
Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously - ashitlerferad
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/01/online-publishers-readers-ad-block-surveillance-donate-anonymously
======
mjevans
That is a nice and lovely idea...

Only every government everywhere hates it.

If it is possible to pay for something anonymously, then there is no following
the money of others paying anonymously for other reasons. Including paying for
products or services that are illegal or even with money from such sales.

Yes, you might compare this to cash. Cash that everyone used to carry around.
It the higher denominations are marked (serial numbered), at least for US
currency. Still it takes a LOT of effort to track their flow. For any kind of
digital currency this scheme isn't tenable or repeatable. The tracking would
either be too easy to prevent abuse, or too easy to abuse (get around).

Maybe we can have this level of freedom, if we admit that being at war with
our population is a bad idea. If we allow the legal and controlled use of
current vices. It wouldn't be perfect, but at least in that world we could
probably get by with just controlling the income phase.

Though if you wanted to tax wealth (not income) you'd also need to report a
total of 'outflow'. Which makes obtaining 'gifts' from sources not clearly
related to work a vector suspect as tax avoidance via temporal displacement of
wealth.

~~~
lumberjack
He's plugging GNU Taler which was specifically designed to be government
friendly (allows collection of taxes and AML compliance and not easy to
implement black markets). He's not talking about other kind cryptocurrencies.
Stallman isn't a "down with the government" type of person despite being
sceptical of surveillance.

~~~
mirimir
So the title of his article is a lie, then.

> Publishers must let online readers pay for news anonymously

It's not anonymous if GNU Taler knows user identity.

~~~
p4bl0
GNU Taler is a technology, not a company, so it doesn't "know" things in the
sense that would be bothersome here.

From GNU Taler's website:

“When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed to the
merchant. The bank, government and exchange will also never learn how you
spent your electronic money. However, you can prove that you paid in court if
necessary.”

~~~
mirimir
OK, the exchange will know your identity. That's not anonymous.

Edit: Anonymity is a strong claim. Even Tor daemon warns "This is experimental
software. Do not rely on it for strong anonymity."

~~~
p4bl0
There are ways to prove things without disclosing them using crypto.

A very simple example is using hashing. Let's say two friends A and B want to
play head-or-tail in a chat discussion. If A first tells "head" or "tail" and
then do the draw and win, B won't trust that A did not cheat. But if B do the
draw, then A won't trust them. What you need is a way for either A or B to
choose between "head" or "tail" and them commit to that choice and be able to
prove it to the other _after_ the other made the draw. This is possible
without any trusted third-party:

— A choose for example "tail", they can hash that choice along with a
"password" (generally called salt). For example they hash "tailLO7f-(86F" with
md5, the result is "a079dcaae211e60756e5519058dcfc97".

— A sends that hash to B. B cannot know from the hash if A chose "head" or
"tail", because the hash computation is way too difficult to inverse and they
do not know the password to add after "head" or "tail".

— B draws a coin (or even chose the result, it doesn't really matter) and
tells the result to A.

— Then A can prove to B that they chose "tail", by telling B the password
"LO7f-(86F" so B can add that to "tail" and verify A's claim by computing the
hash themselves.

Now this is a very simple example of how it is possible to prove things
without disclosing information. It is of course much more complicated in the
settings of financial transactions with multiple parties, but it shows that it
is possible if necessary prove previously undisclosed claims.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, I know that stuff. What I don't know is how Taler exchanges would handle
customer information. The reliance on bank transfers and card payments is
troubling. I've read [https://taler.net/](https://taler.net/) with some care,
and I'm still not clear.

At [https://taler.net/governments](https://taler.net/governments) I see:

> Taler is an electronic payment system that was built with the goal of
> supporting taxation. With Taler, the receiver of any form of payment is
> known, and the payment information comes attached with some details about
> what the payment was made for (but not the identity of the customer). Thus,
> governments can use this data to tax buisnesses and individuals based on
> their income, making tax evasion and black markets less viable.

However, at [https://taler.net/citizens](https://taler.net/citizens) I see
nothing about anonymizing deposits via bank transfer from payments. I can buy
Bitcoin in the same way. But before I spend them, I can anonymize by mixing
via Tor. Without that step, there is no substantive anonymity.

