Many of those arguing for anonymity are truly arguing for power and the control of others. If we take into account the criminal violation by certain individuals of controls that are designed to provide privacy, we start to see the hypocrisy in the argument.
A perfect example is the http://twitter.com/BotFaketoshi system using a bot to illegally bypass controls, which in doing so represents a crime according to the DMCA.
The people behind such things argue that they are doing them to seek more privacy, and yet they are willing to violate the privacy of others. A closed Twitter account is private. When you exclude people by blocking them, you set the limits of privacy you choose. Twitter provides such privacy controls, and yet they fail to monitor them or ensure that others do not bypass them. In the European Union, there is an implied right to privacy. It is a fundamental human right.
And yet, Twitter and the trolls it supports and helps seek to bypass the controls.
They say that they are fighting for freedom, and yet they are crushing the privacy rights of others.
The right to free speech allows you to stand in a public place and talk if people will listen. It is not a right to fence the men and make them listen, nor is it a right for an audience. It is not a right to come to someone else’s talk and talk them down or talk over them, nor is it a right to be heard.
But free speech is a right to live in a world without trolls.
And privacy means that you can exclude people. If we cannot have private spaces where we can exclude other people, then we have nothing. Everyone needs some space where information can be shared with others in private, to discuss secrets, plan, and even set a rate on information. The rate on free speech and privacy allows us to charge people for coming and listening to us and to exclude those who won’t pay the rate. And it is not monetary in all cases. It can be as simple as being polite.
Knowledge asymmetry is important. We own the rights to all of our labour. The current socialism of the mind is a pernicious attack on the rights of man. The attack against intellectual property is an attack against the right of labour. All labour starts within and through the human mind. If an ox or horse works in a field, it will gain nothing. It is the human controlling it who gains the benefit of his and their work, and likewise, it is the human mind which creates all value.
In bypassing the controls, I set over my privacy, and in selecting who I want to share information with, those who create bots and other systems to breach controls over computer systems that are allowed to run on systems like Twitter radically alter how people interact.
Social media has become the cesspit it is because of the creative commons. People expect everything for free. The result is that trolls operate at the same level as the euridite. That those who want to interact to gain knowledge can be drowned out in the sea of ignorance that surrounds those who are paid to attack. It is what Bitcoin cures. Such individuals who act as trolls are ‘Sybils.’ They are parties without value.
Information comes at a cost.
Not all costs are monetary, some are a societal cost, and the way we act in the way we interact is a cost. Trolls bypass the ability to form rational relationships. They take away the ability to act in a manner that is civil and polite. In particular, they force us into a provision of acting as an aggrieved party. You do not have an unlimited right to free speech in all contexts. Even the U.S. Constitution does not allow you to walk into another person’s home and tell him or her your feelings. You do not have the right to invade the privacy of another and force your views on him or her. It is an attack on free speech.
The ability to block trolls on social media is critical. The ability to stop people to have them act within societal bounds is critical. In 2015, I was forced into a position that ultimately put every aspect of my life under a microscope. Contrary to popular opinion, at no point did I agree to sign publicly on a web page, and nor does it say so. One thing I’ve learnt in the interceding years is the ignorance of people and the inability of them to read past the headline.
The ability to exclude others has value. You have to act within the bounds of society if you want to be able to talk and interact without being excluded. It is not a bad thing, it is how culture and society develop. It is how children grow up and stop being toddlers throwing tantrums.
And yet, it is what many seek; they want chaos and a world they can watch burn.
Looking to the future
A part of free speech is learning and understanding the art of rhetoric and how you interact with others. I have had many faces and worn many masks. You can say it relates to the genesis of Bitcoin as Janus was the god of beginnings, time, and passages; like with Bitcoin, he looked both to the past and the future. Others get to maintain privacy, whether you create something does not change it. So, people’s need to understand my life is not their right.
Well, I get the guilty pleasure of watching those who seek to attack me end in pain. It is not something I’m proud of, but then, I’m human.
