Do NOT connect your node to Amboss unless you want your node data (ie channel balances) to be sold to the governments and corporations.
Discussion
Do you think that's already happening or will happen?
I know for a fact that it is already happening
It would be helpful to others if you could share your info sources… I for one would like to read up on that topic.
I spoke to the CEO of Amboss and heard it directly from him.
Some other source of info and some discussion
How do they fetch the balances? I'd have assumed that logging into a website with LN doesn't mean that nodes leak this information.
Fine don't take my word just read their damned website!!
Btw they also track your IP!
It did always seem like a dox your node kind of thing. Never seemed like a good idea.
Wat ??...oh noo not the hottest directory for all the lightning nodes plus their channels and possible whereabouts..... That data is too precious to be valued at 10x and sold off to the highest bidder...nooo muh integrity....nooo
sounds like plantation owner thinking
I know they track stuff. Where's is the 'selling to government' part
Anytime there's a large cache of data it's going to become valuable to someone eventually....
It's like the time I remember hearing about email lists making influencers and content creators thousands of dollars a month.
Data is valuable in today's world.
Not underestimating that for a second.
Amboss only can get this data if you're sending your static channel backups to them via thunderhub right?
The fact that many people couldn't see this, and will defend and simp for orgs like amboss because "ooh muh pretty! I can label my node too!" is part of the reason we need to keep trying harder to educate and build tools to make it easier and more natural to be sovereign. Yes, we want to see the best in people and orgs where we have some agreement. But we should be verifying. And even if you trust some, you still need to follow-up verify. Connect and use tools cautiously. Test things.
What about lightning+ network!!?
Information that is freely gossiped is fair game to the network.
That means the alias you give your node, how many channels, what nodes they are connected to, when they were established, when they close, whether you are running clearnet or only onion.
It's not desirable, but it's a known tradeoff. We SHOULD be pushing for more privacy improvements like that offered in Bolt 12 for some degree of anonymity of payee. Integrating conjoins for pre channel funding, splicing, and post closures would also be nice.
What Amboss is doing goes above and beyond the freely gossiped data. They are an analytics firm, not much different then Chain Analysis and others in the intent to track transfers and attribute to entities. They don't do this purely for their own entertainment or to simply benefit people looking to understand routing. They sell the information and services.
To reiterate... If you are not paying for a service (monetarily, volunteer building, etc), you are the product.
Hey nostr:npub18yvpnchj7yaepjk8yz2pn66hfmmup505aqvx0lpyc3aree0g5fyq8clpz3 it was great meeting you a few weeks ago in Toronto 🤝🏻 Could you comment on this? It's not the first time that someone has brought this up. Thanks!
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it would be great if the names of people who set up things like this were published
AMBOSS is a potential doxx situation that is well known for a while.
Just read their ToS on their site.
Here is a sample:
"We collect information about how you access our Services, including data about the device and network you use, such as your hardware model, operating system version, mobile network, IP address, unique device identifiers, browser type, and app version. We also collect information about your activity on our Services, such as access times, pages viewed, links clicked, and the page you visited before navigating to our Services."
Folks pay them and feed their data to be used by them. 😂
Thanks for the heads up on this!
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