> Don't use mixers and tumblers, use Monero and/or Monero atomic swaps.
Monero doesn’t make your transactions anonymous, it makes them ambiguous. your wallet might default to using an n=6 ring signature, meaning it picks 5 random addresses with balances and creates a transaction that could have plausibly originated from any of those 5 or your own. so you get plausible deniability, but also if your threat actor can unmask the other 5 addresses (which might not be so hard if those accounts are regularly interacting with exchanges) then you’re done.
zcash gets you actual transaction-level anonymity, not just ambiguity. fewer places accept it, but in theory you can still break the link by obtaining zcash and then exchanging it for the currency of your choice on any exchange that doesn’t ask for PII (e.g. a DEX)
live offline. as long as you’re not completely socially incompetent you can be largely yourself in most situations, find people you jive with, and then be completely yourself with them. unless your threat level is “my phone’s recording everything in the room 24/7 and sending that to authorities”, you’re free to do all the illegal drugs you want with your friends, use the N-word, do all the other things which you thing you should be able to freely do but for some reason aren’t able to do comfortably in public.
if you must do things online that are best kept detached from your IRL/govt identity, setup a box running something like Tails that doesn’t accept any non-Tor traffic, and interact with it through a text-only interface (i.e. a shell, or links-like keyboard-driven web browser).
people sometimes discourage using obscure setups because they allow better fingerprinting but that’s not always as bad as it’s made out to be. primarily you want to break the link between your pseudonymous identity and your IRL identity. it doesn’t matter how fingerprintable your pseudonym is so long as the overlap between it and your IRL identity is small. and that’s the reason to prefer simpler interfaces like text-only: they prevent leaking things like cursor movements which might otherwise build a tie between those identities.
> i agree with the sentiment, however, it’s wishful thinking.
if you’re trying to persuade me that i shouldn’t use SN as an unwilling test subject, save your breath: i’m not engaged in any effort to de-anonymize him. his project is founded on adversarial mechanics within an extrajudicial (i.e. lawless) space: it’s naive to think those mechanics won’t bleed over from the project to its adjacencies. that’s the point i’m trying to make.
i agree with the sentiment, however, it’s wishful thinking.
Bitcoin exists in a space within game theory where everyone is in a constant adversarial relation with everyone else. it’s an explicit design, and that relationship is the only way we really know that the software and cryptography are sound. but you can’t completely isolate the protocol from its surroundings. the adversarial challenge of trying to break the bitcoin protocol is going to leak into the adjacent challenge of trying to de-anonymous the person who explicitly wanted to remain pseudonymous. in a twisted sense, if SN remains pseudonymous under the extreme pressure of thousands trying to de-anonymize him, that’s the only way we can really be sure that anonymization is still possible in the modern age.
It’s weird to focus on the upper end of the market for a thing like this. If the utility in automated construction is to reduce costs, it might make more sense to consider the more price-conscious portion of the market. I.e. starter homes and the like. My guess is that since there are so many other large costs involve in home construction, automating this one component just doesn’t make a significant price impact in almost any market segment.
I suppose you have a point. There are plenty of reputable people out there building strong identities on pseudonyms. But if you’re trying to be truly anonymous, as opposed to pseudononymous, and aren’t tying that identity to anything outside of the one enterprise, that could mean you’re putting less on the line with your reputation. Or it could mean that this is just you starting to build an identity, since everyone has to start somewhere. But either case has the same characteristics common with burner identities, so you’d be justified in being skeptical and cautious.
So the company is run by people who enjoy privacy? It seems weird to frame that alone as an argument against a company which deals in Virtual PRIVATE Networks.
It cuts both ways though. You only have so much time you’ll spend socializing. In a lifetime you’ll meet maybe 0.001% of the people you possibly could have. If you aren’t discerning with who you give your time to, you’ll miss out on more and more of what could have been better relationships.
It’s easiest demonstrated at large events or parties: there might be 200 people you could meet, and you have 3 hours there. If you weren’t discerning, you’ll spend 80% of your time just with whoever happened to be loudest and you’ll not meet lots of the more compatible people there. In reality, you can make snap decisions about whether a relationship is worth pursuing with > 50% chance. “This person is whining about how awful their spouse is”: probably not someone you’ll be able to mutually respect. “This person refuses to make eye contact with me”: probably not someone you’ll have any real intimacy with. And so on. These might be wrong 20% of the time you apply them, but even so you’ve boosted your chance of meeting someone compatible at this 3 hour party. These aren’t questions like “I like to play Super Mario Bros”, these are trying to gauge real deep-seated, fundamental personality traits like “I’m driven by a curiosity of the world around me”, or “I tend to the people in my life”. These are things that really do matter in relationships. I know I want my friends or spouse to tend to the people in their life. I know that without curious people around me I lose my motivation. Take that 0.001% of the world you’ll ever meet and be more discerning about which 0.001% that is. There’s nothing wrong with being selective about who you let into your life.
Monero doesn’t make your transactions anonymous, it makes them ambiguous. your wallet might default to using an n=6 ring signature, meaning it picks 5 random addresses with balances and creates a transaction that could have plausibly originated from any of those 5 or your own. so you get plausible deniability, but also if your threat actor can unmask the other 5 addresses (which might not be so hard if those accounts are regularly interacting with exchanges) then you’re done.
zcash gets you actual transaction-level anonymity, not just ambiguity. fewer places accept it, but in theory you can still break the link by obtaining zcash and then exchanging it for the currency of your choice on any exchange that doesn’t ask for PII (e.g. a DEX)