[droffel]

So is using cash. Lots of things could be 'indicative of possible criminal conduct'. Thankfully, the US operates under presumed innocence until proven guilty. This attitude of people claiming you shouldn't seek privacy lest you 'look like a criminal' is disappointing. I expect better from HN.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

> This attitude of people claiming you shouldn't seek privacy lest you 'look like a criminal' is disappointing. I expect better from HN.

"Indicative of possible criminal conduct" means more than just "looking like a criminal." That means, if you were to be arrested for something, your use of Monero might count as evidence that you were involved in criminal activity. Combined with enough other circumstantial evidence, it might even contribute to your conviction, even without a smoking gun. This would depend on the judge and jury, but it's worth noting.

I don't think it's "better" for people to ignore the risks of certain behaviors and pretend those risks don't exist. You apparently care a lot about optimizing a particular dimension: privacy. Recognize that other people have different mixes of priorities. Not everyone must agree with yours. Some people who disagree with you might even comment on this very site, as offensive as that is.

[webmaven]

> "Indicative of possible criminal conduct" means more than just "looking like a criminal." That means, if you were to be arrested for something, your use of Monero might count as evidence that you were involved in criminal activity. Combined with enough other circumstantial evidence, it might even contribute to your conviction, even without a smoking gun. This would depend on the judge and jury, but it's worth noting.

A bigger issue might be if it counts as "probable cause" to get a warrant. Seizure of records and computers would put a crimp in anyone's day, even with no conviction or even an arrest.[0] Heck, even if all it does is in practical terms is to raise the odds of an IRS audit a bit, or raise the odds of an audit becoming a criminal investigation (by being considered a "badge of fraud"[1]), that would be enough to squelch adoption.

[0] Maybe Steve Jackson Games should start working on a "Cryptopunk" GURPS module and get raided[2] again: http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance

[2] Holy crapoly, that was 30 years ago. Damn, I feel old.

[wolco2]

I think he was lamenting the loss of priority of privacy within the general hn makeup.

If everyone took your advice no one would protest, write a political comment against anyone in power, take any position that isn't accepted by all and be ready to drop that opinion when society shifts.

You live in a free society. Use your freedom or risk losing it.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

What is my advice that would lead to this tragic outcome? I'm rereading it and I don't see it. Do you mean my advice to be respectful of individual people who disagree with you?

Privacy has never been more important to the aggregate HN commenter than it is today. Moreover, nothing I said enjoins people from making political statements or protests.

[fomine3]

Would you say same thing for using encrypted communication app like Telegram, PGP?

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

Perhaps not. Private communication is more central to our national values than customized money. That's why only one of those two things is protected by the constitution. That being said, I don't think they'd really get far with such a rule, since any prosecution based on it would be easily challenged on constitutional grounds. So we will probably never find out what in fact I would say about it.

[woah]

If you're arrested for something, your possession of a pry bar might count as evidence you were involved in criminal activity

[kache_]

If you're using monero correctly, no one should know you own any.

[pas]

How can one buy Monero anonymously? Let's say I have 100 USD and a bank card, what's the step by step process? Does this also work with 1 000 000 USD?

[akimball]

Find someone to sell you Monero. Give them $1mm and your address. Receive Monero.

Alternatively, buy bitcoin through your bank. Use it to buy monero on an exchange.

Alternatively, wait 6-9 months and exchange your btc with xmr using an atomic swap, on-chain.

[_-___________-_]

> Find someone to sell you Monero. Give them $1mm and your address. Receive Monero.

How do you ensure this person does not know who you are, whilst also ensuring they don't steal your $1m?

> Alternatively, buy bitcoin through your bank. Use it to buy monero on an exchange.

Difficult to do this anonymously.

[Forbo]

Maybe some sort of multisig with a trusted escrow service involved? But then at that point could the escrow be liable?

[DarthGhandi]

I'm not sure how you are going to stay anonymous buying anything with a bank card.

Using cash then localmoneros or bisq would be fine.

[Forbo]

This answer is completely grounded in fact, so I vouched for it. Even without the bank card number itself, many places used tokenized versions of the card number for tracking purposes.

[WJW]

I wonder how many people (as a percentage) use monero "correctly" enough that they can remain anonymous even when faced with the resources of a nation-state hacking team. I'd wager it's single digit percentages at most and even that is pretty high.

[kache_]

Boating accident

[newacct583]

> Lots of things could be 'indicative of possible criminal conduct'.

Deliberately hiding the origin of funds is itself criminal conduct, though. It's true that AML statutes tend to be hyperspecific, because it's a difficult area to regulate. So areas like crytocurrency mixing are gray and uncertain even among law enforcement lawyers. It's not true, however, that there is an inherent right to unrestricted private transfer of money.

Bascially, the statement you're reading is not saying "Mixing is probably illegal because the money must have been illegal to begin with". It's saying that "Mixing is probably money laundering on its face, no matter where the money came from."

At some point governments are going to need to step in and clarify this with laws. But don't fool yourself: Crypto mixers are going to end up being subject to effectively the same reporting requirements that banks are. What you want (perfect financial privacy) you can't have, sorry. That ship sailed decades ago.

