How to Make Private Payments - The Sovereign Computing Show (SOV008) - ATL BitLab Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jordan Bravo (00:00):
Really, I think it's good to reframe it there.

(00:02):
This is not shady, this just makes sense.
We've kind of walked down thepath of giving out all of our
information by default, which is theapproach that doesn't make sense.
I think we're trying to reel it back inand approach this in a more sane fashion.

Stephen DeLorme (00:17):
It's actually the world we live in where we're no longer
in this easy cash-based economy.
We're losing that very much where you canhave these kind of ephemeral interactions
with other people in the world.

Welcome to the Sovereign Computing Show, presented by ATL BitLab.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and this is apodcast where we teach you how to
take back control of your devices.
Sovereign Computing means you own yourtechnology, not the other way around.

This episode is sponsored by ATL BitLab.
ATL BitLab is Atlanta'sfreedom tech hacker space.
We have co working desks,conference rooms, event space,
maker tools, and tons of coffee.
There is a very activecommunity here in the lab.
Every Wednesday night isBitcoin night here in Atlanta.
We also have meetups for cyber security,artificial intelligence, decentralized

(01:07):
identity, product design, and more.
We offer day passes and nomad passesfor people who need to use the lab only
occasionally, as well as membershipsfor people who plan to use the lab
more regularly, such as myself.
One of the best things abouthaving a BitLab membership isn't
the amenities, it's the people.
Surrounding yourself with acommunity helps you learn faster
and helps you build better.

(01:28):
Your creativity becomes amplifiedwhen you work in this space,
that's what I think at least.
If you're interested in becominga member or supporting this space,
please visit us at atlbitlab.
com.
That's A T L B I T L A B dot com.
Alright, on to our show.

Welcome to the Sovereign Computing Show.
I'm Jordan Bravo and I'm heretoday with Stephen DeLorme.

What up?

Today we're gonna talk about private payments, how we can
spend money privately, and the toolsthat we can use to achieve that.
but first we'd like to remind youthat you can boost into the show.
You can let us know what yourthoughts are on these topics.
If you'd like to hear any other topicsor you have any comments on what we're

(02:16):
talking about, you can do that with eitherFountain FM as your podcast 2.0 app,
or you can go to atl bitlab.com/podcastand you can send us a message there

Alright.
Let's get into it.

All right, so the first thing I think we should
talk about when we're thinkingof how we can pay privately is.
We can use Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a much better payment systemwhen used in a private manner, and as huge
fans of Bitcoin and lightning on Bitcoin.
Uh.

(02:53):
That's gonna be my preferredmethod of paying whenever possible.
However, we know that we do not yetlive in the glorious hyperbitcoinized
future that we all yearn for.
And so today, in this world of dirty,dirty fiat, how do we pay with fiat
and pay more privately with fiat, whichmost of the time is gonna have our

(03:14):
name attached, and it's going to have abunch of KYC, that's know your customer.
Regulations attached to it.
And that typically involves us doxing,our information such as our name,
driver's license, or government IDof some sort, uh, as well as a bank
account and that kind of information.
So first, let's talk aboutBitcoin and how we can use

(03:37):
Bitcoin to spend more privately.
Um, it, it is possible to useBitcoin in a non-private manner.
The most obvious example wouldbe if I buy Bitcoin in a KYC
manner from a typical exchange.
That could be something like Coinbase,but it could also be something like

(03:58):
Strike or Swan and that Bitcoin is,is, uh, purchased, and if that's
an on chain UTXO, that's gonnabe associated with my identity.
And so there's a record of that.
Uh, by, by law any company that'sgonna be selling you bitcoin.
Is going to have to keep a record of that.

(04:20):
So if you were to just spendthat somewhere, you're gonna
be achieving some privacy.
It's, I think it's still betterthan linking it to a bank account
depending on the manner inwhich you, you're spending it.
But at the same time there, ifsomebody wanted to go back and trace
that, they could link that to you.

(04:40):
Uh, any

Yeah.

Thoughts there, Stephen?

Yeah, for those just listening, I've got mempool.Space pulled
up and for anybody who might be newer toBitcoin, I'm basically just looking at
the, the, the ledger of Bitcoin right now.
And, uh, I'm gonna click into one of thepages of the ledger, as I like to call it.
It's a block really, and I'm gonna gothrough and I'm gonna just look at all
the transactions that I'm gonna see that.

(05:03):
This address right here, BC oneQR, uh, YHG, so on and so on.
Uh, sent 2.56 Bitcoin to BC one QDK.
And you know, they also sent someto another address down here.
We can probably imagine thatthis was the change address.

(05:23):
It was sending the change back to itself.
So we can look at this ledger and wecan actually determine a lot of things.
So.
We say this sometimes thatBitcoin is a, um, a pseudonymous,
uh, you know, payment system.
It's not an anonymouspayment system though.
So all these, these addresses here,these are kind of like pseudonyms.
Uh uh, I don't necessarily, um, knowthe, the names of the people that, uh,

(05:49):
correspond to these addresses, but I cansee these addresses pretty transparently
on the ledger and I can see how money.
Moves between them.
So when we're talking about nativekind of on chain, uh, bitcoin, um,
uh, you know, it's actually, uh,somewhat difficult to use it privately.
Um, and, uh, which, which is gonnasound a little weird at first, but

(06:11):
I just want to go ahead and lay thatout there, that it's something, it's
difficult to use privately and there's.
Certainly a lot of techniques youcan use, um, to, to pay with on chain
Bitcoin more privately, but it's, it's,I'm not gonna lie, it's complicated
and it, it's probably beyond the scopeof what we're getting into today.

