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A comment on GNU Taler – Payment system for privacy-friendly, fast, easy online transactions. Parent comment

Re:GNU Taler – Payment system for privacy-friendly, fast, ea... by alkonaut on Saturday January 08, 2022 @07:47AM (#29851168)
The distinction between functioning democracies and dictatorships/autocracies is that in one you might need anonymous financial transactions to have dissent.

In the other, being able to hide transactions from authorities will quickly erode the democracy you have.

Whether complete financial anonymity is a net positive or negative is likely context dependent.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:GNU Taler – Payment system for privacy-friendly, fast, ea... by Nextgrid on Saturday January 08, 2022 @08:33AM (#29851511)
Which is why I think having transparency as a non-negotiable feature of the protocol is bad and calling it "privacy" is very misleading.

I edited my comment above to suggest a configurable level of disclosure which the sender & recipient can enforce, so that way the same protocol can support both traceable and anonymous payments depending on the desired use-case and local laws.

[ Parent | on HN ]