this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Privacy

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GNU Taler is not your friend (lemmy.ml)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by makeasnek@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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On P2P payments from their FAQ: "While the payment appears to be directly between wallets, technically the operation is intermediated by the payment service provider which will typically be legally required to identify the recipient of the funds before allowing the transaction to complete."

How about, no? How about me paying €50 to my friend for fixing my bike doesn’t need to be intermediated, KYCed, and blocked if they don't approve of it or know who the recipient is? How about it’s none of the government’s business how I split the bill at dinner with friends? This level of surveillance is madness, especially coming from an app that touts "privacy" as a feature.

GNU Taler is a trojan horse to enable CBDC adoption. They are the friendly face to an absolutely terrifying level of government control in our lives funded by the same government that tries every year to implement chat control. Imagine your least favourite political party gaining power. Now imagine they can see and control every transaction you make. No thanks.

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 53 points 4 months ago (1 children)

GNU Taler is not your enemy. It may not solve every problem you'd like it to, but its adoption by the masses would be a vast improvement in privacy compared to the current state of commerce in every country where it has the slightest chance of happening any time soon.

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I have a feeling its adoption would bring the end of cash a big step closer.

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The suggestions like this also scare me in that it might require you to carry a smartphone all the time for things as basic as payment.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

This is totally unrelated to GNU Taler though, and if it comes to that you will be happy to have GNU Taler as an privacy preserving option.

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 points 4 months ago

Not any closer than already existing commercial cashless payment solutions (which are much, much worse for privacy).

[–] nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

You people realize that most crypto is even less private? Every transaction ever can be viewed by everyone, forever, by design.

Sure, a crypto wallet might not have your name on it when created, but good luck buying or selling any without giving away your identity.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 16 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Monero fixes this

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Lemmy is ease for glowies to astroturf.

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[–] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You people realize that most crypto is even less private? Every transaction ever can be viewed by everyone, forever, by design.

There's some truth to this but it's also not really the case.

  • Each address is pseudononymous even in original Bitcoin.
  • Bitcoin lightning transactions are completely opaque to the network, they are never on-chain. At this point, there are vastly more transactions on lightning than on-chain. They confirm instantly and are known only to your node, the receiver's wallet, and intermediary nodes (if any). Lightning inherits security from the main chain while giving you sub-second transaction confirmation times.
  • Monero exists, coinjoin (Bitcoin) exist, changing addresses and having multiple wallets exists, liquidity swaps exist. The chain analysis game is getting harder and more complex every year.
[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 6 points 4 months ago

Yes. But the draw is that it is still leagues easier use privately than the traditional banking system. With cryptocurrency, you "only" need proper understanding of OPSEC. With banking system - you also need to break the law somewhere in the KYC process.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 6 points 4 months ago

good luck

except there are many sites dedicated to doing exactly that. you can send cash in the mail, giftcards, exchange via other cryptocurrencies, etc.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (9 children)

False. Use Monero.

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[–] sntx@lemm.ee 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yes, Taler by design allows identifiction of the receiver.

It does not reveal the sender.

It allows you to create and arbitrate your own tokens and to create your own "bank".

Here's a Video doing a good job at explaining it jn detail.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

CBDCs are coming whether you like it or not and a GNU Taler based payment system is currently our best mitigation strategy against them.

It's pointless to compare GNU Taler to crypto-currencies as it is a payment system and not a pseudo-currency.

[–] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

CBDCs are coming whether you like it or not and a GNU Taler based payment system is currently our best mitigation strategy against them.

The best mitigation strategy is to refuse to use them and to point out when systems, like Taler, are actively working to further their introduction of use. Using your national currency is mandatory to pay taxes, it's not mandatory for anything else in most countries. We have the option to opt out, just like we do with every other privacy-attacking technology. Assuming it's inevitable is how they win.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 months ago

I didn't say the use will be inevitable, and great if you try to opt out. But the majority are already using cashless payment systems, and will happily switch to a CBDC if it becomes available and promises lower fees than credit cards etc.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 20 points 4 months ago (19 children)

Yeah, the fact that out payment system is so centralised is definitely a bad thing. But GNU Taler, from what I understand, is just trying to work within that system. It didn't create the system, and it doesn't have the power to replace it.

[–] unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago

It didn't create the system, and it doesn't have the power to replace it.

But it does support the system by being a part of it

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[–] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 4 months ago

I think you are misinterpreting things.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

CBDC?

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 17 points 4 months ago

Central Bank Digital Currency. Its a controversial project by many central banks around the world to establish a digital cash alternative, but the current proposals are usually not very privacy friendly.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

Sure, it's worse than monero and cash in terms of privacy, but that's not what it's supposed to replace. There are plans to use Taler as an alternative to card payments in the EU and that would be a great improvement. Currently all payment data is visible to multiple of companies, the shop, the bank, and many middle man and is often sold off to other commerical entities. Taler would stop that.

[–] GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Your first example is tax fraud if you hide it

Edit: it looks like you edited your post to state the guy repairing your bike is "your friend".

Noone is going to go after him if he just fixes your bike. But if he fixes the bike of his 1000 friends each month, they will go after him if he didn't declare it.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That may technically be true, but it's currently very normalized. Do we actually want to denormalize it? Should the government know about every trivial transaction?

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 points 4 months ago

For small sum in-person payments, regular cash is still the best option and will continue to be so, GNU Taler or not.

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[–] ganymede@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago

not if they're only covering the cost of parts

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[–] datendefekt@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Recently read an ELI5 of the digital euro and was pleasantly surprised. If it works as designed, you can perform offline payments from one device to another, which sounds like your use case. No central servers, no blockchain.

[–] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

If you can do a P2P transaction like that, you need either a central server or a blockchain or equivalent to prevent double-spends. There is no other way. Satoshi's innovation for Bitcoin was developing a system (blockchain) that can do this without a central server.

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[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

When crypto bros stop shilling anti-libre software, maybe i'll start to care.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 6 points 4 months ago (8 children)

Funny how we're big into privacy here, and then money comes up and lots of people are "wait no, not that kind of privacy."

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