Yeah, that's right.
And we'll get into no KYC Bitcoin ingreater detail in another episode.
But the easiest way, or the best waythat I think that you can protect your
privacy with Bitcoin is to simply.
Buy Bitcoin or earn Bitcoinin a non KYC manner.
And I'll just give a teaserfor when we touch on, when we

(06:51):
get to that topic in detail.
But that's gonna be using peer-to-peerexchanges such as robos or bis or, um,
hoddle, hoddle and that kind of thing.
And, and you can also buy Bitcoinlocally from people, you know,
maybe a meetup group, you know,peer-to-peer, face-to-face kind of.
Transactions.

And also would now be a good time to get into lightning maybe.
Absolutely.
Oh, let's, let's talk about lightningand the trade-offs, the benefits,
the debt, the pros and cons, and.
how, how we would approach that.
Lightning for anyone who'snot aware, is just a second
layer on top of, uh, Bitcoin.

(07:31):
It's a, it's a payments networkthat, uh, interoperates and it, you
know, works natively with bitcoin.
Um, you know, it's a very, justlike Bitcoin itself, it's a
very deep thing you can explore.
Um, but you know, there's lots of goodlightning wallets out there that you
can download off of the App store.
Maybe what we could do is just, uh,go to ACINQ just to start with, and,

(07:56):
whoops, uh, I don't know who that is.
Hold on.
Can't remember their domain name.
ACINQ.co.
Uh, yeah.
So ACINQ is, uh, a company that makes,uh, a product called Phoenix, uh, wallet.
And, uh, you can, uh, it's open source.
You can download it on the, the Android.

(08:18):
Um, Store, uh, it's, it's pretty good,uh, lightning Wallet, uh, to start with.
It's, uh, you know, kind ofwell regarded in the community.
And, you know, without getting toodeep into the, the how, how Lightning
works, the, I I would say that inits current form, lightning typically
offers pretty good sender privacy.

(08:39):
Um, it doesn't always, uh, uh,offer the best recipient privacy.
Um, um, uh, like, but in terms ofjust being a sender, um, and being
able to pay someone without therecipient, uh, being able to, to
figure out what your lightning pub keyis, it's pretty good in that regard.
So, um, again, there's always edge cases,there's always things that go wrong,

(09:03):
but in general, my kind of rule of thumbis, is if you're gonna pay somebody
with Bitcoin, if you're gonna pay them.
Uh, with, uh, a lightning walletthat's gonna be a lot more
private, typically, uh, uh, uh,more so than the on chain wallet.

That's right.
And I think it's a good use case forwhat we're talking about today because
we're, we're mostly talking about howcan we spend our money privately, right?
Like, whether it's purchasing onlineor from a in, in-person merchant.
So Lightning is a greattool in the toolbox.
I did wanna point outthat I think Phoenix.
They, they no longer offer theirapp in the, to us customers in the

(09:42):
Google Play Store, the App store.
And I think this is, oh, yeah.
In reaction to the Chillingeffect in 2023, was that four?
I think 20, 24 In the past year orso, uh, we had several Lightning
and, and Bitcoin companies pulloutta the US because of, um.
legal proceedings going on aroundSamurai wallet and tornado cash.

(10:06):
I believe

There's also a Breez wallet.
You can try.
There's a lot of lightningwallets out there.
So, um, you know, just lookfor Bitcoin, lightning wallets.
Actually, that might be agood place to, uh, highlight.
Uh.
Uh, there Zeus Wallet.
How could I forget Zeus wallet.
Um, a, that, that should workon iOS and Android as well.
Another thing you can do is ifyou, you really want to go deep
into this, you can go to walletscrutiny.com and this gets into On

(10:30):
Chain as well as lightning wallets.
But, you know, you can see a lot of, uh,like security reviews of um, uh, Bitcoin
wallets here, which is kind of nice.
Um,

And I, I'd like to point out that there are tons of
merchants that accept lightning,uh, or, or just Bitcoin in general.
So off the top of my head, I use it on aregular basis to pay for my VPN provider.
Um, I know, so IVPN and moldad, they're both great VPNs
that accept Bitcoin as payment.

(11:05):
Uh, do you know if Proton VPN accepts it?

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
So Proton does have theirown Bitcoin wallet now.
Um, but I'm not sure if they'vestarted, uh, like accepting
it for their services or not.

I know that some domain name providers I use name cheap and
they accept Bitcoin and we'll, we'lltalk more about that in a future episode
of how to privately buy a domain name.
But I've used that manytimes and it's great.

Um.
You know, it might also be worthgetting into the, the idea of
like, why we would want to payprivately, or I shouldn't say that.
Maybe I should say trying to likelimit the scope of what we're
trying to do here because, um, I,I think the idea of, um, privacy
can feel a little bit overwhelming.

