[chexum]

In the UK, similar situations are common when “someone” flags any transaction to or from you as suspicious, at which point they need to freeze it, report it to an appropriate branch of an organisation, and… wait. That organisation most of the times doesn’t respond, so the hold expires in about two weeks, and then everything resumes working.

The thing is, noone can be told of this freeze/hold, that would be mean tipping off the party that made the suspicious transaction - from what I gather, it’s actually illegal to reveal it’s frozen, so they invent all kinds of meaningless/dumb reasons why the transaction (or the account) can’t be used right now.

So, lack of transparency and accountability IS the purpose of the system in that case.

[robocat]

> noone can be told

Great article on how the US does that: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...

  No, the bank cannot explain why SARs triggered a debanking, because disclosing the existence of a SAR is illegal. Yes, it is the law in the United States that a private non-court, in possession of a memo written by a non-intelligence analyst, cannot describe the nature of the non-accusation the memo makes. Nor can it confirm or deny the existence of the memo.

  It’s not just illegal to disclose a SAR to the customer. It is extremely discouraged, by Compliance, to allow there to be an information flow within the bank itself that would allow most employees who interact directly with customers, like call center reps or their branch banker, to learn the existence of SAR. This is out of the concern that they would provide a customer with a responsive answer to the question “Why are you closing my account?!” And so this is one case where in [Seeing like a Bank] the institution intentionally blinds itself. Very soon after making the decision to close your account the bank does not know specifically why it chose to close your account.

[xtracto]

Having worked in Fintech for several years, THIS is the main reason why I moved the majority of my liquid assets to cryptocurrencies.

For all the things people want the. To do, the most important one to me is the "not your keys, not your coin".

I don't trust banks as neither. One time a bank i use to get paid decided to "block" my accounts for 'suspicious avtivity" (i made a transfer to an account number they deemed high-risk). I ended up having to go to a specific physical branch, and literally BEG the clerk to activate the account where they had MY FREAKING MONEY.

I've learned since that, once you give it (lend it actually) to banks, it is not your money.

[fragmede]

The idea that I have to not lose a private key file to access my own money is terrifying, and on top of that, if someone else gains access to that file, they will steal my money is just a horror show on top of that. I also worked at a FinTech for a few years but it's not relevant. What is relevant is how much you trust your own opsec and the level of organization you have for your own files. I can believe that some people find self-custodial ownership of significant amounts of crypto reassuring, but I do not.

[robocat]

xtracto doesn't understand security. An individual with crypto must not advertise that they have any or they will be spear targeted (up to and including lead-pipe analysis by distributed anonymous resources). https://archive.ph/PJTZP

Internet anonymity might be a temporary defence, until AI doxing analysis improves or one's government decides to change their rules (good luck securing against that).

I don't have any crypto: firstly because I lack the opsec skills. Also because I travel to other countries, and the best defense is to actually not have anything worth being stolen (or limited financial exposure e.g. my physical wallet was stolen last time I was in Brazil).

People immensely more skilled than I will ever be, still have security failures (e.g. Troy Hunt fell for a phishing attack recently).