Why Cryptocurrencies Will Never Be Anonymous
It seems that true anonymity is an alleged goal of a number of both established and upcoming cyrptocurrencies. This is not a bad goal to have, as anonymity brings a type of security that is disappearing from modern society at a miraculous rate.
The problem is, we all know by now, or should know, that the plan is to have everyone need a unique identifier in order to access the internet. Supposedly, to crack down on ISIS recruiting new actors. But if this comes into fruition, and if one needs to "log in" simply to have access to the internet, what good does an anonymous wallet do you then?
You can have 435 currencies, stored in 467839 different wallets, held in 346747 different devices, but what good is any of that if to use either one of them, you must verify who you are?
Perhaps those with an expert-understanding of cryptocurrency and network communications etc, perhaps they may be able to find a way to circumvent the need to log in, or find a way to log in as someone else. But to the average Joe with a very limited understanding of this type of shit, we are fucked.
Maybe we had better do more to ensure that they don't get what they want. or it will be us to blame when the government knows exactly how much money we have, where we got it, what we spend it on and who we spend it with.
It's certainly a concern, but it would mean a huge and obvious reduction in freedom for everyone.
There are also growing movements of people building mesh networks over wi fi, I know Havana Cuba has a massive mesh network with thousands of nodes all over the city.
There are only so many policemen.
What is this mesh network you speak of? Is it like, an internet that is created and maintained by the people instead of by ISPs?
It's a local network, but the mesh allows "local" to be much larger. There's still an ISP to connect to the rest of the world.
What you are describing is technically already happening. I don't know what country you live in, but when you purchase internet access from an ISP you have to create an account with them. They give you a router/modem with a unique MAC address and you log into the internet with the account you created with the ISP using the router/modem they gave you. So everything you access on the internet through that router/modem can be seen by the ISP.
If you want to hide what you access on the internet from your ISP the simplest way is to use the TOR browser https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
which is free.
Another option is to purchase a VPN service which you login into before you start doing stuff on the internet. That way all your ISP sees is that you are connected to some server out in the world but they have no idea what sites and data you are accessing on the internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network
I am aware of this. The unique identifier I speak of is one that you would need to access the internet at any time, from any location, using any device. It was thought that it would be introduced with an RFID chip, but I personally do not see enough people being willing to accept an implant. They could quite easily get people on benefits or pensions to capitulate, but I don't know how they could convince the rest.
My guess is that the RFID chip, or another version of it, will come. But it will probably need to be phased in, with the earlier iterations being something less permanent, such as a wristband.
You sound as if you honestly want this personal unique identifier to exist. I sure hope that isn't the case.
I don't believe I sound that way at all. I'm rather confused about why you would say such a thing.
Where did you hear of such a thing? This would basically be impossible to implement on a global scale... even if somehow all governments and ISPs of the world agreed to something like this people who use the internet would still be able to hide what they are doing via encryption, VPNs, etc....
This brings me a modicum of comfort if true. But, I ask, what if quantum computers are used to maintain the blockchain. Could that computing power be used to automatically decrypt the data of any nodes, or whatever you would call them, connected to the network?
I may not have much expertise when it comes to this type of thing, but it just seems apparent to me, that any steps taken to spoof your data could be countered by a more sophisticated piece of tech. And in this case, when speaking of a government, one would expect them to the best technology at their disposal.
Zcash has "Ceremony" to generate private key for encrypting transactions. Indeed this is a hard problem, the zcash solution is promising.
I don't think you have understood the point, mate.
Not sure where you got this idea, I don't think many people are thinking this will happen. Maybe in countries like China, but not world wide.
What is a country like China? And why does whatever country you believe me to be from not fit that criteria?
Communist? China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. Countries that tend to block certain websites, filter public opinion online, etc.
Not only communist but also conservative countries that tend to block certain websites. I think nowadays, the purpose of anonymity is missing. I expected to be a complete anonymous, despite the threat it might cause, yet wallet requires me to confirm my identity. I mostly skip that part. Inevitably, If I really have to, I can use my old identity to confirm it. But still, since crypto is becoming more popular, the essence of anonymity is missing
True. I said communist because I'd bet most if not all communist countries filter the internet. Plus, I don't think the list of countries that filter/block internet and aren't communist is very long. Anonymity is very much possible nowadays, it's just opt-in through system like Tor and Monero.
I do agree with you that it's possible. Tor makes it possible thus, I use that sometimes also VPN yes in country like china and several strict countries, it's truly needed. I mean, I live in place where they ban several sub reddit channel and even imgur. VPN helps to the very least
In my opinion, this would include every country that is currently in existence. This is an issue of government and the retention and expansion of power. This not exclusive to one country or another.
What? I don't have any websites blocked by my government. Most countries don't. I didn't say it was exclusive to one country, I said it was exclusive to all countries where the government filters/blocks their internet traffic.
And my point is that every country does this. Give me the name of the country you live in and I will prove it. But I am not going to argue this matter if you are not willing to allow me to demonstrate my point.
They have been talking about this since the 90s. This number already exists and it is a 18 digit combination of your district code region code, country code and social security/insurance number. They just haven't figured out how to put each person's information all together in one place yet. I would like to hear more about mattclarke's mesh network.