(11:56):
Um, particularly when we starttalking about things like.
Um, you know, you know, using, uh,services that are KYC free and how to
get Bitcoin, um, you, you know, in aKYC free manner that can, that can feel
a little bit intimidating sometimes.
And one thing I think that is justgood to think about is that a really

(12:17):
great place to think, uh, pla place tostart with payment privacy, I think is
just trying to obscure your identityor sensitive information, um, from.
The people that you are purchasingfrom, sounds like, okay, well
I'm doing business with them.
It sounds a little bit distrustful.
Why do I wanna hide my identity from them?
Uh, a lot of times you're not necessarily,uh, doing business, uh, directly

(12:42):
with people who are your friends.
Um, you're, you're doing a businesswith, you know, a business who might
have, uh, employees, uh, who workthere, who are not your friends, who
you don't want, uh, you know, knowing.
Uh, where you live or whatyour credit card number is,
or, or something like that.
I remember there was a rumor in, backin high school that there was this, uh,

(13:02):
this, uh, girl who could, uh, memorizecredit, like have photographic memories
and worked at a, a pizza place andwould just like, um, memorize people's
credit card numbers and stuff like that.
But looking at them, I don't know if itwas true or not, but it, it, you know,
uh, it, you know, sets the idea that like.
Every time you expose your paymentinformation to somebody at a business,

(13:24):
you, you know, run the risk thatlike, you know, a bad guy at the
business intercepts your information.
And then when you get onto the web,um, and you're, you're not even
directly talking to a human beingthat you're doing business with.
You're just ordering something from.
Uh, some store on the web.
Um, you know, do you really want everysingle website you've bought something

(13:44):
from to, um, know your home address,know your credit card information,
know your email, know your phonenumber, all of that kind of stuff.
Um, and so in that regard, uh, just,just, just limiting, uh, your payment
info from being in the hands of thepeople that you are doing business
with can be a huge, like, kind ofprivacy and personal security boost.

Yeah, I wanna expand upon the problems with using your
normal everyday ways of paymentwith your credit card or debit card
and the, and the problems there.
First of all, the whether or not itwas true that that girl or woman could
memorize credit card number I. Evenif you don't have that ability, we
know that scammers will like somebodywho's working at a restaurant, you

(14:29):
hand them your credit card, they canswipe it through a device called a
skimmer, and it's meant to look likea regular credit card swiping machine.
But really what it's doing is it'srecording all of the data from that,
from the card, and then they use thatand go and spend and use it for fraud.
So even if, uh, this is actuallypretty common, even if you don't
have a incredible memory, anotherproblem is buying things online.

(14:53):
Like you said, maybe there'sa malicious employee, but they
could just be incompetent.
You know, maybe they have the best ofintentions, but do they really have
the best IT cybersecurity practices?
Is there database.
Locked down, you know,are they unhackable?
And the answer of course is no.
And so a lot of merchants do gethacked and their customer database

(15:15):
with all of the credit card informationof all their customers gets hacked.
And then that's on the dark web or,you know, sold to the highest bidder.
Um, the other problem is thateven if a company does not get
hacked, and even if they haveemployees that are not malicious,
they might just do some kind of.
Let's say less than ethical businesspractices, for example, how many times

(15:40):
have you had a reoccurring payment?
And suddenly you notice thatthey raised the price on you.
Yeah, you didn't even notice.
You know, maybe it's been severalmonths and you go, Hey, when did
they double my subscription fee?
Or when, you know, I thought I was gettinga low price, but it turns out that was
just a teaser rate and they bumped it upand now they've been charging me every
month and I didn't even realize it.
So that's a problem.
The other problem is maybe you intendedto cancel something and you just forgot

(16:04):
and they were quietly charging you inthe background and you didn't notice.
So all of these are reasons thatyou might not wanna use your.
Real credit card number, yourreal debit card number, and your
real, um, personal information.
So e especially let's, I wanna dive alittle more into what you said about
how it can feel shady that you're notgiving your real information to these

(16:26):
merchants, but it really doesn't makesense when you're interacting with
a site that is serving, you know,let's say millions of customers.
Let's say they're a giant merchant andthey're delivering something to you
digitally, let's say to your email.
There is no reason that they needto know your real name, your real
address, and your real phone number.

(16:46):
Like it's just completely unnecessaryto their business model, to your
enjoyment or receiving of thatproduct that they're giving you.
And in fact, it's addingliability to them.
If you were to ask them, they wouldprobably say, yeah, we would prefer
not to have that data if we don'tneed it, because that's less of a
chance that we get hacked or hassome kind of liability on our part.

(17:08):
So.
Really, I think it'sgood to reframe it there.
This is not shady, thisis just makes sense.
We've kind of walked down the path ofgiving out all of our information by
default, which in my opinion is the one,is the approach that doesn't make sense.
So I, I think we're trying toreel it back in and, and approach
this in a more sane fashion.

Yeah, it's like kind of just like imagine if, if, uh,
you know, like saw your grandfatheror something like that, you know?
Back when, uh, you know, like 60 yearsago or something is like buying a
hotdog and like the person, you know,asks for all this personal information.
Like how would he react?

(17:48):
It's like, I was gonna hand you adollar bill to pay for the hotdog and
now you're asking me where I live.
Like, what the hell's wrong with you?
Like that, that might betheir reaction, right?
Um, nowadays though, wemight buy a hot dog over.
You know, DoorDash or whatever, we mightbe doxing all this personal information
over a hotdog like every single day.

(18:09):
That's the, the world wechange in has lived so well.
It might sound at first like, oh wow,that's a really paranoid worldview.
It's like, no, it's actually the worldwe live in where we've, we we're no
longer in this easy cash-based economy.
Uh, you know, we're, we're, we'relosing that very much where you can have
these kind of ephemeral interactionswith other people in the world.

Exactly.
And I would like to push a new socialnorm, which is private by default.
And if a company just, I. The, the personat the Starbucks counter or whatever,
when they ask for my phone number, Idon't launch into a whole spiel and give
them a sovereign computing episode onthe spot about why society, you know,

(18:49):
asks for too much in, uh, information.
Instead, I just give them afake phone number, I mean, 99%,
or I say, no, no thank you.
You know that my first response whensomebody asks for my phone number when
a merchant asks for my phone number is.
Oh, no, I'm not gonna give that out.
And if they, if they literally cannotproceed with the transaction, without it,
first of all, I'm gonna question whetherI want to go back to that merchant.

