RE: The War On Cash: Australia Considering Chipping Senior's Money To Stop Them From Saving
I agree. Think for yourself, don't follow the cheerleaders. I consider cryptos to be a double-sided sword.
https://www.ethnews.com/australia-rejects-double-taxation-on-digital-currencies-after-july-1-2017
Bitcoin is only as anonymous as your internet connection, maximally. You can assume that our internet access is already fully controlled. Currently one can use Tor (sponsored by US gov!) or a VPN (trust a third party). Bitcoin mixing appeared to be useless. Although Monero itself is really anonymous, you still need anonymous internet access, because Monero's IP obfuscation is still pending in the TODO pipeline. In the long term MimbleWimble could be added to Bitcoin, which is very strong anonymity. I'm very curious whether these things are going to be implemented really.
Well, fortunately I don't need to buy anything online I'm embarrassed about or ashamed of, because the more I learn about privacy on the Internet the more ridiculously complicated it gets.
Good for you. However I was referring to your question and the main article's topic, not about how to buy embarrassing stuff.
No, I get that. I was referring to the old ridiculous argument that "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
I think that we should be able to conduct transactions anonymously, or without a permanent record, as we can do with cash. Whether it's governments chipping cash or breaching online security protocols, either way it seems like a breach of fundamental human rights. It seems like it's harder and harder to participate in the market without opening yourself up to all kinds of tracking and taxation.
And that's a shame, because something that's perfectly legal and acceptable to do today (something as simple as saving your damn money) can always be ruled a crime by a future administration.
Agree, that's exactly the point. You don't even know what you can be accused of tomorrow. Also the blockchain trail may connect me to criminals. Also how can I prove that my coin exchanges are not taxable?
I heard that in Germany few weeks ago they introduced civil forfeiture law for anything valuable, such that everyone now must be able to prove the origin of his property if requested, even if it was acquired 100 years ago. They basically demand retroactive compliance, which is impossible in many cases. The US civil forfeiture law is actually worse, but at least it has been around for some time, so one most people are able to comply with it.
Well, thanks for the info. You've given me a lot to think about!
Well, I hope that in practice things don't turn out that bad. It's only that the more I think about it, the more paranoid I get.
For instance I once read an article of a renowned lawyer where he proved that almost every owner of cash is a criminal according to the law, and by that showing the absurdity of the law. I hope with cryptos it will be similar, such that due to the vast amount of users, things get too absurd.