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Comment by UpToTheSky | Hacker News Reader

Is the world becoming more and more Orwellian?

Is this a long term trend?

It got pretty much unnoticed on HN, that Europe recently voted to make all crypto payments illegal unless the seller collects the personal data of the buyer. Independent of the amount. So there will be a track record of everything bought via crypto.

Is it only a matter of time until cash is going away globally, and states have access to everything their people buy?

Regarding end-2-end encryption: It does not prevent a government from reading your messages anyhow. They could instruct Meta (or whichever company is in control of the app you use) to send them the the messages you write directly from your phone. Or from the phone of the receiver. Or to send them the private key from your phone. They could also ask Apple or Google to do so, since those have acceess to everything on your phone.

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>Regarding end-2-end encryption: It does not prevent a government from reading your messages anyhow

Yes, e2e in principle does. You are arguing that e2e on specific platforms could be wiretapped by government order, which is feasible.

I correct this because it's important to be technically correct when discussing this in public. E2e the technology is not broken.

Everything can already be tracked via crypto, that procedure of attributing a name to it just makes the process easier.

Additionally, everything you do buy is already tracked. Even with cash.

But unlike naysayers, these things already encroaching on our lives gives us even more reason to push for stronger E2E support as a default. Assuming it's done properly, and not "I just need to ask Google for the keys".

> Regarding end-2-end encryption: It does not prevent a government from reading your messages anyhow. They could instruct Meta (or whichever company is in control of the app you use) to send them the the messages you write directly from your phone. Or from the phone of the receiver. Or to send them the private key from your phone. They could also ask Apple or Google to do so, since those have acceess to everything on your phone.

There is a huge difference between "use the encryption key you already have to decrypt this message" and "implement changes in your software that allow attacking this person".

Last I heard, US courts couldn't force companies into doing anything, only to reveal information, or to mandate secrecy. The idea of a warrant canary is 100% based on the idea that the government cannot force the company to publish a statement it does not wish to publish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

Yes, because computers and world leaders are getting more powerful and everyday citizens are becoming less so.

If I buy crypto and posess it in my own wallet afterwards I can usw it however. Atleast with monero.

How will you anonymously collect the groceries you anonymously bought?

Obviously you can't pick up a grocery delivery and remain anonymous.

But in theory if you could pay for groceries with monero (you can't afaik), you could pay from the same wallet you conducted a hack from or purchased a darknet server to host leaked data with. The grocery store wouldn't know the originating wallet or any of its other activity.

Anyone who thinks grocery stores are going to allow monero payments is pretty naive, but Monero at least makes these flows possible.

For example, if Walmart decided to let people pick up orders with monero payments, you'd log in with your walmart account (linked with real name), place your order, pay to the generated wallet address with Monero, and then show ID on pickup. Walmart would have no way of knowing where the money came from.

I don't have any Monero or particularly like it (but mainly because I consider proof of work unsustainable and wasteful). But you have to admit the privacy implications are interesting, and the technology is impressive.

The more dystopian the internet gets, the greater the offline growth in commerce and communication.

And, as Tim Berners-Lee's invention drowns in DeepFakes and ChatGPT dystopia, this hardly seems a bad thing.

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