(19:11):
But let's say I, I just really needto get through it in that moment.
I'm gonna give 'em a fake phonenumber because 99 times outta
a hundred, it doesn't matter.
It's just like.
Them walking throughtheir procedure by memory?

Well, I usually find if I give them a sovereign
computing monologue, it actually shutsdown the interaction a lot quicker.
Like it's a really good way to make thembe like, fine, sir. And then type in 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, like, yeah.

Actually, wanna tell a story.
So I, I was invited to be a part ofmy friend's wedding, and therefore
we had to get all matching outfits,you know, tuxedos and all that.
And so he, he sent us to a store.
I won't name the name of it, but I goin there and they take my measurements.

(20:01):
And I had already created anaccount online beforehand.
And usually when I'm gonna create,and they have a, a required field
for phone number, I'm using somerandom phone number generator thing
to, to create a random phone number.
But I think it was failing toload or I was just in a hurry.
So I just put in (987)654-3210 as my phone number.

(20:23):
So I get to the store and they, theytake my measurements and they're
like, okay, sir, we're gonna checkyou out right here at the register.
So I go up there and the, the gentlemanhelping me starts typing on the
computer and he says, huh, that's weird.
The system froze.
Oh, well I'll try, try it onthis other register over here.
So he says, come on over here.

(20:43):
So we go to the other registerand he types it in info and
he says, huh, that's weird.
This one's frozen too.
he goes to another employee andhe says, can I try your terminal?
And he tries to bring up my informationand lo and behold, it's frozen.
So he says to me, I'm, I'm sorry,sir. Uh, it looks like we're having
some IT issues with our system.
Let me call the IT professionaland get this straightened out.

(21:05):
So after waiting for a ridiculously longtime, he comes to me and he says, I'm
really sorry about the wait, sir. Uh,it turns out it, it was this weird issue
where when I typed in your phone number.
It all, like thousands of otherusers had that exact same phone
number and it tried to load themall and it kept crashing the app.

(21:28):
Oh my God.
And so I thought that was hilarious.
Uh, it turns out thousands of people forthe, with this company had put in the
exact same (987) 654-3210 phone number.
And so, uh, I wanted to say totheir IT department, you're welcome
for finding that bug for you.
Now you can go fix thatbecause that's absurd.
Your, your app should not crash.

(21:48):
That's terrible.
Software engineering practices.
But of course, I didn't say it tothis guy helping me out at the store.
I said, oh, sorry to hear that.
Anyway.
He, they were able to check me out and,um, that's the end of that story, but I
just thought that was funny and I thoughtof that when we were talking about this.

Okay.
You heard it here.
Just that's the magic number youneed to, uh, crash, uh, every,
uh, retail software system.
9, 8, 7, 6, 5 4 3 2 1.

Yep.
while before we get ontothe topic of virtual cards.
And, uh, private fiat payment methods.
Let's talk about where we can useBitcoin and Lightning to buy gift cards.
The first place we're gonnatalk about is bit refill.com.
That's B-I-T-R-E-F-I-L- L.com.

(22:32):
And for those of you watching, we'vegot it pulled up on the screen here,
but what Bit Refill allows you to do isthey have, uh, digital gift cards for.
Many, many merchants, I wannasay hundreds of merchants.
And you can buy them all withBitcoin and lightning specifically,
which I think is great.

Oh, and it looks like they brought this back.
I thought, I think itdisappeared for a while.
But the digital prepaid Visa,so now on this screen here, I've
got a digital prepaid Visa card.
I can buy it between 20 and $500.
So.
That means if you don't have a, ifthe, if you need to use a service
that does not have a gift cardpresent on, uh, that refill, you

(23:14):
can buy a Visa gift card instead.
And then it should, uh, in theoryjust function like any other
debit or credit card number.

Yes, and I've used this before.
Um, I use this to buy my Mint mobile.
Um.
eSIM and it was great.
It was, it was veryprivate and very quick.
Uh, I did notice at the top of thispage just now looking at the Bit Refill
site, they have a section for eim, soI'm not sure if that's a new feature
or what, but that's kind of cool.

I've seen it here for a while.
Um, but I've never actually used it.
Huh.
is pretty cool though.

Yeah.
'cause in a previous episode we discussed.
Private phone numbers and how toget privateSIMs, and I was not
aware that Bit refill was an option.
So I am going to keep thatin mind for the future.

I'm just going through the alphabetical list
of, uh, countries and locales.
Uh, it's a lot of 'em,so that's pretty cool.
Do they have United States?
Oh, let's see.
Uh, do, do, do, do.
So there's so many countries who would'vethought, uh, we're still in the tease.

(24:24):
Uh, you No, they do not.
It goes from UAE to United Kingdom to Aay.
no.
USA there it is.
USA.
They just abbreviated it.
Yeah.
A hundred gigabytes or one gigabytes.
Seven days.
A hundred gigabytes.
30 days.
That's pretty good.

Click on it.
I wanna see the pricing.

Let's see.
Uh, estimated price three 90.
But if we want to do thebig one, a hundred gigabytes
for 30 days, it's a hundred.
Ooh, that's 188 bucks.

How about, let's see, let's do 10 gigabytes,

$25 bucks for 30 days.

Okay.
That's pretty good.
So that's, you know, competitivewith other providers.

