[Fnoord]

It is shameful the cryptocurrency community hijacked the term crypto. Cryptography is the very thing cryptocurrency relies on to make their technology working in the first place (if we may call it 'working', YMMV). Cryptography is used in vastly more important systems, it is much more important than cryptocurrency. I mean, without cryptography you could not even use something like Git to develop software such as Bitcoin. You wouldn't be able to distribute a C library securely, something on which Bitcoin relies on.

[EGreg]

And it goes deeper than that, including a point that woodruffw totally misses (perhaps he read only the first paragraph of what I wrote?)

If you are against anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, should you not also be against all end-to-end encryption? After all, it could conceal cryptocurrency transactions!

Or any of an endlessly growing amount of potentially dangerous information or assets, transferred peer to peer.

If you read what I wrote carefully, I clarify the issue so the substance can be discussed, rather than gotcha questions about equivocating words like “crypto”, as what woodruffw has done.

The issue is broken down into two things: 1) control over one’s own speech/identity/brand/etc so no one can take it from you, and 2) anonymity and freedom from consequences for illegal speech or transactions (according to the local lass in different countries).

I think nearly everyone is in favor of #1. The question is about #2. It is an interesting one - and notice that I myself do not advocate a position in my comment, just lay out the two issues and ask which direction you would be more comfortable for society to go in.

[woodruffw]

> If you are against anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, should you not also be against all end-to-end encryption? After all, it could conceal cryptocurrency transactions!

This conflation of free expression and hiding your finances would get you laughed out of any courtroom in America. I strongly support E2EE encryption and do work that directly supports a number of E2EE efforts; the idea that this requires me to support unfettered money laundering is facile.

And no, there is no such conflation on my part. Once again: cryptocurrency is, by and large a collection of scam artists and shysters. Cryptography is a branch of discrete mathematics.

[EGreg]

Please read what I am actually writing. I will try a different format. Perhaps you can respond POINT BY POINT to show that you have read it and have a substantive argument about it, rather than about your personal feelings about what a name du jour should mean:

1. End-to-end encrypted communication opens the barn door, you can conceal any anonymous cryptocurrency transactions in there, as well as darknets, smart contracts for silk road, etc. If you allow one, you allow the other.

2. Conversely, as the EFF often points out, making a backdoor in any crypto means effectively backdooring all of it. According to their stance, you either allow all of it, or nothing. (I happen to disagree with that, but there it is.)

3. There are more countries in the world than "America" (you meant USA, I am sure). Many of those countries take a much more dim view of freedom of expression online, than we do here. We need to design our software for people around the world, not just care about the USA. Many people on HN are not in the USA. Here is just a small list of things that currently go wrong when we don't have "unhosted" communication (https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-chang...)

4. Contrary to your statement, the USA's courtrooms would not "laugh" the parallels out of the room. I will post just a small sampling of bills with the same intent in spirit, to restrict end-to-end encryption. I want to be clear that this is only the stuff done in the open, and doesn't include the secret actions by the NSA, or agencies that serve national security letters, etc.

4a. The MPAA and RIAA lobbied Congress to implement "reasonable" reporting measures to ban access to many sites that provide end to end encryption: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

4b. After success in shutting down Craigslist and Backpage sex personals, Congress wanted to go further, and require every site to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_...

4c. Section 230 protections repeal: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-section-230-and-why-do-...

4d. The EARN IT act, just recently: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how-ba...

4e. LAED act, even more recent: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-no...

4f: Trump's attorney general was vocally against encryption, and lauded the proposed bill banning it: https://apnews.com/article/ny-state-wire-technology-ap-top-n...

https://apnews.com/article/ny-state-wire-technology-ap-top-n...

PLEASE address 1, 2, 3, and 4a - 4f

[woodruffw]

I’m not going to do that, because I’m not going to spend any particular amount of time or effort defending a position that’s self evident among actual cryptographers.

Money laundering is not free speech, and supporting E2EE does not somehow magically mean that I have to support or be okay with burning coal so that people can crack hashes. If you want to argue about cryptography itself, I suggest finding someone who’s actually against privacy and encryption.

[EGreg]

Well, at least I was able to get you to tap out instantly. Okay.

Please understand, your strawman is very shallow and doesn't address the core issues at all. Yes, we all know that money laundering is not free speech. AND?

Besides money laundering, end-to-end encryption enables:

  Terrorists and criminals coordinating violent activities
  Planning shadowy Silk Road type sales and arrangements
  Violating copyright and robbing the RIAA and MPAA of profits
  Posting child pornography
  Enabling sex trafficking
  and much more

Tons of these things are arguably far more dangerous than money laundering. The fact that they are NOT money laundering, doesn't mean we should just ignore the fact that end-to-end encryption and allowing people to "self-host" their own peer to peer software, is dangerous to law and order.

On the other hand, if we don't have the ability to do "small things" anonymously, like pay for food and shelter with cash, our societies will become more centralized and authoritarian, as we have seen with the social credit system, crackdown on religious activity throughout China, and the coming central bank digital currencies across all countries. The FATF actions will make it a global regime, and the deplatforming and social credit systems may become the norm depending on how the geopolitical players like USA and China leverage these global organizations.

PS: I am probably more vocal against proof-of-work than you are. See my public statements in ArsTechnica, BBC, Newsweek: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/there...: Magarshak went on to note that he has long criticized what he says is an "arms race to waste electricity to solve hashes." Such arms races are created by currency mining based on what's known as "proof of work" computing.

[Fnoord]

With regards to #2 there is a global conflict of interest. For example, someone in Texas might be pro gun, and therefore release STL files for a firearm under a FOSS license. Whereas in my country, the possession of a firearm is heavily restricted to people with a proper license (which I am a proponent of, but my bias is my cultural background growing up in said country). Likewise, I might be pro cryptocurrency for a country like Venezuela, while the government/establishment of Venezuela might feel otherwise.

One nice thing with regards to #2 is that targeted surveillance can still exist even with cryptocurrency, E2EE, etc. If someone who works in an average 9to5 job suddenly owns a Porsche, that could be suspicious to warrant an investigation. Just because the data isn't available via OSINT or via coercion of platform/data owner, doesn't mean it cannot be obtained. It just costs more resources, and that's a tricky sunk cost for e.g. law enforcement. That's why they don't like either; it increases their workload which costs society money. Its not they cannot work around it; they can. Just not via previously (ab)used mass surveillance tactics. Like I said, I believe that's a nice thing, but it has cons (such as indeed the increased cost/workload).

Now, I believe we need to discuss all these pros and cons with an open mind, but unfortunately there are too many personal interests involved which skew a proper discussion. For example, cryptocurrency adapts have an interest in their asset remaining relevant.

[tremon]

If you are against anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, should you not also be against all end-to-end encryption?

Only if you hold the belief that money is a form of free speech. Otherwise, money is just valuable property that you have to account for on your yearly/monthly tax statement to the government.

[EGreg]

No, I believe that once you allow end to end encrypted free speech, you allow many dangerous things. Including cryptocurrency transactions, silk road sales for all kinds of bad things, sex trafficking and child pornography… you also allow terrorists to plan their activities, etc.

Yes I think that is just as dangerous, if not more, than monetary transactions.

Therefore, if your position is that people should not be allowed to have self-hosted wallets (“unhosted” wallets) and app stores should have to ban them from the stores, then you should consider whether the same position should be applied to E2E software across the board, and for the same reasons of opening a dangerous pandora’s box.

See the sister comment and my reply to it