Generally, votes are overrated. Especially if you’re not mainstream, by definition most people won’t support you, won’t agree with you, won’t understand you.
Some things may be downvoted because they’re too stupid. But occasionally, you might be downvoted simply because you’re a bit too early. Like, if you’d said “being gay is not crime” or something 50 years ago, you might have got downvoted… Just a thought.
Maybe what you’re thinking is like an XMR version of Bisq's “Get your first BTC” room?
https://bisq.wiki/Getting_your_first_BTC This dilemma is real and understandable, while it’s not clear what would be the best solution:
For new users, Bisq requires between 0.002 and 0.007 BTC for traders to make their first trade: [...] It can be difficult for new bitcoiners to acquire their first coins, so this requirement is often a barrier for new Bisq users. The Get your first BTC room offers one possible way to get this initial bitcoin without signing up for a centralized exchange.
Basically the same thing for Haveno, I guess.
Cake Pay should be fine for most gift cards, I don’t think they usually ask for KYC for those.
So perhaps your recent bad experience with Mastercard EUR cards are rather exceptional?
Thanks for warning. Saw https://monero.town/post/872283 too. Guess Cake Pay may be convenient for those who are fine with KYC. Another option, that Stealths thing is more expensive (higher fees), so basically if you want to buy a gift card here or there, you’ll have to choose between (possible) KYC and higher fees. Or so it seems…
According to @[email protected], Cake Pay works fine if you’re fine with KYC, and otherwise you may just lose your money: https://monero.town/post/872283
If you’re a privacy advocate not fully supporting KYC but want to try this anyway, then try a small amount, because you may lose all your money. Another recent option is more privacy-friendly and KYC-free, but the fees are higher with them.
We know the ability to get Monero will not be essentially affected—after all, this is not the first time, nor the second time, when Monero is delisted. It seems reasonable to admit, though, that ultimately the ability/freedom to spend Monero might be limited if legit (e.g. hosting) companies can’t accept it in the future—directly or indirectly because of MiCA etc. Although, what will happen in such a situation may be seen as an interesting experiment.
Since the posted link is not very Tor-friendly behind CF, similar random links just in case…
Following the announcement, privacy tokens such as Dash (DASH), Monero (XMR), and Zcash (ZEC) witnessed a notable decline of up to 10%
The prices of some of these tokens have headed south shortly after the announcement. XMR is down nearly 3% in the past 24 hours, while ZEC has plunged by 10%
The concept may be lovely, but the fact is, many people nowadays have been Pavlov’ed to immediately ignore anything weird that says, "Congratulations! You got some money. Visit this URL and input something." As they say, the Cake is a lie…
Monero could be a wonderful gift to a friend of yours if they’re especially interested in privacy (in that case, you might want to talk to them privately, and perhaps recommend a better wallet). Otherwise, it may be kind of like casting pearls before swine…
The blog post says, “it is possible to build technology used by millions of people with privacy at the heart.” which is also related to Monero, for example. It’s related to online privacy in general, not exclusively about Tor. For example, it includes a clear answer to the “Nothing to hide” argument:
http://wl.vernccvbvyi5qhfzyqengccj7lkove6bjot2xhh5kajhwvidqafczrad.onion/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument?lang=en
It’d be nice if even a single non-Tor user is interested in this… but if the link is onion, a non-Tor user can’t read it! Hence a clearnet link… Does that make sense? I too agree with you that, basically, we better promote onion when available. Except I wanted to share the link with people in general, non-Tor users too :)
The right time to start protecting your digital privacy is before your trip […] The simplest and most reliable precaution against border searches is to reduce the amount of information that you carry across the border.
Sometimes law enforcement officials achieve so-called “consent” by being vague […] You can try to dispel this ambiguity by inquiring whether border agents are asking you or ordering you […] If an agent says it is a request only, you might politely but firmly decline to comply with the request.
If you are a U.S. citizen, border agents cannot stop you from entering the country, even if you refuse to unlock your device, provide your device password, or disclose your social media information. However, agents may escalate the encounter if you refuse.
If you elect to comply with a border agent’s order to unlock your device, provide your password, or disclose your social media information, you can inform the agent that you are complying under protest and that you do not consent.
It is possible that if you unlock your device, and agents then search your device, a court will rule that you consented to the search. […] As noted in Part 1, the best way to avoid an inadvertent “consent” to search is to decline to unlock your device, provide the device password, or provide any social media information.
Technically, you don’t even need to admit that you know the password.
If you believe that border agents violated your digital rights at the border, please contact EFF at [email protected].
See also:
Thanks for the suggestion. ONION LINK added in the post. The main link itself is intentionally clearnet, for happiness shall be in heaven over one non-Tor user who feels curious about Tor and privacy, more than over 99 right users, who already use TB 24/7. (Luke 15:7)
TB recently gets rid of blockchair: http://eweiibe6tdjsdprb4px6rqrzzcsi22m4koia44kc5pcjr7nec2rlxyad.onion/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42283
and is planning to get rid of Google etc. from its Search Engine Options http://eweiibe6tdjsdprb4px6rqrzzcsi22m4koia44kc5pcjr7nec2rlxyad.onion/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41835
Trocador shows it explicitly whether a specific CEX is no-log or requiting IP logging, which you can choose. This new thing doesn’t have TOS nor Privacy Policy to begin with. Yet as long as you use onion, logging by the front-end is rather irrelevant.
Even if the front-end is not logging anything (which no one can verify), a CEX behind it surely records the tx and retains it as required by laws (some of them might be less than perfectly legal and might not record anything, though that would mean a different kind of risk). Using a CEX is more or less risky, be it Trocador or something else. Some may think that an instant swap by CEX is convenient. Personally I prefer DEX, even though it may be less convenient, even though Monero.town itself has an official affiliate link to Trocador too.
On the front page of monero.town, sm.ms and catbox.moe are recommended as image hosting services. Unfortunately both are not Tor-friendly, esp. Catbox blocks Tor.
The Cock.li guy comes up with a solution.
Example https://monero.town/post/1025717 where
https://files.catbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg is not viewable via Tor
https://files.fatbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg would be viewable via Tor
The syntax is
so…
Result:
Text link would be
[Text](URL)you can replaceTextwith an inline image,URLwith the image URL, i.e.
[](URL)so…
[](https://files.fatbox.moe/6z3p3z.jpg)
Result
Note: Optionally you can put Alt text in ![] as in
Another hosting service imagebam.com is iffy but Tor friendly, easy to upload images there from Tor Browser & you can direct-link to the uploaded full image.
Using 3rd party image hosting services has privacy implications, but it will save the server resource of monero.town.
For those who are still on Win 7: Firefox (and so Tor Browser) will stop supporting Win 7 soon. Seriously, you better plan to migrate to Linux. Not-so-good privacy issues aside, everyone knows Windows is not very secure/safe/convenient anyway.