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Comment by jmnicolas | Hacker News Reader

What we need is not the right to pay in cash but the right to pay anonymously.

In fact we need a broader constitutional right of privacy.

IMO simpler is better. A legal guarantee for anonymity that might end up being backed by complex technology is worse than a legal guarantee that you can pay with paper money regardless of anonymity. That's because paper is less likely to have an unnoticed back door (what anonymity does Bitcoin provide if your PC is running a keylogger?)

In fact this makes me think of all the nice things we could have if support for simple mechanisms was legally required in various areas of life.

You are right, and that is why for instance online voting does not get serious attention. It is far easier to implement all requirements with pen and paper. First one that your vote should be known only to you. I would not trust any computer based voting software. I can easily imagine next day some sad people could come over to my place and question me why I voted for wrong person.

Yes. Electronic voting can be made anonymous and secure, but only an expert would be able to verify (or even understand) that.

Everyone can understand pen and paper voting.

But those things are not controllable. I don't just want to know who you are giving money to, I want to be able to stop you from giving money to anyone at any time for any justifiable flimsy explanation. Think about what PayPal is doing to VPN vendors right now. Their excuse is that VPN vendors are enabling copyright infringement. Not too far from the government claiming this tomorrow, literally. Do you want this?

Are you sure that's exactly what you want? Including sums in billions of dollars?

I'd rather criminals got away with their nefarious deeds than give up privacy, so yes.

> I'd rather criminals got away with their nefarious deeds than give up privacy

Are you sure you mean this statement in absolute sense, as in "I'd rather criminals got away with any nefarious deeds than give up any privacy"?

Or, may be, you have some sense of balance between these two things? If you have, what kind of balance it might be?

I do not want to give up any privacy. The stasi wasn't that long ago.

Financial criminals, you mean like the banks. Yes I would like something done about the laundering activity for criminal organizations by banks. How much money do you think your average criminal would move via cash? How much money do you think banks have moved to facilitate economic crimes. In total?

This is about power. Not about crime.

ex: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avinash-tharoor/banks-cartel-m...

Which banks? And what is an economic criminal?

If you look at the HN front page there's an article on the Clinton "system". They get bribed - sorry - I mean rewarded with million of dollars just fine without any privacy or cash involved.

We need both. Cash is good and so is the right to privacy.

Exactly. The truth is, paying electronically is so much easier than with cash. Either way, paying with cash is the past and will (slowly) move away. I'd much rather be an anonymous technologist than an anonymous luddite.

> I'd much rather be an anonymous technologist than an anonymous luddite.

Luddite? Do you even know what this word means? There is currently no anonymous payment technology on this planet that works universally and everywhere.

In face of this reality, cash has its value for everyone that wants to pay anonymously.

> There is currently no anonymous payment technology on this planet that works universally and everywhere.

This is true, but notice that the statement also cover cash.

I think legislature should focus on the core of a problem and create laws that solve that problem. The core of the problem is anonymous payment, not 'cash is the best payment system'. I think that laws should focus on increasing privacy of (electronic) payment information, not force cash to be kept around. In the Netherlands more than the US, cash is being phased out more and more. I would rather pay with a debit card with increased privacy than force businesses to keep cash registers.

Laws requiring an "increase of privacy of payment information" fall under the same problem of Playing chicken with cat.jpg[1]. In essence, they help, but human honesty and compliance with the rules is still a very weak replacement for a solution where the information is not accessible at all.

There are some academic proposals and proofs-of-concept implementing anonymous electronic payments, but while they may prove worthy successors of cash, they are certainly not ready.

[1] http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-01-19-playing-chicken-w...

Hey, mister non-luddite, create this payment system for me:

1) Instantaneous

2) Anonymous

3) Non blockable

4) Not centralized

I am all for technology which solves real problems, not for technology for technology's sake. If you create technological crap, I'm gonna luddite you.

Things I want from payment:

- low effort - low interaction

that's it. I couldn't give two hoots about anonymity vs being able to contactless payment (although having to get my wallet out and hold it against the reader is definitely still too much effort...)

Some people prefer cash for a variety of reasons, self control, budgeting etc. Sometimes for various tax reasons. But I just don't see the evidence of the general public caring about privacy on this one.

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