Comment by ddtaylor
1 day ago
> The fact is that privacy, especially of financial transactions, is becoming illegal. Any technology that allows you to send or spend money anonymously will be attacked by our governments. They won't be allowed.
It's probably a bit worse than that. It's not specific to transactions or spending.
Eventually any IP talking to another IP without the mandatory metadata to link it to a physical identity will be illegal.
Right now there is a hodge-podge of solutions that piggy-back on the phone networks, wires, etc. that used to give LEO enough actionable information to track some criminals. But most of that has been obsoleted by modern cryptography.
Don’t understand this pessimism. There are a large number of countries in the world. You can migrate out of a country if they start doing insane things like this.
I would consider leaving UK very seriously if I was building a life there now, as an example.
>Don’t understand this pessimism. There are a large number of countries in the world. You can migrate out of a country if they start doing insane things like this.
Unfortunately in 2025 it is a race to the bottom. While some countries (such as the UK) are sinking faster than others, there isn't a single country I can think of that is moving in the right direction when it comes to privacy, free speech and civil liberties.
It's not a game they are interested in playing.
As someone who knows enough about how much CISCO equipment is purchased around the globe for DPI and privacy invasion as a government business is booming.
> But most of that has been obsoleted by modern cryptography.
Except that people are people, and people make mistakes, and it doesn't take a lot of mistakes to fail in your opsec, and then your whole plot unravels.