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The Telecom Digest for Mon, 10 Jan 2022
Volume 41 : Issue 8 : "text" format

table of contents
Signal's Cryptocurrency Feature Has Gone Worldwide

Message-ID: <20220109232154.36B7D869@telecom2018.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 23:21:54 +0000 (UTC) From: Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> Subject: Signal's Cryptocurrency Feature Has Gone Worldwide A beta "payments" feature now lets users of the popular encrypted messaging app send MobileCoin around the globe. IN THE SPRING of 2021, the encrypted communications app Signal announced that it would add a payments feature in beta for its users in the UK, testing out an integration with a relatively new, privacy-focused cryptocurrency called MobileCoin. But a much broader phase of that experiment has quietly been underway since mid-November. That's when Signal made the same feature accessible to all of its users without fanfare, offering the ability to send digital payments far more private than a credit card transaction--or a Bitcoin transfer--to many millions of phones. https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-cryptocurrency-payments/ Is-that-why-it's-so-evil department ... Cryptocurrency is being cried through every electronic village, as the epitome of evil and the certain destruction of the 'mericun way of life. Leaving aside the very real questions about Cryptocurrency's security and/or validity, and omitting the various real-world thefts and swindles which have occurred, there's a larger issue: the governments which have issued, and demadned we use, "fiat" currencies are peeing their collective pants about the possibility of Cryptocurrency challenging their own notes as a trusted medium of exchange. That fear contains three nightmares for the price of one: 1. If the guviment's "official" money isn't the only choice we can use as a "standard of value," then the "value" of the official "standard" becomes questionable. After all, whenever some guv'mint worthy demands we be suspicious of Cryptocurrency, (s)he's really admitting that his/her employer is terrified that citizens might wonder just how "valuable" the pieces of paper being cranked out of privately-owned printing presses really are. 2. Be-thankful-I-don't-take-it-all tax men are terrified that they won't be able to examine anyone's banking activity at will, without a search warrant. 3. A second (or third, fourth, etc.) form of currency makes it impossible to achieve political ends by manipulating the "value" of the "official" money. Inflation? The "fed" will take care of it, at the same time the privately owned banks that form it will profit from their own monetary policy. I'll stop now: the black helicopters are approaching. Bill

End of telecom Digest Mon, 10 Jan 2022

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