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Re: [Taler] your opinion on article: The cashless society is a con – an


From: Georges OIKONOMIDIS
Subject: Re: [Taler] your opinion on article: The cashless society is a con – and big finance is behind it | Brett Scott | Opinion | The Guardian
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 09:16:58 +0300

Dear Christian & Robert,

I totally agree with Christian's answer. All point is in his "with a single Taler payment provider we could provide consumers
with privacy for expenditures, while also ensuring accountability for
anyone receiving payments" phrase.

As far as power issues are rised, I think that there usually are of a only few hours duration, plus the technology for seamless operation is in place (as in surgeries or other crucial facilities). Beyond this if we only abandon the use of Banknotes but keep using coins, we could easily face such temporary inconveniences. Think of having let's say some 20 - 40 € in coins (a new coin of 5 € value included). I believe you could "survive" that two hours .
I remind : gobanknoteless.wordpress.com

Best Regards

Στις Τετ, 25 Ιουλ 2018, 08:46 ο χρήστης Christian Grothoff <address@hidden> έγραψε:
Dear Robert,

It depends a bit on what you mean by "centralization". The duopoly of
credit cards (Mastercard/Visacard) is a type of centralization, as is
having a European Central Bank or a global ledger. Some centralization
is even necessary, as pure peer-to-peer (aka disintermediated)
transactions would be virtually impossible to regulate.

However, the privacy issue itself does not arise from centralization.
Even with a single Taler payment provider we could provide consumers
with privacy for expenditures, while also ensuring accountability for
anyone receiving payments.

Naturally, our design does allow for many payment providers to exist,
but if there are too many, this may even hurt privacy: if the payment
clears via a payment provider that has a tiny customer base, I know the
payment was made from a customer within that tiny anonymity set. But I
don't predict this to be a major issue, as economies of scale will make
it difficult to sustain tiny payment provider operations.

The one big issue with paper-less (which Taler cannot solve) is that we
rely on the Internet (and thus also power grids) to operate. This will
be an issue in disaster scenarios, so ensuring that the population
retains the habit of having,  using and accepting some paper-based cash
would be good policy, not only from a privacy perspective but from a
survival perspective ;-).

My 2 cents

Christian

On 07/24/2018 12:01 PM, RIEMANN Robert wrote:
> Dear Taler Team, dear Jeff and Christian,
>
>  
>
> we have met at the CCC and I am following from distance your project.
> Data Protection Authorities have these days a closer look on blockchain
> to assess privacy implications.
>
>  
>
> The following Guardian article from last week reminded me again on a
> potential alternative to Bitcoin.
>
>  
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/19/cashless-society-con-big-finance-banks-closing-atms
>
>
>  
>
> If you can spare some minutes, I would be interesting in your opinion on
> how GNU Taler may contribute to the problem of tracking due to today's
> electronic payment schemes. Isn't the problem much more the
> centralisation inherent in our infrastructure and much less the fact
> that payment is paper-less (cashless)?
>
>  
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Robert
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  cid:image001.png@01D2BF79.52A9BF50
>
>       
>
> *Robert RIEMANN, Ph.D.*
> *Technology and Security Officer*
> ' (+32) 228 31843 | › MTS 03X054 
> Email address@hidden <mailto:address@hidden>
> *European Data Protection Supervisor*
> Postal address:
> Rue Wiertz 60, B-1047 Brussels
> Office address:
> Rue Montoyer 30, B-1000 Brussels
> address@hidden <http://twitter.com/EU_EDPS
> Website www.edps.europa.eu <http://www.edps.europa.eu/>
>
> privacy-conference <https://privacyconference2018.org/>
>
>  
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/19/cashless-society-con-big-finance-banks-closing-atms
>


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