Yeah, and they accept both Bitcoin on
chain as well as lightning.
So it's a, I mean, I found itto be a pretty handy service.
They have a nice little,uh, mobile app too.
Uh, I know the idea of using gift cards,um, sounds a little cumbersome and, um.
it can be, um, you know, uh, but onething they, they do to try and make it

(25:24):
easier on their app is, um, like anygift card you buy, it just kind of like
shows up in, you kind of have like alittle gift card wallet on the app and,
uh, you can, uh, just open it up, uh,you know, unseal the gift card in the
app and it'll give you like a littleQR code, uh, or a barcode or something.
You know, different stores areon different systems, but like at
grocery stores, sometimes their, theirscanners will have like QR codes.

(25:48):
Um, or they'll have QR codescanners for their gift card system.
So yeah, point is you cango to like self-checkout at
grocery stores and stuff, and.
Use, you know, just openup the Bit Refill app.
And my one thing that's actually kindkind of good is that the Bit Refill app
is very responsive and uh, I've actuallybought the gift cards in the store before.

(26:08):
So I'll go to like a checkout stationstart, you know, ringing up my purchase
or whatever, figure out what the amountis, and then go buy a BitRefill card in
the app immediately for the amount I need.
That way you don't end upwith a lot like leftover.

That's, that's a good.
I've done the same thing with thenext service we're gonna talk about.
It's, which is the Bitcoin companyand that's the bitcoin company.com.
Uh, I was in a, I think it was a DSWshoe store and I, I noticed that.
The Bitcoin company had a gooddiscount on, um, for DSW, so I was

(26:47):
at the register, I pulled it up.
I used some Bitcoin to buy my DSWgift card and I paid for it right
there and it, it worked out great.

Oh.
And apparently they now have amoney transmission service as well.
Send pesos to Mexicoand send rial to Brazil.
Huh, interesting.
Yeah, no, I haven't usedthis one nearly as much.
I remember.
Okay.
I remember trying this app out, uh,like when it was like brand new May,
maybe it was even in beta still.
I can't remember.
It's been a bit, but it's good to knowit's, uh, still around and, uh, it's,

(27:20):
it's working out there in the world.

Cool.
Any other thoughts onBitcoin and or lightning?

No, I don't think so.
I mean, that's the basic gist is, youknow, if, if you need to pay in Bitcoin,
try to use lightning 'cause it's moreprivate and uh, you know, of course it's
always easiest if the vendor directlyaccepts, uh, a lightning payment.
And if they, you know, don't,then you can use the Bitcoin
company in bit refill to, uh.
To fill that gap for you.
So I think that thatprobably about covers it.

And shout out to Silent link.
Silent Link, which is in ourprevious episode where we talked
about private phone numbersand private, um, mobile data.
They are a e sim provider andthey accept Bitcoin and lightning.
Alright.

(28:12):
Let's move on now to, instead ofusing Bitcoin and Lightning, how do
we pay at sites that only accept USdollars, let's say, because we're in
the US So we're, this is gonna be aUS centric show, uh, because that's
really all I have experience with.
So, uh, feel free to correct usif we get anything wrong that

(28:33):
doesn't apply to other countries.
But in any case, in theUS I think an absolutely.
Great tool to use is privacy.com.
are also known as Pay with Privacy,but if you go to privacy.com and you
can sign up for a free account, andthe way this works is you, you, uh,

(28:54):
attach your bank account, so a checkingaccount and or your debit card.
And so you are, you areof course, by necessity.
yourself to, to this company privacy.com.
But that's not the point.
The point is that you get privacy fromall of the merchants that you shop with.
And in addition, you can optionallyget privacy from your bank itself

(29:18):
because your charges can be maskedor at least the, uh, not the amounts,
but the merchant name can be masked.
So what you do is once you've.
Created an account and linked itto your debit card or your checking
account, you can then spin up a infinitenumber of virtual debit cards and you
can use these anywhere that you pay.

(29:39):
So if you're, if you're buyingsomething online, every single merchant
that you buy from, you should spinup a separate virtual debit card.
And to make this process easier, thereis a browser extension that privacy has.
And they have a mobileapp for Android and iOS.
And so what that would look likeis, I'm at a, I'm at a site where I

(30:01):
haven't, I've never used it beforeor I've never bought from before.
I'm just gonna throw out the name of abig retailer that everybody might know.
Let's say Walmart.
Let's say I'm going to walmart.comand I'm buying something.
Um, the first time that I'm, I'mbuying something there, I am going to.
I'm gonna click on myprivacy.com extension button.
It's gonna spin up a new card for me.

(30:22):
It's going to assign it to Walmart.
And then, um, I have fullcontrol over that card.
So one, I can see the purchases.
Um, two Walmart is.
Not going to know my personal informationbecause when I'm at the payment
page for Walmart and they ask like,what is your name, your credit card

(30:44):
number, or your debit card number,expiration date, et cetera, et cetera,
and your, and your, uh, I'm blankingon the other things that you need.
Your three digit code and your address.
So the only thing that that has tobe real quote, unquote number that
you're getting from your virtual cardis the credit, is the card number,

(31:05):
the expiration date, and the securitycode, the three digit security code.
The rest you, it can beanything, literally anything.
You could put Harry Potter as the name and1 2, 3 Hogwarts Street as the address, and
it doesn't matter because it's actuallynot checking that on the back end.
So what I do is I just spin up arandom, uh, I, I use a site called

(31:28):
Faux id that's F-A-U-X-I d.com.
But really just type in, do a searchfor random name generator or random user
profile generator, uh, if you don't wantto try and make something up on your own.
Um, but anyway, getting back to privacy.
So what that does is it masks yourpersonal data from the merchant.