~~~
p4bl0
If I understand correctly, the reliance on bank transfers and card payments is
only to put money in your wallet, which is a distinct (and asynchronous)
operation from anonymous purchase. Kind of like a cash withdrawal irl (except
it is not as obvious as looking at the bill's serial number to track where you
spent the money).

For more information you can take a look at
[https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/taler2016space.pdf](https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/taler2016space.pdf)
(the Taler specific part starts at page 7).

~~~
mirimir
Thanks :)

> The focus of this paper is GNU Taler, a new free software payment system
> designed to meet certain key ethical considerations from a social liberalism
> perspective. In Taler, the paying customer remains anonymous while the
> merchant is easily identified and thus taxable. Here, anonymous simply means
> that the payment process does not require any personal information from the
> customer, and that different transactions by the same customer are
> unlinkable. Naturally, the specifics of the transaction|such as delivery of
> goods to a shipping address, or the use of non-anonymous IP-based
> communication|may still leak information about the customer's identity.

That sounds pretty good, except for merchants ;)

But exchanges would clearly know customer identity, and they also handle
payment to merchants, so there's the need to trust a single party. Real
anonymity is impossible under those circumstances.

Have I missed something?

------
blfr
Is this really the reason people block ads?

I don't actually mind tracking as part of a useful service (like Google Maps).
I block ads because they're 1) annoying 2) funding mass media.

Depriving Bezos' WaPo or Slim's NYT of revenue is definitely a feature. If
billionaires want to push propaganda, the least they can do is foot the bill.

Tracking is a distant third. If an outlet I cared about ran ads, I'd white-
list them. It just so happens that valuable sites like HN or developers' blogs
either don't feature ads or do so in a way that adblockers don't interfere
with (look at job posts here).

~~~
witty_username
If you don't want to fund mass media, why are you reading it?

Reading it implies it has some value.

~~~
pessimizer
I read all kinds of things that I wouldn't want to fund. I read things that I
would pay to get unpublished. I've spent hours reading Stormfront and
Breitbart. I've even read Tom Friedman, god help me.

You don't listen to anybody you wouldn't pay? I listen to people I would pay
to have behind bars.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I've thought before about online commerce, and wish we could find some way to
adopt a Vending Machine model.

A vending machine is autonomous. It neither tracks nor engages the customer.
It takes your money, and dispenses product. Since cash is untraceable, it
keeps no record of what was bought and by whom. I feel at peace knowing I will
give a vending machine a dollar, and I will receive a Coke, without fearing
that I will start seeing targeted ads on my browser or in my inbox showing me
more Coke products.

The problem, of course, is that the amount of money lost to a vending machine
is negligible. And so if the soda machine eats my dollar, I will probably
swear for a bit, but I'm not going to do much to seek recourse. That model
would be difficult to extend to, say, Amazon, where I might buy an $800 laptop
and _need_ Amazon to have a record that I bought it in case they ship me a
lemon.

Nonetheless, I still feel that the Vending Machine Model is something we
should aspire to in the e-commerce age, even if we haven't reached it yet.

~~~
knowtheory
Are vending machines really that analogous?

Vending machines are all about placement & location, and the ability of a
vendor to find high traffic locations to put machines.

Machines get placed based on info about locations whether it's demographics,
or a kind of business or whatever.

Individual transactions may not have identity tied to them, but it's not like
the business is devoid of information about users, or hypotheses about them.

And on the internet... how do you get that info from your users aside from
usage analytics (even if it's gross analytics)?

~~~
paulddraper
Vending machines certainly track purchases. They just don't track the people
making the purchases.

The Internet can be the same. Lots of people buy X. Let's offer more if that.
Y is a high traffic location (L as in URL). Etc.

------
lumberjack
I mean he's right but as a business model it doesn't work. Also for people who
haven't realised this is a plug for GNU Taler.

Anyway. I think the reason it doesn't work as a business model is that really,
honestly, reading the paper provides very little in terms of value to the
average person. It's a very mild source of entertainment and nothing more. It
used to be that the newspapers where the only media to get important
information (classifieds, job ads...etc). Not any more.

~~~
RVuRnvbM2e
I strongly disagree.

