The world population is divided about bitcoin, its potential and uses. One portion of the population believes that bitcoin is the safest option out there that help people maintain their privacy. They believe that bitcoin is a truly democratic currency and no single person can control it. However there are those who are staunch opponents, they believe that bitcoin is for criminals, tailor made to fund or benefit from illegal activities. They are skeptical about bitcoin’s potential and they are skeptical about the whole concept. That’s not all, there are few conspiracy theories floating around as well.
Recently there was one important personality who is an advocate of privacy and human rights who expressed his views about bitcoin recently. Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor spoke about bitcoin in an interview with The Internet Engineering Task Force 93. Edward Snowden has been branded a traitor by the United States government for exposing its espionage practices which violated numerous international and domestic laws, forcing him to seek asylum in Russia. According to him, the well-known digital currency is inherently flawed due to lots of weaknesses and vulnerabilities. These issues makes it easier for people attempting to control over 50% of the network, which in turn make the term decentralized redundant in bitcoin definition.
In order to ensure privacy of transactions, the focus should be on a bigger picture and not just bitcoin. To ensure privacy, the main focus should be to find ways that doesn’t require a direct link to a person’s identity while conducting transactions. There must be personas which people should be able to switch between depending upon their requirements. For example, an authentication token to be used for communication between people under their actual name. It should also be possible for the user to switch to a common persona, anonymous persona, shared persona or pseudonymous persona as and when required.
He also discussed about possible ways of scrubbing user date associated with bitcoin transactions to provide an additional layer of anonymity. Edward Snowden also praised the basic principles behind bitcoin and the possibility of combining it with other existing ideas