Privacy Chapter

content/docs/privacy/Commerce.md

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+## Commerce
+
+Imagine you need to pick up something sensitive from a pharmacy. Maybe
+pregnancy tests, intimate lubricant, laxitaves, hemorrhoid cream. Maybe you and
+your SO wanted to try something new and bought something special from an adult
+store. Maybe you just have one secluded coffee shop where no one you know goes,
+so you can have some time in your own head.
+
+In all of these, the go-to method of payment is a Visa or Mastercard issued by
+a bank or a line of credit tied to your name. Every barcode scanned goes into
+a central database of the vendor, and/or a third party. Your bank also gets a
+copy of how much you spent, along with the time and location.
+
+These companies all sell data into common dossiers with all the plain text
+information they legally can, and auction it off. In cases where pesky data
+privacy laws get in the way of selling data directly, they process it first.
+Your data goes into advanced prediction engines to make guesses about your
+alcohol consumption, diet, religion, political leanings, and what the most
+effective ways to manipulate you are. These engines power ad networks
+that quite literally sell changes in your behavior as a service.
+
+Let's say for a moment you don't care about any of that. Let's say you trust
+Google, Apple, Stripe, Visa, etc would never do anything not in your best
+interest and exist only to make your life easier as public servants. Even in
+that fictional world, the reality would remain that humans still write the code
+that power all of those systems, and every type of company from power plants,
+to major banks, to big box stores all get hacked via security oversights, or
+negligence.
+
+Now your favorite coffee shop, sex store purchases, pharmacy purchases,
+charitable donations, and the daycare you drop your kids off at are all public.
+
+Even if the entity itself does not get hacked, your accounts might be. Banks
+will literally hand control of your account over to anyone that asks real
+nicely with a social security number they figured out on their own from public
+records. If you were born before 2011 in the USA your SSN is based on the
+hospital you were born in and those prefixes are public. Even if you were born
+after 2011, companies that ask for your SSN get hacked frequently and they are
+sold online.
+
+In the United States alone, one out of three pepole experience identity theft
+at least once in their lifetimes. Are you feeling lucky?
+
+Protecting the value you work hard to build in this world, and the information
+about how you spend it, is one of the most important self defense tactics you
+can take in a world where people are more likely to rob you with a phone call
+than a knive in a dark alley.
+
+In this chapter we will explore alternatives to Venmo, Cashapp, Paypal, and
+credit cards that protect you from those that wish to hurt you for profit.
+
+### Cash
+
+Almost no one uses cash anymore, and there are good reasons for that, but there
+are also really important and less obvious reasons we should push through the
+drawbacks and use cash everywhere we can.
+
+#### Why cash sucks
+
+* Checking out often takes longer
+  * It confuses younger generations at checkout counters.
+* It requires going to ATMs and Banks frequently to get more of it out
+* If you lose it or it is stolen, it is gone forever
+* It requires doing math all the time
+* Carrying around change is a pain
+  * If it bothers you, drop it in the tip jar.
+
+#### Why you should use it anyway.
+
+* It requires doing math all the time
+  * You will get fast at doing math in your head and it will improve your life.
+* It puts limits on how much you can spend
+  * And in turn makes you aware of how much you are spending
+* It saves businesses 5% in transaction processing fees
+  * Ask the owners of local small businesses. Most prefer cash.
+    * Paypal charges up to 5% and Square is 3.5%+ on every transaction.
+* It avoids any record of who you are, or what you purchased.
+  * Records that don't exist don't get stolen or sold
+* You can pay your bill and leave any time at a restaurant
+  * It is socially acceptable to drop cash and leave. Let them keep the change.
+* You can get priority service at bars.
+  * Give them a $5 on the first drink and they will take care of you all night
+
+#### When cash isn't accepted?
+
+Some parking systems and self-checkouts only take cards. Avoid these when you
+can, but sometimes you can't. In these cases having visa gift cards around
+you bought anonymously with cash will do the job almost anywhere.
+
+### Bitcoin
+
+Many readers cringe the moment they saw this as a title, and there are some
+real drawbacks of Bitcoin, but there are also a number of cases where it is the
+most private, practical, and green way to make a purchase while protecting your
+privacy.
+
+If you are reading this, you are probably not sold on using Bitcoin as an
+actual currency yet, but we hope to make a fair case for the pros and cons.
+
+Other readers here are screaming "What about Monero, ZCash, and X random coin".
+
+Well, yes, those exist and have many noteworthy advantages but Bitcoin is
+currently the only cryptoasset with any useful level of adoption in commerce.
+If you are aware of a niche vendor that accepts Monero, then you don't need us
+to tell you that is a great privacy option.
+
+#### Why people think Bitcoin sucks
+
+##### "It uses a lot of energy"
+
