[game-of-throws]

> What if they just turn off the external internet?

No government is capable of this. Even North Korea has people smuggling phones over the border. A single cell or satellite connection that can sustain 2-3 KB/s is all you need to keep the rest of the country connected.

[acdha]

Okay, now think about this a bit further. Bitcoin is banned in your country and it's extremely risky to make a network connection to either the Bitcoin network, the client applications (better hope you disabled automatic updates and telemetry…), or industry sites.

How are you paying for that sat-phone? That's expensive, so you need real money and amounts of it which are beyond, say, the average North Korean. If you have a way to launder that money and conceal it, why do you need Bitcoin?

What are you doing to get Bitcoin? Again, you need hard currency which the average North Korean doesn't have access to.

Who are you using those Bitcoin to transact with? Nobody in country can use it legitimately so you're restricted to the black market and very riskily exposed since your full history is available to the government if they ever identify you or someone you're doing business with. It's much safer to use a suitcase of foreign currency since in that case you're at least only at risk for the amount of cash the police find on you at the time you're busted.

[game-of-throws]

I was just responding to the specific question I quoted. More broadly I agree with you that it's a risky idea to immortalize your criminal activity on a public, immutable ledger.

[plebianRube]

Since it is public, what is my address?

Tell me the last 5 lightning transactions I made.

[acdha]

If your devices are compromised or you ever make a mistake, you can identify yourself.

Even if your opsec is perfect, any transaction partner can identify you.

The problem with the public ledger is that it is, well, public and permanent — maybe you're able to fly under the radar for years, but then your records turn up in an exchange's data breech or an investigation into the services you're using to launder real money, etc. and then your full history is revealed detailing exactly how much money you weren't paying in taxes.