julkali

> the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies.

A one minute Google search revealed a quote from this politico article[1]:

> She [Nina Teicholz] is also an organizer of a fledgling group that is engaged in a vigorous advocacy campaign to reshape how the U.S. government determines what makes a healthy diet.

I recognize my initial quote didn't validate my claim, but it is nevertheless correct. And it may be true that _professional_ lobbyist need to be registered in the USA, but the term can also (perhaps only in other regions of the world) refer to any person lobbying.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying [1]: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/the-money-behind-the-...

This topic already made it to the current frontpage.

It is possible to create a scheme where transactions happen absolutely anonymously, both horizontally between payer and payee and vertically. Payments would thus be completely private given the used cryptography holds. However, it does require some authority that needs to be trusted, a national central bank for example. At this point, the currency would already be similar to regular cash in terms of trust and value.

> Users generally don't care and neither do they understand what privacy means.

I agree with you that there is still a lot of ground to gain, however there are also signs of change, one of which Signal's strong growth in the past months (1). There were weeks where I would get a message that someone from my contacts installed the app every day. This was, of course, triggered by WhatsApp's change of TOS.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-signal-users-idUSKBN29I27...

I believe that IF there is a privacy-enhancing alternative that is comparably comfortable to use, people do migrate. This would also agree with your claim that users take whatever's default.

Your remarks about trust and interoperability are very valid in my view also. To solve both of this, it would, I believe, need a system that is government backed, open standard and free of charge. The latter might of course be a little optimistic, however not impossible; especially European countries provide/host many administrative services for free, why not subsidize such a system as well.

I am thinking of a coin-based system where coins are created/distributed by each bank separately and can be either transferred seemlessly to another owner or exchanged at that bank for a regular currency. In terms of convenience, this could be as easy as scanning a QR code or a similar mobile implementation and should be no obstacle.

> Look at some societies like Germany where about half of all transactions still takes place in cash.

This is true, however especially due to the pandemic, there was a considerable shift towards cashless (2). In Munich area, for example, most of time I see people pay, they use debit or credit cards, especially young people.

[2] https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/coronavirus-surge-c...

And lastly, the connection to the amount of the expense is not clear to me, how does the amount have anything to do with the means in this particular case?

I agree with you, that we might not be there yet, also because viable protocols are missing, but I still stand by my belief that the shift is possible and by magnitudes more likely than back in 1999.

Chaum certainly was ahead of his time, and what he said will deeply resonate with any privacy advocate.

Now, more than two decades later, I believe his idea has much more potential.

Firstly people are a lot more educated, about how the web works in general, how valuable privacy is and about the strength of cryptography.

Secondly, it is no secret anymore that Visa et al. blatantly sell any data they have on their customers.

And lastly, any entity that wants to do business online or via card transactions has to pay high fees to Card/payment providers.

An open standard of electronic cash could solve these issues perfectly, undermining the existance of companies that only exist because they have a license.

Maybe the time has come for Chaum's legacy.

.) OsmAnd (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand)

.) MAPS.ME (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapswithme...)

For other alternatives to avoid getting your habits turned into money by big companies, check out https://ethical.net/

I wanted to share my findings to create the awareness that the mechanisms are there and it only takes a little misconfiguration (see https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/hmd-admits-the-nokia...) and all this goes straight to the Chinese authorities.