(31:49):
And then going forward, you can pausethat card, you can close that card down.
You can even set a recurring spend limit.
Mm-hmm.
So you could say, I only want Walmart.
Let's say I'm getting somesubscription from Walmart.
I, I can't think of one off the top ofmy head, but I. You know, maybe this is
my Netflix subscription or something.
Uh, you can say, I only want thisto be able, this merchant to be

(32:10):
able to charge me $5 a month.
And then if they ever tried to chargeme $5 and 1 cent or $6 a month, it
would block it and I would see anotification that they tried to do that.
So that's really cool.
That can give you a lot of there.
Anything to add on on that?

I love the service.
It's really great.
yeah, it's very easy to use.
And, uh, actually one time, well, I don'tknow if I should say this, but here goes
like, so one time I know you, you boughtsomething from one of my web stores and I
was really confused because I was tryingto figure out who it was and it worked.

(32:49):
I mean, it could, like, I, I, I was,so, I had Stripe hooked up as the
credit card processor on my store and.
Like just drilling into like, uh,like going through at, you know,
beyond just the backend of theweb store into the Stripe backend.

(33:10):
The amount of information I couldfigure out about this card holder
was like, basically nothing.
Um, I, I just had a guess at one point.
I was like, maybe that's Jordan.
I went and asked you, uh.
But no, I mean, I couldn'tfigure out anything.

Great to hear from the merchant's point of view,
what you, you are able to see.
So, the other thing that you cando, we, we talked about how you can
mask information from the merchant.
The other thing that you can do ismask information from your bank inside.
Normally by default, your transactionswill show up in your checking
account or, or on your debit card as.

(33:48):
The actual merchant name, but there'sa simple box that you can tick in your
privacy.com settings that says privatepurchases or mask my, my purchases.
And what that does is, is anything anypurchase made with that enabled your
bank account statement or your uh,debit card statement, it will just show.

(34:09):
Um, PWP like pay with privacyand that's all they can see.
They can see the amount ofcourse, but they, they won't
be able to see the merchants.
So you get privacy on bothends of the spectrum there.

Yeah, it's pretty handy.
Again, 1, 1, 1 of the things that'salways, uh, complicated about
these things is that, you know,we create these, uh, parties.
We have to, uh, these thirdparties that we have to trust.
Um, so it's like, well, insteadof trusting the bank with that,
we trust privacy.com with that.
But it's a, it's a, youknow, kind of threat.
I'm personally willing to, um, dealwith, um, if they seem like a good

(34:46):
actor in the space for the time being.
And I guess I definitely, beingon the merchant's end of it, I
have seen that as a merchant youdon't really have much information.
So I feel like for certain ittotally defends against having
your data in the hands of.
Merchants, um, and defends against,uh, you know, the bank knowing

(35:06):
so much about you, so somebodyknows something about you.
But it's, you know, I guess, feelsa little better to me to have that
contained with, know, one companythat kind of sells, you know, tr
privacy as part of their product, aproduct offering and service, rather
than having all that informationdistributed randomly amongst merchants,

Right, distributed amongst merchants and your bank where.
privacy.com.
Their whole business isprivacy, like you said.
So they're, they're not, it's notimpossible for them to lie and
break that trust and sell yourdata, but we know that banks do it.
I mean, we know for a fact that banksdo it, so I. Go with the, I would say

(35:48):
go with the one who at least is sellingprivacy versus the one that's not.
And then, like you said, you also haveall that protection with the merchants
regardless of what the bank is doing.

And on that note about what the banks do, I mean, I
remember, um, back in my former lifewhen I, I did more like, uh, uh,
agency, uh, like creative agency work.
One client we had to workfor was basically this, um.
data analytics company that dealt withlike banks and, and stuff like that.

(36:24):
And, and basically what they did, theirwhole shtick was, I mean, they were
like this, you know, whoa, cool hip techstartup or whatever, but they, um, uh,
would sell software to very big banks,very well-known banks, uh, in, in the USA.
and basically like, Hey, give usall the data that you know, you

(36:47):
have about, um, you know, aboutwhat your customers are buying,
like, which, you know, where they'reusing their debit card and all that.
We'll, you know, run it through thedata analytics processing engine and
then spit out recommendations forwhat your customers are interested in.
And then you can use that data to like.
targeted advertising to, you know, likesell that data to targeted advertisers.

(37:12):
And it was like, these are very big banksthat this startup was working with and
it was like, it was a little bit spooky.
So I'm glad I don't have towork on that stuff anymore.
But it's very real.
Like the banks are like already outthere like selling your data to third
party companies and he is like, well,you know, how could they do that?
Stephen, that soundslike tin foil hat talk.

(37:33):
Well, no, it's buried in.
It's buried in a hundred, uh, uh,pages of terms of service that no
human being has the time to read.

Yeah.
Or, or the ability, unless youare a lawyer or legal expert.

Yeah.

Okay.
We've talked about the features
of privacy.com.
Let's talk about the price and thenwe'll talk about the downsides.
So we're on their pricing page now,and the personal account is free.
It's $0.
Uh, I've been using that fora couple years now and I've
never hit the limits of it.
Um, it, they say you can create up to12 new cards per month, which seems

(38:13):
like a lot to me for the average person.
And, um, there's zero fee on it unlessyou're doing foreign transactions.
But I've never hit that limit.
And I think the paid accounts, I. Arefor, are targeted more at businesses.
So if I have a business insteadof traditionally you might have
to give a company credit card or acompany debit card to your employees

(38:37):
to be able to expense things.
Instead, you can get a, have a privacy.comenterprise account or business account and
you can, it's, it's handy for categorizingspending and um, budgeting and expenses.
So that's what it seems tome that they're targeting.
But again, I'm using the free personalaccount and I've never run into a fee.

