentality level, executing it on the practice.

[Dickiy]

Think a little more simply, people come here for profit or to stay anonymous. If anonymity is not profitable and anonymity can't feed you, do you need anonymity anymore? Anonymity is necessary, that is important, but profit comes first, like the subject of money, wthout money you will not be able to do anything in this life or you will not be respected by anyone. You don't have money people also want you to disappear from their eyes, you don't have to be anonymous. Anonymity should only be for those who already have a lot of money and are afraid of being robbed by others, but for those struggling to make a living, it doesn't really matter.

When it comes to profit, which human would not want profit? but that's not the main thing, because you have many ways to earn profits wherever and whenever and this forum is no exception.
But unfortunately, if you are more concerned with profit than personal data privacy (Personal data Anonymity), do you know the impact of leaking personal data? I think it's a stupid disservice, do you understand that? Have you heard that maintaining personal privacy is important to those around you?
When your personal data is leaked to bad people, you may suddenly get bills even though you did not place an order, there may be a lot of terror in your life and maybe people will sell your data for their benefit.
In my opinion, this is not a matter of being rich or poor, but a matter of security and peace of mind, maybe you should understand why there is a personal data protection law for workers working in a company.
Whether you are rich, poor, ordinary people, a student, worker and other, maintaining privacy is very important because if your data is leaked and falls into the hands of irresponsible people, you will regret it.
Robbery in direct life, I think can be avoided because it is usually robbery by force. But robbers who know your data are much more dangerous because you will unknowingly hand over everything you have from a distance that you do not know.

Likewise in the world of Bitcoin, if you don't protect your data, chances are you will be easily tracked in everything you do in it and it will take advantage of you and you will be on the radar of other people who can attack you at any moment.

Maybe profit accompanies you but destruction overshadows you every time and waits for the right time to destroy you, whoever you are, guard privacy from now before regret arrives, because we don't know what other people are planning for us when we are unable to protect ourselves.

[ayuskabob]

A little mind game.

when anyone says the classic "i don't care about privacy,got nothing to hide" ask back:
"Really?...could you hand me your phone for 2 minutes ?" simple as 

[tjtonmoy]

I am very cautious about my financial life. I try everything to hide them. But on the other hand, we use almost every popular social media platform which are always collecting data knowingly or unknowingly.
We can't prevent that. We are willing to give up our privacy to them just to enjoy hormone (Dopamine )release. I have been away from many platforms for years now. I try to stick to the analog connections or only those platform which doesn't ask for your personal info.
I have faced a major issue someday back, maybe 3/4 months from today. I stored my phrase key of my software wallet in an online platform notepad. Few days later it got hacked.
So now i always try to keep them backed up in an offline method, a piece of paper and a vault.
Those who still doesn't care about their privacy, I fear no one, but them