Interesting that you think only criminals want privacy. I use Signal and TLS too, I must be Pablo Escobar's second coming?
The end result is that if you're one of few company that offer privacy to your customers you'll find your customer base has a higher ratio of criminals as they'll all flock to you.
Will we reach a point where self hosting is seen as criminal?
People need to understand this. There is no solution for mobile device compromise other than to stop using these devices.
And if you cannot stop using them, then you must understand that everything you type, say and do on or around your mobile device is (or will be) public. So treat it like a public device at all times.
No, that's not how this works. You don't need criminal activity to provide you with anonymity. You just need ANY other activity in order to get lost in the crowd[1].
Your flawed view is that nobody should have privacy because some bad guys might use privacy to do bad things. Privacy advocates are the opposite. We say everybody deserves privacy as a human right, even if on occasion some bad guys take advantage of the privacy.
[1] https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/ringsignatur...
And that's irrelevant because these tools are explicitly built for criminals to use them. I'm actually quoting what the designers of these systems have said, this isn't my opinion. When you say "ANY other activity" that also means criminal activity gets lumped in there, I don't know why you're denying this. You're probably not a criminal but if you're using this then you're intentionally making criminals your company and you will pay for the effects of that in one way or another. That's the part where I'm speaking to you from experience. You just can't make an anonymized system like this that also isn't a lucrative target for criminals, such a thing doesn't exist. Is it unfortunate for those who aren't criminals and actually need privacy? Absolutely, but this is the reality of the situation. There's no easy solution. If someone is telling you that this isn't an issue then they're just lying to you, get mad at them instead of me.
>Your flawed view is that nobody should have privacy because some bad guys might use privacy to do bad things.
No, this also isn't even remotely close to what my actual view is. You just blatantly made this up for no reason. Why are you doing this?
This is yet another reason that it's so exhausting to talk about this, not only are you spreading misinformation about this project but you're also spreading misinformation about me. Misinformation and disinformation is actually incredibly common in these low-trust environments. If you think it's bad, I agree, it's actually incredibly shameful that some people try to use "privacy" as a cover to spread misinformation, but that's something else that you have to accept and deal with and insulate yourself from if you take this route. Please do a better job in the future and don't bring yourself down to this level of empty rhetoric. You're letting the liars and criminals win.
If you're acting this way because you see this route as some kind of moral outlet, I would suggest that you stop and find another one. This one is ethically gray and if you stick with it, you'll be peer pressured into excusing a lot of things that you're probably not comfortable with in the name of "privacy" at the expense of everything else. The moral rationalizations coming from these projects are strong, but are ultimately willful blind spots informed by money-making and capitalism just like everything else. Don't say that nobody warned you.
In other words the cost associated with the extra business that comes via Monero might be higher than the extra money that comes in.
And all major telcos have departments dedicated just to serve the authorities.
This was 5 times as expensive compared to when you paid by debit or credit card.
This offering was extremely popular amongst drug dealers and people needing a burner to call in a bomb threat. (Maybe there were legislate uses too - I never found out.)
The problem for the telco was that this was generating hundred fold the number of request for wire tapping and logging by the courts and the police. And by law the telco was required to service these request free of charge.
So in the end the business simply wasn’t there even though the margins were sky high.
Moral of the story: selling stuff to criminals might seem like easy money but may not be worth the trouble.