(38:59):
Oh.
And it looks like the, the, the moreexpensive enterprise accounts and
stuff, they have no foreign transactionfee, whereas the personal account has
a 3% trans foreign transaction fee.
So if you happen to be buying stuffthat's outside the United States.
You'll see a 3% fee tack on there.

It doesn't look to me like there's also like ramp,
which is a lot of bus, uh, companiesuse for like spinning up virtual
cards for their customers and stuff.
It doesn't look like this one'snearly as feature rich as something
like ramp, but I mean, I agree.
You certainly could use it,especially if it was a small business.
You could um, you know, make stuff.

(39:38):
I think another thing too is with theplus plan, it's like it's got this
like category locked cards features.
Which I think the idea with that wouldbe like, I don't know, uh, you know, if
you buy computer parts from New Ag andMicrocenter and you know, a handful of
other websites, maybe instead of, youknow, generating a card for every single

(40:01):
um, site you go to, you want to justbe like, we have a budget of $500 per
month for computer doo-dads this card.
Uh, is scoped to the electronicscategory or something like that.
It can be used anywhere as longas the retailer like belongs in
the electronics category, maybe.
Huh.
I think that's what that means.

I also noticed that the pro account, which is $10 a month, has 1% cash
back on purchases, which is kind of cool.

That is neat.
Yeah.

Sort of makes it competitive with cash back credit cards where
you're typically getting 2% or so.

Yeah.
I, I'd rather, uh, just hold Bitcoin,but yes, certainly cashback on is,
uh, nice if I'm already spending.

Yeah.
I mean, I'm not gonna do it for thecashback, I'm doing it for the other
features we've already discussed.

Yeah.

But if,

but some people would, some people are like
nuts about that cashback stuff.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, I'm aware, uh, personally, I, I.Just see it as a extra nice little bonus.
You know, basically it's reducingthe price of the, of the service, but
I'm doing it for the other reasons.
Yeah.
Uh, okay.
That, so that's the actual pricethat you're gonna pay for this,
which in most cases is gonna be zero.

(41:17):
Um, are there anydownsides to privacy.com?
Well, we talked about kind of onealready, which is they're, they
become the central point of failurefor your privacy, for your purchases.
But you're really no worse offthan if your bank knows everything
and you're, you're protectedfrom all of the merchants.
So for me, I think it's prettystraightforward that this is a great

(41:41):
benefit for people who want some privacy.
And, um, the other downside thatI would say is that it is a, these
virtual cards are debit cards andit's linked to your checking account.
And I know that some peopleprefer to do all of their
spending on their credit cards.
And I get that I, I do some spending on mycredit card as well for various reasons.

(42:02):
You know, you get some consumerprotections, you get some,
uh, cash back, like we said,maybe some points, et cetera.
But I really think that a lot ofthe benefits of using these virtual
debit cards outweigh the benefitsthat you get from a credit card.
So I think it's worth it in most cases.
The other downside Iwould say is that there's.

(42:22):
This is only good for online purchases.
Um, or even if you are like reservinga card, or excuse me, let's say you're
making some kind of reservation overthe phone, whether it's a rental
car or a. A hotel, let's say you'rebooking, you can give them the number,
but if you're actually in person andyou're at a merchant that requires a

(42:43):
physical card to be swiped, scan, um,swiped, tapped or inserted, that's
where this is not gonna be applicable.
So in that scenario, it's, it's notuseful, but I think it's a great tool
to have in our sovereign computingtoolbox, and I highly recommend it.

Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think there's a lot of
great options for in-person fiatpayments that, you know, um,
protect your payment information.
You know, you could go buy Visa giftcards, but that's always annoying,
juggling that kind of stuff.
And, you know, your best bet atthat point is probably just, you

(43:24):
know, good old fashioned paper cash.
But ever since covid, a lot ofbusinesses, uh, in the US have
been, uh, you know, really.
Um, you know, going cashlessand, uh, I don't know.
It's kind of annoying, but

Yeah, it would be nice if I, I've used vanilla
visa gift cards in person plentyof times, and it is a hassle.
That's why I don't doit on a regular basis.
But if I could have some kind ofreloadable gift card that I could get in
a private manner, that would be ideal.
And I would, I would use thatwherever I could in person.

(43:59):
All right, let's move on to our boosts.

Okay.
Let's get over there.
So I think we had, well, one also,uh, maybe we should from the last
episode, I think we forgot to mentionthis on the last one, but I'll say,
um, uh, a shout out to we, uh, was it.

(44:22):
We had, uh, L Ray, I think was their name.
The web interface is a littleweird on Fountain, but did, uh,
some streaming SATs last time.
So thanks for the, uh, streaming SATs.
L Ray.
There's no message attached.
Um, in terms of boosts, we have this one.
Is your web browser spying on you?
This was from the previousepisode, episode seven, and

(44:44):
we have a boost right up here.

All right.
Justin Nakamoto son boosts in with3000 SATs and says Relevant, and
he gives us a link to a Wikipediapage called Four Horsemen of
the Infocalypse or Infocalypse.