I order a physical (weekly) newspaper for two reasons:

a) It provides a broad range of interesting articles on topics which are
otherwise outside my filter bubble. This is incredibly important in an era
where many people get all their news through their facebook feed.

b) It's perfect to flick through over breakfast :)

~~~
jasonkostempski
What is the name of the newspaper?

~~~
RVuRnvbM2e
Coincidentally enough, given TFA:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_Weekly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_Weekly)

~~~
danieldk
It should also be mentioned that The Guardian is one of those newspapers that
is willing to experiment with different models. E.g., they have a premium tier
on iOS and Android for 3 Euro per month without ads:

[https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1](https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1)

------
mrfusion
I'm still appalled when an ebook accepts Bitcoin but still asks for your
"billing address".

~~~
ldjb
I don't know about other countries, but here in the EU businesses are often
required to collect customers' billing address to comply with EU regulation,
such as the VAT MOSS.

------
rolfvandekrol
I find it interesting that this article is published on a platform that makes
uBlock block 27 requests and most certainly does contain non-free javascript.
Richard Stallman talks a lot about how these thing inhibit freedom and that we
should not support those companies. But when he publishes an article on ad
blocking he does this on a platform that absolutely does not meet his standard
on freedom.

~~~
madeofpalk
I'm guessing he's going for the lessor of (n) evils?

~~~
cyphar
I don't think I've ever seen Stallman taking the "lesser evil" philosophy. As
a smarter man than me said: "The lesser of two evils is still evil, and the
enemy of my enemy is not my friend."

------
daw___
Is this something Brave is implementing with its "Brave Payments" [0]?

[0] [https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave-
payments](https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave-payments) , HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411405)

~~~
davidgerard
Brave uses Bitcoin, which is otherwise known as "prosecution futures", so
doesn't really fit the bill.

~~~
daw___
Got it, thanks.

------
smartbit
See previous discussions on Taler

GNU Taler 0.0.0 released
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840453)

GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258312)

------
mverwijs
A lot of them do. Per article. It's called
[https://blendle.com](https://blendle.com). Only an email address is required.
And money. And it's not libre.

~~~
clydethefrog
Blendle also tracks which articles you read. They also are working on an
algorithm that picks the news for you, creating a filter bubble.

~~~
mverwijs
The filter will be opt-in, obviously.

And, again obviously, they need to keep track of which account is allowed
access to which article. If only to allow you to read the article across
multiple devices.

(Former employee here. Not in the exact loop these past 12 months)

------
Normal_gaussian
I find it surprising that we havent already got a payment gateway that handles
the entire user identity, including email forwarding.

I also hadn't realised Stallman wrote for the Guardian, but going through his
historic articles shows a healthy number of articles.

~~~
ex3ndr
Who will integrate such things? Everybody want's to know who is paying you.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
As a startup it doesn't quite work, as the large companies that will want that
info.

As a feature added to an existing gateway - say Amazon or Google - it could
allow anonymized demographics whilst not exposing you to all kinds of data
protection issues.

One of the main reasons for using a payment gateway is to avoid the legal
requirements for card handling, it seems like a logical extension to me.

------
n0ke
It could be a really good use case for a crypto currency. But eg. Bitcoin
needs too long for a finished transaction (I don't want to wait ~10 minuntes
until I can read an article). And you still can track down a person who
purchased (separately) two articles by his keys or analysing the block chain.

I know we've a lot of crypto currencies right now, but I really hope that
there is finally a new one coming, which is just simply fast, secure and
somehow helps you paying anonymously.

~~~
inlineint
In case of an article (which is cheap) there is no need to wait for
confirmation, it's enough to wait for transaction to appear in mempool and
have enough fee.

------
mtgx
Seems like this is what Brave is trying to do, too:

[https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave-
payments/](https://blog.brave.com/introducing-brave-payments/)

------
jstimpfle
> Tracking, as we know, gives companies and governments dangerous power; the
> intimidating effect of general surveillance has been measured and is
> massive. The rate of visits to some Wikipedia pages – those about “al-
> Qaida”, “car bomb” and “Taliban” – declined by one-fifth after Edward
> Snowden showed us how much the US government spies on our internet activity.