+  * Lightning network already enables near zero energy transactions
+    * These transactions are peer to peer and invisible to the Bitcoin network
+  * Mining will still use energy, though the network rewards cheapest KW/h.
+    * All miners compete for profitability at small margins over energy cost
+    * It will soon be impractical to generate mining profits on fossil fuels
+    * On track for Bitcoin mining using 70% renewables by 2030
+  * It uses dramatically less than mining Gold today
+    * Gold mining by design cannot use renewables
+
+##### "It is a pyramid scheme"
+  * First, let's define a pyramid scheme:
+    * Subordinate investors pay earnings to a higher level investor
+    * The scheme ends when higher levels "cash out" and abandon subordinates
+  * Now, let's define investment
+    * You believe something will succeed before the general public and buy it
+    * You end up being right, and the public does in fact increase demand
+    * You can choose to sell for more than your original purchase price
+  * Bitcoin functions as both a currency, and a speculative investment
+  * No central party controls the supply of Bitcoin
+  * It is true that early buyers that took more risk, did make a lot of profit
+  * If Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme, then so are stocks and gold.
+
+##### "It has no intrinsic value"
+
+  * Also known as: "Gold is useful, unlike bitcoin"
+    * Bitcoin and Gold both have niche uses, but majority use is value storage
+    * 92% of gold use is for value storage and jewelry
+
+##### "Only the rich can afford a Bitcoin"
+
+  * You don't need to buy a whole Bitcoin. You can buy $5 worth if you like.
+* It is volatile
+  * So are stocks, as anyone owning TSLA or TWTR can attest.
+  * Bitcoin has wildly outpreformed the dollar for over a decade.
+  * It will never inflate by design, unlike the 8%+ annual loss in USD
+    * Inflation is a major source of economic pain and inequality.
+      * See: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
+
+##### "It is used for terrorism, fraud, and money laundering"
+
+  * Fiat currency is used even more often for the same things.
+  * Highways are used for human trafficking.
+  * The internet is used to spread child porn.
+  * Cooking knives are used to murder people.
+  * A tool can be used for both constructive and destructive purposes.
+
+#### "You are screwed if it gets lost or stolen"
+
+  * If you can avoid losing country identity documents, you can store BTC.
+    * You can store your bitcoin wallet:
+      * In your brain
+      * On paper as 24 words
+      * In an NFC ring, or implant
+      * Duplicated across sheets of paper spread across many locations
+      * "sharded" requiring paper from multiple locations to be combined
+    * You can share access with people you trust
+      * Multi-sig wallets allow multiple people to share wallet access
+      * You can permit spending only if only one or multiple parties agree.
+      * Agreement of a majority of friends could be
+
+#### "It has no privacy because all exchanges do KYC/AML."
+
+  * You can trade Bitcoin for Monero then for Bitcoin again for high privacy.
+  * You can buy from an ATM or a peer-to-peer source instead
+  * You can have employers, clients, and friends settle debts with you in BTC.
+
+#### Why Bitcoin /actually/ sucks
+
+* Most popular storage options have terrible security
+* Only the very well informed can avoid falling prey to thieves and scammers
+* Most secure storage options have a steep learning curve
+* Bitcoin ATMs are only common in major metropolitan areas
+* Not many businesses accept it yet
+* Any government could shut it down if they really wanted to
+* It is written in a language that make security mistakes easy
+* There is very little implementation diversity
+* Most nodes are deployed with terrible security practices
+* Most nodes are slow to apply upgrades and patches
+
+#### Why you should use it anyway
+
+* Many online vendors allow only Paypal or Bitcoin.
+  * Bitcoin is normally lower fees and substantially more private
+  * Option for much stronger privacy when traded for Monero and back to Bitcoin
+* Anonymously purchased BTC can preserve your privacy when spending.
+* You can hide it much more easily than cash
+  * A real problem in developing countries or for homeless individuals.
+* Buying incrementally with dollar cost averaging beats savings accounts.
+  * Any deflationary asset in demand is better to hold than USD
+  * Bitcoin can be directly spent or converted to USD when required quickly
+  * Modern savings accounts make negative interest when considering inflation
+  * Bitcoin is deflationary by design and not vulnerable to this problem
+* Governments can't easily seize a wallet stored in your brain.
+  * A false court accusation can't get your wallet frozen or drained
+* No one can easily prove you even have a self custodial Bitcoin wallet.
+* Properly stored Bitcoin can't be stolen by identity theft
+  * Proper storage:
+    * Checking: Mobile phone app with amount you can afford to lose
+    * Savings: Multisig "cold wallet" using hardware wallet devices

content/docs/privacy/index.md

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+# Privacy
+
+## Intro
+
+This document seeks to outline best practices for privacy and where possible,
+anonymity, in our day to day life in our present world where surveillance
+capitalisim and app culture are the default.
+
+## Communication
+
+## Transportation
+
+## Discoverability
+
+## Commerce