Okay, let's uh, pull this one up.
The four horsemen of the Infocalypserefers to those who use the
internet to facilitate crimeor pejoratively to rhetorical
approaches evoking such criminals.
The phrase is a play on fourhorsemen of the apocalypse.
There's not a universally agreeddefinition of who the horsemen are.
Terrorists, pedophiles slash childmolesters organized crime like drug

(45:23):
dealers, intellectual property, pirates,and money launderers or cited commonly.
One of the most famous definitionsis in the Cyphernomicon by the
cypherpunk writer and engineer.
Uh, writer and engineer, uh,Tim, uh, may, which states 8.304.
Like so many other computer hackeritems as a tool for the four Horsemen
drug dealers, money launderers,terrorists, and pedophiles, what

(45:45):
limits on the net are being proposed?
Newspapers are complaining about thefour horsemen of the Infocalypse,
terrorist, pedophiles, drugdealers, and money launderers.
See, I had never, I've neverheard of this term before.
The before, horsemen of the Infocalypse.
Interesting.

Okay.
So for some context, for people whodidn't hear the episode that Justin
was boosting on, uh, we had talkedabout how the FBI wanted to backdoor
encryption and they were invoking.
What we now know is called the fourhorsemen of the in info clipse,
the pet of terrorists, pedophiles,drug dealers, and money launderers.

(46:21):
So it's kind of a, a tropeI would say at this point.
And now we know that it has a, a name.

Yeah.
It's coined by Timothy May in 1988.
Wow.

Alright.

I mean, obviously I'm familiar with all, uh, Timothy May's
writing and all of that, but I'm notfamiliar with, uh, this term, so that's
cool to know that it, that's funny to knowthat it goes back, uh, that far in time.
It's like we're still dealing withlike the same kind of, uh, FUD
arguments, uh, again against, uh,cryptography like nearly 40 years later.

Yep, that's right.
And, uh, it's, it's good to seethat these things are repeated
because it's, it's these same old,tired arguments that are debunked.
Um.
And I can't remember is Timothy May.

Oh yeah.
Timothy May wrote theCrypto Anarchist Manifesto.

Yes.
So I wrote, we, we actually, uh, dida reading group discussion on that.
This one at, uh, AtlantaBitDevs, uh, a couple years ago.
Uh, so I've read that onein some of his other posts.
I don't know that I'veread The Cipher Noon,
I think The Cryptonomicon,which is a fictional novel by
the author Neil Stephenson.

(47:35):
The name of the Cryptonomiconis based on the Cyphernomicon.

Sounds about right?
Sounds about right.
Yeah.

Alright.
Well, Justin, thank youagain for that boost.
If you wanna boost in, if any ofyou listening or watching, want
to boost in, again, you can go toFountain FM or download the Fountain
app on your iOS or Android device.
And you add some SATs to your wallet,and then you can boost in on any episode.
You don't have to be listening live.

(48:05):
You can be listening to any recordedepisode all the way into the past,
and you can add a boost and wewill read it on the show and you
can let us know what you think.
Uh, any topics you're interested in.
Another way that you can communicate withus is you go to atl bitlab.com/podcast.
And Stephen, is there a way forthem to boost on, on that site yet?

Not yet, no.
Okay.
So, well, you could go to, uh, we have dohave a link on there for a BTC pay server
if you just want to donate to the show.
Uh, I don't have a way to accept memos orcomments on that yet, but I will one day.

All right.
And then do we want to give them anyother ways that they could contact us?
Maybe they don't have boosts setup or, um, you know, can they email
us or can they join a matrix chator a, god forbid telegram chat?

Oh, man, you're putting me on the spot here.
Uh, well, the telegram, I thinkI'm trying to wind that down.
Uh, so I don't feel like we shouldbe giving out the link to that
unless, unless we, unless we wantto promote its further usage.
Um, uh, in terms ofemail, uh, I don't know.
We could have an emailaddress for the show.
That would probably be, uh,you'd probably be the one in

(49:16):
charge of that, I would imagine.
Um, I.
Uh, could always like, uh, yeah, Imean, you know, you could, uh, you know,
DM me or Jordan on Twitter or Noster.
Um,

well, I, I wanna say, first of all, didn't
mean to put you on the spot.
We always have the abilityto, uh, edit the recording.

No, it's fine.
I, it's nothing sensitive or whatever.
I just didn't have agood answer, that's all.

Yeah.

But no, it actually, so everyone, I am actually fine if
everyone hears us figuring this outlive because this is only episode.
Eight.
So we're kind of figuringthis out as we go.
But uh, yeah, it might be the sort ofthing where maybe we need some kind
of, um, I don't know, uh, officialengagement channel or recommended
contact stream or something like that.

Yeah.
So maybe we make it easy for people byoffering a couple different methods.
We've already got the boost, like we said.
Um, maybe we also add the ability forthem to go to atl bitlab.com/podcast and
there'll be a, a form there that they can.
Enter in and then maybe we willadd the matrix info coming up.
We have to get moving on that.

(50:22):
And then lastly, maybe we'll add anemail address for them to email into.

Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
So this is

A teaser for next time you, you all listen, you might be hearing
us talk about the email address, thematrix chat and the website that you can.
Boost in or Message US app, but in themeantime, your best bet is to use Fountain
FM or any other podcasting 2.0 app.

Cool.

Anything else you want to cover before we get
outta here?

Hmm,
I uh, think I'm good.

Alright everybody, thanks a lot and we'll see you next time

Later.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you want to learn more aboutanything that we discussed, you can
look for links in the show notesthat should be in your podcast
player, or you can go to atlbitlab.
com slash podcast.
On a final note, if you foundthis information useful and you
want to help support us, you canalways send us a tip in Bitcoin.

(51:19):
Your support really helps us so that wecan keep bringing you content like this.
All right.
Catch you later.

All Episodes

How to Make Private Payments - The Sovereign Computing Show (SOV008)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How to Make Private Payments - The Sovereign Computing Show (SOV008)