Jimmycrackcrack ,

As part of just living in.... the world, I already kind of assumed it was possible for some parties, credit card companies in particular, to pry in to my financial activity and also interested governments to compel banks to hand over whatever they had, and/or possibly just hand over everything about everyone to government all the time automatically. This was bad enough, however, even I was surprised and shocked to learn how bad it was with my own bank when they sent me a letter gleefully telling me that as of the date of the letter they had now managed to sell my data to even more 3rd parties. I was not, up until that point aware that they were selling my data at all, and that 3rd parties (other than the credit card company) were getting access to it not just because of powers to compel, like people might expect of governments, but purely because the bank was literally handing it over to whoever was willing to pay for it, no consent on my part necessary. I don't know what changed that required them to apparently have to now disclose this to me, but I assume that they were forced, hence the letter. The sneaky motherfuckers didn't frame it that way though, not "due to recent legislation the bank is obliged to inform you blah blah blah", no just "good news removed, we were selling your data, we still are, but we used to too, and now we're selling it to more people, hope you like egregiously unethical behaviour because we put a travesty in to our travesty so you can experience a travesty while processing the first travesty".

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

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kugmo ,
@kugmo@sh.itjust.works avatar

mpv https://odysee.com/@NaomiBrockwell:4/Financial-surveillance:e?r=2zW2U8ZcN8MsrJT5cgp9uunSj5LEJEDR

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Wut

rcbrk ,

It's a talking-head video presentation on a well-known video publishing website.

Given your browser couldn't show anything useful from that webpage, @kugmo offered a solution: just feed the URL into mpv, which happens to be excellent at playing audio/video from web pages if you also have yt-dlp installed.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

My bank knows my employer and which ATM I take money out of.

thesmokingman ,

If you’re in the US, your bank knows way more about you than that and it’s naive to believe otherwise. A lack of credit doesn’t mean a lack of tracking; it just means your data is being pulled from elsewhere.

If you’re not in the US, you might have a better chance at privacy.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

What data? My point is that I use cash.

thesmokingman ,

Do you have a drivers license? A social security number? A phone number that you’ve used for anything else? Utility bills? Relatives? A car? Other large property?

Cash doesn’t mean shit unless you pay for everything in cash and never use the same info (including name, address, phone number, social, etc) for everything.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

No car, no property, no phone number.

I don't think a bank having my social security number is a privacy risk.

I do not give my name when I buy groceries or 99% of purchases. I don't see your point.

thesmokingman ,

It’s okay to be naive! The video talks about what data your bank has and how that gets used, as a security professional I know how all of this data is tied together plus the other data (assuming you don’t vote either?), and you don’t think there is anything tied to you so cool. Have fun with that. Keep pushing crypto.

smileyhead ,

I really hope GNU Taller actually get adopted by at least one bank as it got funding for coming years.

knightly ,
@knightly@pawb.social avatar

I work in this industry and I can confirm that there's fucking nothing ensuring the privacy of these transactions. Tens of thousands of people have full access to everyone's credit card history, and that's not counting unauthorized access and card skimmers.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

the bank worker i interacted with the other day just casually had access to everything

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Don't use credit cards. Use cash (or Monero if buying online).

shortwavesurfer ,

Exactly. Those are the only two ways of ensuring privacy.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Well, there's zcash too

shortwavesurfer ,

Yes, but since their chain has transparent and private transactions, then somebody knows you did a private transaction, which is still a problem. It becomes a, why didn't you use a public transaction? What did you buy with that private transaction? Why did you need that private transaction? Why couldn't it have been a public transaction?

With Monero, since all transactions are private at all times, there's no need to ask that.

shortwavesurfer ,

Makes me glad I use Monero because nobody besides me and the recipient has access to that transaction.

shortwavesurfer ,

Opt out, use Monero.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Not the greatest solution

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Why?

knightly ,
@knightly@pawb.social avatar

Crypto is just as insecure as credit cards. The whole point of the blockchain is that everyone can see all transactions.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

You're talking about privacy, not security.

In crypto all transfers require a cryptographic signature from a private key that doesn't have to be shared. In credit cards, you literally give your private key to the merchant and trust them to take the right amount. The difference of these two security models is enormous.

Also, privacy coins are private. The blockchain isn't a ledger that shows who spent what to who in privacy coins like Monero.

DisgracedDoctor ,

Not Monero!

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Crypto

shortwavesurfer ,

You are dismissing an entire category with that one word. Are you sure you're not throwing out any babies with that bathwater?

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Crypto is problematic for many reasons.

Scolding0513 ,

you probably invested in it and lost a bunch of money. people who blindly and universally hate crypto as a whole usually got fucked over in a scam or in the markets

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

so I can buy illicit drugs, and...?

wake me up when I can use it to buy my fucking groceries.

shortwavesurfer ,

I buy groceries with monero every month since Jan 2023 to present

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

sure, if you are in the little restricted areas where this is possible

shortwavesurfer ,

What do you mean by little restricted areas? Because I could do it anywhere in the United States. And that doesn't seem like a little restricted area.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

the united states is what, 5% of the world's population?

the rest of the planet exists dude.

ReversalHatchery ,

If you pay for privacy oriented online services, mostly by providing a privacy respecting service, they often accept Monero.

Off the top of my had I know that Mullvad VPN and Standard Notes accept Monero, but if you look for it, there are probably more.
Other than that, PrivacyGuides recommends CoinCards as a gift card store that accept Monero payments. CC has gift cards for several popular online services. They are not yet available in Europe, but if you know that the service you want to sign up for does not enforce using the gift card in the appropriate region, you can buy it from a region that is already supported.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

the world doesnt consist of the us and europe. in fact those are like, 12% of the planets population combined?

DisgracedDoctor ,

I use it to buy gift cards in India, currently the most populous country on the planet(for better or for worse), that adds up to... 35-45% of the world population; the figure does not even include the African and south American countries where there is a significant adoption of cryptocurrencies due to high inflation rates of the local currency.

ReversalHatchery ,

Did you read my comment? I mean, you know, to the end.

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