this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
40 points (90.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16270 readers
1 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Some Bitcoin hodlers will say, "Who cares about privacy? Isn't Monero just for criminals?"

In this fun short video, we'll break down a few of replies you can give: https://video.simplifiedprivacy.com/why-monero/

all 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Crypto is still a huge scam and waste of energy without any actual use-case, regardless of any privacy-issues!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If we're talking about value as a monetary system: yeah crypto is, bitcoin isn't

[–] ComplexLotus 1 points 1 year ago

So you want oppressed people to use the Chinese Yuan or Russian Rubel and Argentinian Pesos as their Currency (super unstable in value due to inflation, highly surveiled) rather than giving them choice to use something like Monero to transact in privacy?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I enjoy the boomer redditor hot takes against crypto here in fediverse.

I'll continue to pay for things in "scam" crypto, with merchants that continue to accept this "scam" crypto.

Anyone who blanket calls crypto a scam is delusional.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I dont actively follow crypto but I still know that this is and has been an outdated argument for quite some time. The relevant tokens have switched to proof of work. There are plenty of better things to criticize crypto for.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You know what's also bad for the environment? Typing on lemmy, you're using electricity

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So many are no longer proof of work based annddr have reduced energy consumption incredibly like Ethereum.

Literally, it's just Bitcoin and a few other altcoins that are 'bad' for the environment. As mining becomes less and less economically feasible for these coins, there will be greater demand for these coins to process more transactions more efficiently.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Idk, after having been in the crypto space in the past, I'm still pretty tempted to call it almost universally a scam.

Regardless of the environmental impacts (which has been solved by some blockchains, like you said), I just think it exposes users to a completely unacceptable amount of risk for very little gain.

You're required to be in complete charge of your own data security, and if your private key is stolen, you lose your life savings with no recourse. If you make a minor slip up and give permission to the wrong website, you'll lose everything in your hot wallet. If there's an error in a smart contract you use (which has happened many times), then all the money you've given to it could be taken from under your nose. You can't even, like, refund transactions -- there's no consumer protections at all.

But like, to what end? What's the actual benefit of using crypto? Sure, you can make anonymous transactions with XMR, that's a tangible use case. But what's the actual benefit to using something like Ethereum?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm pro XMR, but how is Fediverse anything to do with Crypto.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

sometimes i wonder if these people are trolling or for real, thanks brother