:: [unSYSTEM] use case for darkwallet
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Skribent: Jim Bursch
Dato:  
Til: unsystem
Gamle-emner: [unSYSTEM] thanks to darkwallet trollboxers!
Emne: [unSYSTEM] use case for darkwallet
I'm working on an online identity/profile service called NameClaim -- a registry of names backed by
bitcoin -- and as I was writing the privacy statement, it struck me that this is use case for
darkwallet. Here's the privacy statement:

http://nameclaim.name/index.php?view=privacy

Privacy policies are promises that cannot be enforced. This is not a privacy policy. You are
responsible for protecting your own privacy, and we are glad to help you do so. This is a statement
of principles.

For the purpose of discussing privacy, there are three things:

1. You
2. Data-About-You
3. Everyone else, including their machines

You and Data-About-You are two seperate things. You are not your name or any other data, and that is
true of every living human being.

As much as you would like to, you cannot control Data-About-You that is not in your physical
possession. As soon as data passes from you to someone or something else, you have lost control of it.

Data-About-You is worthless if only you possess it (it may be important to you, but it is
worthless). Data-About-You is only valuable when others are in possession of it.

When the link between You and Data-About-You is broken, the data becomes worthless.

Here's the problem:

How can you realize the full value of Data-About-You if you lose control of it the moment that you
share it, which you have to do for it to have any value at all?

The answer is plausible deniability, which is your ability to render the data worthless by denying
its relationship to you.

Your name claim is your proxy identity, and you animate it with data and the backing of your
bitcoin. Through the NameClaim API, others can relate to your proxy, and as long as you are
animating your proxy, they are relating to you, and the data is valuable. Your privacy can never be
violated as long as you have the ability to deny your association with the proxy. Or, to put it
another way, if you claim your privacy has been violated, it is only because you are choosing to
maintain your association with data that is not in your control.

When you stake a name claim and attach data to that name, you are making a claim that the data
represents you, and the strength of your claim is determined by the amount of bitcoin that you set
aside to back that claim. The digital signature from that bitcoin address is what links you to the
name claim and attached data.

You can also abandon the name claim and deny the relationship between you and the data, thus
rendering the data worthless. However, in order to maintain plausible deniability, you have to make
sure that you cannot be linked to that bitcoin address by any other means. The extent to which you
can deny ownership of the bitcoin address is the extent to which you can protect your privacy.