Unlike Canens, I do not get to throw myself into the Tiber in my final swan song; I have too much still to do. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there is no way you get to change that the organisation we have built will continue what I’m doing no matter what and, more importantly, can act with or without me now. It matters and is important, although there is still much for me to do.
Janus’ other mask
As a result of many things that I have not wanted, I’m going to have to go into court and verify properly my involvement with Bitcoin. I’m particularly not looking forward to doing so. It’s going to result in a lot of people losing money very quickly. There are a lot of vested interests that have been trying to slowly wean away from the sham Bitcoin BTC that has been airdropped due to my failure to help with scaling and not splitting off miners in 2017.
Some would always lose. There’s nothing I can do about it, but I did hope to minimise everything and bring it down simply and easily. But like it or not, I am going to be in court this year, and like it or not, I don’t have the choice. I did all I could to hide and suppress information concerning the development of Bitcoin and much more, but in the next 12 to 18 months, there will not be much left in secret about the start of the system. In a way, it saddens me.
Trust me, it won’t stop me.
I will simply do my utmost to suppress as much as I can. Some things will remain with the court and only be revealed within the privacy of the court. The problem, of course, is that there are no steganographic controls that one can place across talking. Even when there is a court order protecting privacy, we already know that such things leak. I’m not holding it against the court or law. Even with orders stopping the dissemination of information, people talk. So is reality, and I understand.
It saddens me, because it was my right to privacy and not your right to know.
I did all I could to muddy the waters. I did all I could to stay private and have a life with parts that remain mine. Early on, I could even put up with the false claims of fraud, knowing that in the long term it’s not going to matter, but people are going to discover that they have made an error that they are going to be very sorry for.
I spent a long time designing Bitcoin, there are few flaws left. The code needs work still, but it is a separate thing to the protocol. No, BTC is not even close to Bitcoin and very simple to stop. People fail to understand that decentralisation is about power. The only way to decentralise power is to affix and set the protocol immutably and allow no change. A system that can be altered is not decentralised.
Here, of course, lies the problem with Twitter. It is a central platform that allows a group of individuals to skew the results which should be neutral. But it will change. They have spurred us into action, and they will find that we will replace them. I did not really want to act; I wanted to sit and design and allow others to build, but it seems I do not get such a privilege, I do not get to be the architect, but need to take responsibility for my creations.
Unfortunately for many, it is going to be painful. Bitcoin is a protocol and platform, and it is designed in such a way that in the end, only one will survive. We don’t publish patents until we need to. We are not a normal Silicon Valley company that needs to seek money but rather one that can stay in the shadows and push and steer the direction of the world. Soon, you are going to see what it all means.
Not in a way that you are understanding nor shall.
But then, many of you have taken my rights. You forced me to act when I did not want to, and you are about to see what it means. We will start with one or two and move from there, and doing so will lead to the collapse of the whole Ponzi as the dominoes fall one after another.
As you discover what I am and what I have, you are going to discover that I plan and plot over the decades. More importantly, you still have no idea. I will work to ensure that stays for as long as possible, but unfortunately, some of the same plan will be curtailed by fools.
It is a human right to privacy; not allowing but having others force their way into your home, onto your property, that is acting outside the bounds that are set on them, means to allow chaos and restrict freedom.
It is an attack on the rights of humanity to force others to listen to what you have to say. You have no right to make other people hear you. When YouTube closes your account for violations of hate speech it is not an attack on freedom. But when they take action to restrict the rights of those talking because of politics or finance, and yet they seek to say that the platform is open, it is an attack on freedom. It is not government in this case, but individuals.
Twitter has a right to choose the policies on the site within the law. But once it does, the enforcement of the rights must be equal. Allowing criminal and illegal systems and people who commit hate crime is not free speech, nor is it part of what the company can legally allow. It is an attack on society. Then, many seek the same.
Lucky for me, and unlikely for many others, I have the resources at hand and the help of others that allow me to weather it and more, to cause more damage to my enemies in their attack on freedom than they can imagine. What you did not want is about to happen. When we go to court, you will see how much pain will result on your end and how little comes to mine.
I did not want to have to go down such a path, I did not want to give up my privacy, but please understand; though I have a long time frame, I also remember and act.