The Privacy Iceberg

This is original content. AI was not used anywhere except for the bottom right image, simply because I could not find one similar enough to what I needed. This took around 6 hours to make.

Transcription (for the visually impaired)

(I tried my best)

The background is an iceberg with 6 levels, denoting 6 different levels of privacy.

The tip of the iceberg is titled “The Brainwashed” with a quote beside it that says “I have nothing to hide”. The logos depicted in this section are:

The surface section of the iceberg is titled “As seen on TV” with a quote beside it that says “This video is sponsored by…”. The logos depicted in this section are:

An underwater section of the iceberg is titled “The Beginner” with a quote beside it that says “I don’t like hackers and spying”. The logos depicted in this section are:

A lower section of the iceberg is titled “The Privacy Enthusiast” with a quote beside it that says “I have nothing I want to show”. The logos depicted in this section are:

An even lower section of the iceberg is titled “The Privacy Activist” with a quote beside it that says “Privacy is a human right”. The logos depicted in this section are:

The lowest portion of the iceberg is titled “The Ghost”. There is a quote beside it that has been intentionally redacted. The images depicted in this section are:

  • A cancel sign over a mobile phone, symbolizing “no electronics”
  • An illustration of a log cabin, symbolizing “living in a log cabin in the woods”
  • A picture of gold bars, symbolizing “paying only in gold”
  • A picture of a death certificate, symbolizing “faking your own death”
  • An AI generated picture of a person wearing a black hoodie, a baseball cap, a face mask, and reflective sunglasses, symbolizing “hiding ones identity in public”

End of transcription.

    • drathvedro@lemm.ee
      161·
      1 day ago

      You can absolutely use monero without converting it to other currency. You just haven’t looked in right places. Of course you can’t buy a loaf of bread with it, but you cannot use gold either, neither can you rent a server with something like mongolian togrog, yet, they’re all still valid forms of currency.

      • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        5·
        1 day ago

        Well, perhaps not Monero, and perhaps not a loaf of bread either, but also not far from that. One large e-shop in Slovakia I use (Alza) supports crypto payments via Confirmo (BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, SOL, POL, LTC, TRX). They sell mostly electronics, but also some food items.

        Now, since you’ve mentioned bread:
        image that is hopefully loading

        But I haven’t yet tried crypto.

    • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
      154·
      1 day ago

      It’s objectively more private, if you take your own bias out of the equation. Monero doesn’t get much use however, its not very popular but it is private.

        • misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          153·
          1 day ago

          Monero doesn’t need to be mainstream, it’s immediately useful for privacy. Its price could dump 99% and it would be equally useful. You buy some, make your transaction, enjoy your anonymity and then forget about it. It’s a tool, not an investment.

            • comfy@lemmy.ml
              3·
              13 hours ago

              It needs to be accepted as currency to be useful.

              My friend uses it to anonymously buy servers. Their country has a history of killing political activists so they take their privacy seriously when it comes to that kind of thing.

              I would say Monero was useful to them, at that time. It didn’t have to be mainstream to be useful. They weren’t investing in it. It allowed them to make an international transaction which is much harder to track than other accepted payment methods.

            • misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              43·
              1 day ago

              You can exchange it to another accepted crypto, or convert to fiat depending on what you’re trying to do. If you differ the exact amounts you buy and use, and delay the timing of your monero purchase and final purchase, it gives you anonymity. Or more like plausible deniability. Nobody said anonymity was convenient. You also don’t need every purchase to be anonymous for it to be useful.

              When you do most of those purchases you’re not anonymous to begin. But if you want to buy an embarrassing pornographic game on Steam and don’t want your payment provider to have “FURRYDICKS STUDIO” in your name, you sure can use Monero.

                • misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  51·
                  1 day ago

                  I think this is simply a privacy education issue. Here’s how to anonymously buy a steam game, step by step:

                  1. On an insecure computer, buy Bitcoin or other with your credit card
                  2. Exchange Bitcoin for monero on an exchange website
                  3. Send Monero to your private wallet
                  4. Now on your very secure computer, create a Steam account using an anonymous email, all through VPN/Tor
                  5. Create a Bitcoin or other wallet
                  6. Access your monero on this computer and exchange it for Bitcoin or other, sent to your wallet
                  7. Use Bitcoin or other to exchange to Fiat, Bitrefill looks like an option
                  8. Purchase Steam game

                  If your secure computer is totally anonymous, so is your purchase.

                  Of my last 1 million purchases, exactly zero were done this way. The currency is not worth zero so obviously it’s useful to some. “I don’t personally use it” is an unconvincing argument, you simply don’t care about private purchases which is totally ok.

                  If you were a progressive reporter in Saudi Arabia buying a web subscription to New York Times you would probably keep a balance of monero around, so these steps would take no time at all.

                  For the rest of us with nothing to hide, some of us use Monero like this simply to protect those who do need privacy. The more who use it, the better anonymity it provides.

        • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
          13·
          1 day ago

          Do you think credit cards are ideal? People happily pay a 4% fee to Visa to buy something at the store, yet you think a spot convert is going to be the death knell?

          As well as the deflation of their currency, as the currency increases at around 10% a year, as you’re praying that a CPI that does hedonic adjustments and substitutions maintains your standard of living; as we go from free range to factory farms, and housing appreciation is excluded entirety.

          Maybe it wont be bitcoin, maybe it will be fractional shares, or spot convert gold, but I am definitely waiting for the day when I can hold 0$ in cash. I’m already near 0, but I’d like to replace it entirely.

            • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
              1·
              1 day ago

              You want just a fatty wad of cash, and for tellers to sit there counting change or what?

              Or maybe a CBDC, so they can inflate it even more, giving out your purchasing power like like its a political football?

                • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
                  11·
                  1 day ago

                  Well its still early days, Biden was very against Crypto, so point of sales systems couldnt provide it. Companies like Square are now working on it, so you will be able to use it; or any form of cash you want, or fractional shares and gold etf.

                  Maybe all currencies will just be forced to compete on inflation one day, and everyone will use the one with the lowest annual growth in new supply.