Seriously you could have been arrested at any conference. Pseudonyms help against unsolicited attackers, not against state actors.
Discussion
I'm not aware of a single pseudonymous open source developer that the government has tried, but failed, to arrest. Except Satoshi.
To be fair they've only arrested two so far, that I know of.
* unsolicited -> unsophisticated
(albeit both)
Could work if he never showed up at conferences and used Tor only, ideally Whonix/Qubes. But I think he left enough trail for the thugs to get him. 🙁
It takes a single mistake. And in order to get anything done in open source you need to communicate a lot and with many people. So now you're leaving hints about your timezone(s), cultural background, language use. Or maybe you went to that one conference where you talked to five people, one of them describes you to the cops, mentions your accent or the hotel you probably stayed at. Then of course there's the usual DNS leaks, logging in with the pseudonym over the wrong connection. One single mistake.
Yes. Maybe we can get some communication scrambling with LLMs, timezone is easily hacked and still only provides little value.
It's quite possible that if the mistakes aren't too huge there can be multiple of them.
Timezone can be determined from when you're interacting. You can build in delays, but without a time machine you can't fully randomize timing.
The LLM thing is cool, assuming you run the thing locally.
By hacking I mean moving sleep schedule by a few hours. One can also set a specific short time window for interactions. This strategy is often used by players in realtime multiplayer online games.
I obviously tailor public part of my persona to the risk. I am not nearly at as much risk as some other developers (don't work on Core e.g.).
That said - for you to approach this conversation in the way you are approaching it... it's a bit disappointing tbh.
I keep hearing people say Bitcoin devs should be anonymous, as if that's actually a good idea. It doesn't work. We need better ideas.
Satoshi?
He's either dead, worked for a spy agency or avoided arrest by some other non-standard means. I don't believe it was just good opsec.
Whatever they did, they did a good job, I think. 💜🫂💜
Sorry that watching a zealous judge throw a fellow developer in prison without the slightest hesitation or empathy makes me a bit impatient and cranky :-)
Revenge is a dish best served cold?
You serious?! Bitcoin was created by anonymous dev... surely we should nurture that culture?
What's the alternative?
It's wonderful founding myth, but what worked for him doesn't necessarily work for everyone. He also had the advantage of being in charge of the project, things at his pace, but we wouldn't do that now.
nostr:note185497gmzgm0qtu4azz5f7p27h943r96a7xjhcnn2wg4vpda8te9svz3pez
there is what we personally believe... and then there is the truth.
your other post - you being distressed by what is going on with judges & devs - I respect that, and will not engage further... looking forward to continuing this conversation in person sometimes soon.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Anon is a good start
It comes with serious downside. Harder to get grants, can't promote your work at conferences and podcasts, nag other devs in person to review your work. And it reduces your chances of getting arrested by 0%.
There's gradations of anonymity, but they have a real cost. If you're super introverted and hate conferences, then sure, use a fake name and photo - that's low opportunity cost.
So you're saying it's more beneficial to devs to be known rather than anon. Seems like the majority of your reasoning is compensation based
Well without compensation you have to either already be rich, get a fiat job - given you less time to work on Bitcoin - or live very cheaply. Those are all legitimate options, but they come with trade-offs.
Anonymity is a good default. I personally don't understand why so many people voluntarily dox themselves.
Normally I would ask: how do you make money? How do find gigs, jobs. But I want to respect your privacy. Being "famous" has often given me opportunities. But the potential downside is clear.
By the way I'm not arguing that anon devs should dox themselves. Everyone has to make their own cost-benefit analysis, and/or just follow their preference.
True, as soon as you want to make a living or create a "brand" privacy has major tradeoffs. It's probably more a matter of clearly and consciously separating public and private life.
Human proxy-devs or 'katvangers' in Dutch.
(I haven't thought this through)