I think we should de-emphasize the anonymous angle. With the popularity
of bitcoin addresses instead of sending by IP, we can't give the
impression it's automatically anonymous. It's possible to be
pseudonymous, but you have to be careful. If someone digs through the
transaction history and starts exposing information people thought was
anonymous, the backlash will be much worse if we haven't prepared
expectations by warning in advance that you have to take precautions if
you really want to make that work. Like Tor says, "Tor does not
magically encrypt all of your Internet activities. Understand what Tor
does and does not do for you."
Also, anonymous sounds a bit shady. I think the people who want
anonymous will still figure it out without us trumpeting it.
I made some changes to the bitcoin.org homepage. It's not really
crucial to update the translations. I tend to keep editing and
correcting for some time afterwards, so if they want to update, they
should wait.
I removed the word "anonymous", and the sentence about "anonymity
means", although you worded it so carefully "...CAN be kept hidden..."
it was a shame to remove it.
Instead, I added Tor instructions at the bottom, with instructions for
how to stay anonymous (pseudonymous) directly after the Tor
instructions: "If you want to remain anonymous (pseudonymous, really),
be careful not to reveal any information linking your bitcoin addresses
to your identity, and use a new bitcoin address for each payment you
receive."
It helps that it can now seed automatically through Tor.
Even though it doesn't say anonymous until the bottom, I think anonymous
seekers would already suspect it based on all the other attributes like
no central authority to take your ID info and the way bitcoin addresses
look.
Anonymous, homepage changes
Private email with Martti Malmi (sirius-m) · 2 messages · from 6 July 2010 · with Satoshi Nakamoto, mmalmi@cc.hut.fi
Read in Satoshi Mail Archive source
Ok, that sounds reasonable.
I think we should de-emphasize the anonymous angle. With the popularity of bitcoin addresses instead of sending by IP, we can't give the impression it's automatically anonymous. It's possible to be pseudonymous, but you have to be careful. If someone digs through the transaction history and starts exposing information people thought was anonymous, the backlash will be much worse if we haven't prepared expectations by warning in advance that you have to take precautions if you really want to make that work. Like Tor says, "Tor does not magically encrypt all of your Internet activities. Understand what Tor does and does not do for you." Also, anonymous sounds a bit shady. I think the people who want anonymous will still figure it out without us trumpeting it. I made some changes to the bitcoin.org homepage. It's not really crucial to update the translations. I tend to keep editing and correcting for some time afterwards, so if they want to update, they should wait. I removed the word "anonymous", and the sentence about "anonymity means", although you worded it so carefully "...CAN be kept hidden..." it was a shame to remove it. Instead, I added Tor instructions at the bottom, with instructions for how to stay anonymous (pseudonymous) directly after the Tor instructions: "If you want to remain anonymous (pseudonymous, really), be careful not to reveal any information linking your bitcoin addresses to your identity, and use a new bitcoin address for each payment you receive." It helps that it can now seed automatically through Tor. Even though it doesn't say anonymous until the bottom, I think anonymous seekers would already suspect it based on all the other attributes like no central authority to take your ID info and the way bitcoin addresses look.