In the latest bad, *sigh*, turn of events for the crypto world. We now have a new assault on our privacy. As Arkham Intelligence launched its new bounty marketplace. While wrighting this post it turned into somewhat of its own thing, and I just went with it. I hope that you will see it for what it is despite some of the dress-up I put on it.
Privacy at a premium
It is becoming more and more clear that our privacy is being stripped away from us. And it is not one of those a chip here and a chip here. This is a full-on Miley Cyrus wrecking ball going through. I remember growing up and jokingly making the "big brother" is watching you reference in jest. I even remember thinking the Big Brother name for the tv series was a bit of fun. But little did I know that now it would be everyone living in a worldwide Big Brother house. And no one even mentioned to us the possibility of saying no thank you to participate.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7CVIXS2T1ZE
Yes, he is talking about a vacuum cleaner connecting to Chinees cloud servers
But as Snowden pulled the will from our eyes. Very few people seemed to actually care about what he was saying and showing us what was going on under our noses. After the 9/11 attacks in the US, they seemingly decided, and put into law, that everyone's privacy where to be no more. It was to be put in the back of a truck and driven to the farm upstate, to live out the rest of its life.
If you got nothing to hide...
This perhaps is my least favorite argument for or against anything. It is to me the worst case of a non sequitur I have come across. Not considering dum things said in jest. And what I mean by non sequitur is this. If I have nothing to hide why am I opposing the government looking. Why is the extreme version the new default? Why should I have my privacy invaded simply because I have nothing to hide? That is just completely idiotic. The government's sole purpose is to serve the citizens. Not surveil and control everything we do. There is a reason people are called private citizens in the US. And that is because they are expected to have privacy.
INGSOC propaganda poster, artist unknown
I mean if someone wants to live stream everything they do 24/7 then that is perfectly fine. They can go right ahead and do that. But they can't expect me to watch that crap. Nor should it be the default state that everyone should have to do that, simply because "if you got nothing to hide". This is very much the same as putting the card in front of the horse, as the old saying goes.
I am not saying that if there are bad people the police or [insert generic secret agency here] should of course be able to have tools so they hopefully can find and punish the guilty. But the default should not be that they get a key to everyone's house or apartment, because if they need to go in and check things they need it. Or we should not have to live under surveillance 24/7 just because it is easier to catch the bad guys if they do something. We should not have our privacy taken away simply because it is convenient for the police and makes their jobs that much easier. What is next? Should we develop a predictive algorithm similar to what Hari Seldon did in the Foundation books? That way we can simply just put anyone with a 50% chance or higher odds of committing a crime directly in prison. That would be the easiest and most convenient way. Right? It would save a ton of work and not to mention all the money it would save as we could cut back on policing.
As I said to me this is simply baffling that people so freely are giving away their privacy. And what is even worse? I do not think they even are aware they are doing it. And as with all these sorts of freedoms, once it is gone it is most likely gone forever. You do not see any autocratic society going, you know what. Let's enact freedom of speech. That sounds like a great idea, that way we can save a ton of money and stop the state-controlled propaganda that is keeping us in power. And just like historically the opposite usually is true. In order for citizens to loos their freedoms, normally a coup or something similar has to take place. But not so this time.
Enter crypto, the light in the darkness
But then suddenly there was a little light far away in the otherwise pitch-black tunnel we call society. And the more I started to go to the light the brighter it became. Little did I know the light was sadly not at the end of the tunnel tho. But in fact, it was a fluorescent something. But with its light traveling in the tunnel was at least so much more bearable. But as with all good things others got fearful. They have become accustomed to living in the darkness. Not even remembering the time before the darkness.
Now suddenly people everywhere were trying to kill this shining light. It even looked like some people have become twisted by the darkness, by the looks even transformed into something new. Something that I know would consume me and the others who like me has gotten their own fluorescent thing, lighting up their surroundings. We could hear them muttering things like the light is evil. Only devil worshipers carry the light of satan. And that the light was a bad omen, and should all be destroyed. They argue it is better to live in total darkness than for some to have more light than others. This despite knowing very well that everyone had their own light originally. But some were lost along the way. Some were convinced by others that it was much easier to just drop and squash the light. That way they would not have to carry it. And walking would be so much easier that way. Others were simply forced to surrender their light under duress.
All I know is that giving up my light is the last thing I will do here in this pitch-black tunnel we call society.
Arkham Intelligence Data Marketplace
Arkham has recently launched its new service. And it is one that is aimed at de-privatizing crypto wallets. The idea is pretty simple. If you want to find out who owns a certain crypto wallet. You can go on the site, register, and then put a bounty on that information. Then anyone can go to the site, and see what information people want. Go out and use whatever it is they use, find out the information. Go back to the site and claim the bounty. It is just like back in the wild wild west. Or how a quest board works in your favorite RPG.
Similarly, they are also launching their own token, the $ARKM. And presumably, the bounties will be put up in that token. And thus we went from a service to a money-making scheme. Where we trade in people's privacy. Just like how your favorite global company like Google, Meta, or Apple is doing.
And by outsourcing it, I assume they can stay in the clear of any unethical ways that these "bounty hunters" may obtain the sought-after information. Just like how your favorite tv gumshoe always likes to break and enter into the bad guy's apartments in every episode. Only here there is no showrunner telling us who the bad guy is. Or even if there is one. Or perhaps both parties are the bad guys? Sounds like a sure recipe for success to me. I can sincerely say that I hope this project crashes and burns. And I hope Binance and CZ take a big financial hit for backing it. And who am I to wish them ill? Well, they can put up a bounty and find out.
But one of the more ironic things also happened. And that was the company has some sort of referral program. Where if you are registered you can send out a referral link to whomever. But as things happened, the way they know whos behind the referral link is by the end jumble of characters. It is simply the person's email address. But encrypted. But as it happens, when people looked into these referrals they notice that the encryption was extremely easy to crack. And people have been having a field day with doxxing people on twitter who is shilling their referral link. Among them, is the company's CEO whose referral link was used in the 2022s Christmas invitational event to the platforms beta. Meaning you could send the CEO an email telling them just how much you value their company and the services they provide. ^^
Doxxin in case you are wondering what that means. It is the act of revealing personal information about someone online. This can be a user's real name, address, phone number, or any type of similar personal information. And it is as far as I know done without the affected person's content. And that only leaves me with one question for the Arkham CEO. How do you like them apples?
Alex Mashinsky, former CEO of Celsius and crock and thief "allegedly." Wearing his famous shirt reading "Banks are not your friends". Only he forgot to put the important part, neither is he
But while it is easy to hate on a company for doing the completely crappiest thing they could. Arkham has done some good for the crypto community as well. And for that, they have my gratitude. If you are wondering to what I refer. It is the report they put out on Celsius, detailing most of Mashinskys wallets and just how big of a dirtbag and crook he really was. Something I covered in a post way back when. So at least I would hope that Arkham will come to its senses and shut down this crap and go back to its old ways of exposing scammers and crooks.
And also this raises another question. With this seemingly being ok. Bounties on blockchain wallets. What will be next? Bounties on addresses? Is nothing sacred and private anymore?
But I would love to hear your opinion on this topic of privacy. Do you think I am correct in my assessment, that this indeed is an attack on our privacy? Or am I simply making a hen out of part of a feather? Personally, I could argue either way. But as I said, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. So feel free to use your keyboards.
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See you on the interwebs!
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