[rstuart4133]

> But don't fool yourself: Crypto mixers are going to end up being subject to effectively the same reporting requirements that banks are.

I'm sort of amazed they didn't outlaw mixers ages ago, however

> What you want (perfect financial privacy) you can't have, sorry. That ship sailed decades ago.

Perhaps that's true in principle, just as it's true to say obtaining (insert illicit drug of choice here) in perfect safety from the law enforcement agencies is not possible. The USA can only shut down USA mixers. The only way to deal with mixers operating outside of USA law is to prosecute the USA citizen sending his money to a mixer. That is orders of magnitude harder because they can't know if a newly minted bitcoin address is owned by a mixer, or belongs to a USA citizen.

It may not be perfect, but given one of bitcoin's niche's is a payment system for illegal activities that are already very much imperfect, the protection offers is undoubtedly good enough.

[jdmichal]

EDIT: I'm wrong please disregard.

You can have it. You just need to do everything in cash and not use the banking system. Of course, there's a lot of advantages to the banking system... But you can still use things like safety deposit boxes for storage, gold to help protect against inflation, etc.

[newacct583]

AML reporting requirements cover cash transfers too, though. Yes, there are more holes in the protocols because of the messiness of the medium (broadly it's the same thing crypto regulation would face), but in general MANY people who would have to touch that cash you're hoarding are required to report large transfers.

Money laundering is a crime, all by itself. It doesn't matter where the money comes from or what form it takes. The spirit behind AML legislation, long established, is that the government has the right to see where money is held and to whom it is transferred.

Minutiae about mechanism might appeal to software nerds, but it doesn't address the underlying issue. This fight was fought, and lost, more than half a century ago.

[PeterisP]

You can't do everything in cash anonymously, at least not legally, because large cash transactions are subject to similar laws and require the business receiving the cash to identify you and report the transaction - e.g. Form 8300 in USA.

[jdmichal]

Huh. I'm quite familiar with the banking side of AML having worked at one. But I was completely unaware of this.

[CryptoPunk]

>>Deliberately hiding the origin of funds is itself criminal conduct, though.

No, money laundering is deliberately hiding the origins of the proceeds of crime. Making an effort to maintain financial privacy is not in itself illegal.

>>It's saying that "Mixing is probably money laundering on its face, no matter where the money came from."

No, money laundering is by definition hiding the origins of illegally obtained money. If the money is not the proceeds of criminal enterprise, then hiding its origins is not, by definition, money laundering.

Exercising privacy-protection with respect to legally obtained money may be illegal, or with new laws be made illegal, but it does not and will not ever fall under the definition of money laundering, as that is not the definition of money laundering.

[tcberry]

That can still mean that you may be vulnerable to civil forfeiture, since your pile of Monero doesn't receive the same presumption of innocence.

[akimball]

Monero is inalienable.

[tcberry]

I guess you can try telling that to the judge who holds you in contempt for refusing to turn over your keys.

[zepearl]

Ok, you aren't wrong, but let's try not to be too naive - unluckily what's good for you (privacy, flexibility, speed, ...) is good as well for the "bad" guys.

I guess that the final question will be if it's used more for "good" or for "bad" purposes (or maybe just if the amount of "bad" purposes surpasses a certain acceptable level).

(same thing about cash - I think that most governments keep introducing stricter rules about cash withdrawals/deposits/transfers)

[CryptoPunk]

The bad guys can also be IN the government. When the government consistently omits threats from state bodies in its risk analyses, then the public tends to overlook that danger and heed, or at least not vigorously oppose, calls by the government to reduce privacy and increase surveillance.

[zepearl]

> The bad guys can also be IN the government.

Yes, possible, focus on the "can/might". In general I would say that it's less likely (on the other hand there will always be 100% chances of the opposite, meaning that there will always be N bad citizens brainstorming about how to use "the system"/"any system" for their own advantage).

> When the government consistently omits threats from state bodies in its risk analyses, then the public tends to overlook that danger and ...

Well, it can be true (meaning that in general people are probably more prone to accept compromises when they feel threatened), but such a general discussion is in my opinion out of context here. Monero was designed to handle transactions in a way that pushes privacy to the extremes, unluckily at the same time the same mechanism can be used as well by criminals.

Personally I think that "currently" the ones benefiting of the features offered by a cryptocurrency like Monero are mostly criminals as I don't think that most people have a strong need for highly-private transactions (might change in the future). Monero's other features of flexibility/access/etc... (to e.g. be able to trade in 3rd world countries without the need to have a bank account) are already offered by other cryptocurrencies.

[CryptoPunk]

>>In general I would say that it's less likely

I would say the potential risks from the state are much more extreme, even if they are less likely to materialize.

>>Monero are mostly criminals as I don't think that most people have a strong need for highly-private transactions

Cryptocurrencies right now are largely unusable due to them actively compromising their users' privacy.

Crypto users are aware of this and their attempts to cover their digital tracks makes use of crypto cumbersome.

Privacy-protected crypto solves this.