Oddbean new post about login | logout Privacy has existed on the protocol level for Bitcoin since day 1. Run your own node. The only people who don't have privacy with Bitcoin are the ones who aren't running Bitcoin. Running Bitcoin = Running your own node. Now with platforms like start9, you can get a full Bitcoin Core node behind tor out of the box after a few clicks. There are no excuses. The fact that you gave up your ID to a KYC exchange or used a samourai node or any other node thats not yours is not Bitcoin's fault. Its yours. If you use the internet without a condom (vpn/tor), you are going to get sick (rekt)!. If you give your xpubs to third parties, youre going to get rekt! Bitcoin in perfect money. It only takes you to fuck it up.
there are other ways to doxx your utxos besides an exchange, the protocol is not great in this aspect
There are many ways to crash a car too. Bitcoin teaches individuals sovereignty and responsibility. Bitcoin teaches many things and those things learned along the journey can be applied in many other areas. You can lead a horse to water.... Some people commit suicide. I guess life is not great in this aspect either... If you look for ways to doxx yourself you will find them. If you run bitcoin and use common sense, you'll be just fine.
respectfully disagree, it's orders of magnitude easier to involuntarily get a utxo associated to your legal identity than to crash a car or commit suicide unless you never spend bitcoin which goes against the whole point
I didn't say it was more difficult and I also respectfully disagree. if you follow best practices its almost impossible to associate a utxo with your legal identity. Even a pseudo identity for that matter.
By "follow best practices", you mean "not using Bitcoin", right? That's the only way your words make sense. If you pay someone without spending the full UTXO, you're always creating some sort of a pseudo identity. Say you paid for a domain online, then bought dinner using the change. Your face is now linked to that domain thanks to CCTV cameras. If you paid for a VPN, then sent the change to someone on Nostr, your social graph is now linked to your IP address. It just takes some digging and a few subpoenas. Bitcoin is good and useful. But you have to acknowledge its flaws. Otherwise, we're no better than a cult.
And all this for using software? Come on. Haldeman novel level.
What? Do you not understand how the UTXO model works?
fully. Do you not understand the best practices to not have to worry about that?
it should be easier
All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. — Morarji Desai
You know Bitcoin is programmable money? You know you can set your changes address to another wallet you own with a different set of XPUBs. You can pay for a VPN with Bitcoin lightning and generate no change. My IP address is never my own, not only because of a paid VPN but also because of tor combined with that. Digging and subpeonas will get them to a different REAL IP address everytime. Then there is blockstream, FM radios, etc. Just because you haven't educated yourself about how Bitcoin works doesn't mean it doesn't. Next the monero shills will tell us that monero protects them from security cameras for their infinity fiat money lol This sure has been an interesting Friday so far :)
Who cares what XPUBs your wallet uses? If you're doing it right there's no difference. One could even use a non-HD wallet and then there's no XPUB to begin with. Regardless, that change is still linked to your spend, though. It's a pseudo identity. Unless you use the VPN *on top* of Tor and not the other way round (which is a bad practice, ask the Tor devs), the VPN will gladly give the IP you're connecting from to the police. If you paid on-chain, your change is linked to it. Unless of course you trust that "no log" policies are real. > You can pay for a VPN with Bitcoin lightning and generate no change. Well, do you do that? Sure, you can break the link by depositing it into Lightning, or use JoinMarket. But all of that is expensive. > Next the monero shills will tell us that monero protects them from security cameras for their infinity fiat money lol I don't use Monero. But, yes, if there's no trace to follow, it doesn't matter that your face got captured on camera, because no one can see where the UTXO came from. Same with Lightning, but that only works at places that take it.
You can be somewhat pseudonymous on Bitcoin but that has nothing to do with privacy. All actions are still visible to everyone in the world. Monero is not meant to protect you from security cameras. It protects your transactional privacy on chain and nothing else. Everything you speak of is external to that and applies to every other crypto including Bitcoin. You shouldnt need to be an engineer to drive a car. Likewise, you shouldn't need to be one to achieve transactional privacy. That is just terrible design.
nice iPhone bro!
Monero on the other hand has serious fiat cult vibes lol expensive, uncertain, soft money
I plan to install @Start9 on a mini-pc later tonight. My hardware just arrived!
This makes me happy. I will be here partying like every friday night. Let me know if you need help. Curious about the hardware too! On to new beginnings, self sovereignty and privacy. On to using BITCOIN!
if you need help, let me know ive done that several times 🤙
Got @Start9 up and running about an hour ago! I’d like to get the WiFi working but I get “RPC ERROR: WiFi Internal Error No WiFi interface available.” It works with ethernet so I have some troubleshooting to do.
WHat hardware is this. Most units we ship don't hvae WiFI, and WiFi is being removed as a feature altogether soon.
You’re confusing privacy with anonymity. Totally different beasts. Bitcoin isn’t anonymous so it’s not perfect money. Great SoV though. We know many of Satoshi’s addresses, transactions and blocks he mined. So you’re saying he fucked up real bad? Umbrel does IBD over tor and it’s free and one line of code on pretty much any piece of junk hardware with enough storage. Why is Start9 such a revelation to people with a $1300 price tag for prism hardware and spec isn’t that good.
I'm not confusing anything. Its very easy to switch to a new set of xpubs anytime among other techniques if you fucked up that bad to start with. no he didnt fuck up, how do you know those are his only xpubs? Start9 is free. Just download the image. its also more secure. Umbel uses http.
Not that easy. One of my wallets has over 1500 UTXOs, all carefully curated, isolated, consolidated, labelled over the years. You don’t just hit the nuke button and sweep to a new xpub like changing a show on Netflix.
In this case you should have followed best practices from the start. Now you will have to curate all over again yes. Education is important.
If you make a fuck up, how does moving to a new xpub help? There is no backward facing privacy. It’s just a series of breadcrumbs to new addresses. Only way is to coinjoin and that’s fast becoming a dead duck. You can’t erase history. Bitcoin wasn’t designed to be private or anonymous and we shouldn’t assume otherwise. It’s got so many advantages of other forms of money but this area is a real weakness. Satoshi wrote about this extensively.
hey if you screw up, you have to take certain measures. There are even easier ones, ie: over the counter non-kyc cash exchanges, Bitcoin Lightning, swap to an altcoin and back. these are the tradeoffs for not RTFM its not bitcoins fault, its yours!
Running a node is a way to enhance your privacy but Bitcoin is still a transparent ledger. Privacy is a spectrum. Let's be intellectually honest.
yes Bitcoin is a transparent ledger indicating a bunch of John Doe's. Please tell me which transactions are mine on this transparent ledger. The proof is in the pudding.
I don't need to. You have it all figured out. Your transactions have no deterministic links. You're debating in good faith.
Thanks for keeping it intellectually honest. Just because someone doesn't have it figured out, doesn't mean nobody does ;-)