I am not making a claim, I am laying out how the process could hypothetically occur, hence the use of "would" in my post.

I'm curious, however, why did you not make a similar post to the parent comment...in that the parent comment has presented no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Coinbase is only using publicly-available information, and therefore by your own reasoning the parent poster should not make the claim.

> Coinbase Tracer allows clients, in both government and the private sector, to trace transactions through the blockchain, a distributed ledger of transactions integral to cryptocurrency use.

Because both the parent comment and I have read the article, so we both have evidence to support the claim that Coinbase is only using publicly-available information, as that's how Coinbase Tracer, the license to which was reported as sold to ICE for $29,000, works.

I think the person you’re talking to is theorizing about the possibility that Coinbase may not be completely honest in their statement about the nature of the service they provide to ICE. The article does not provide proof aside from repeating Coinbase’s statement.

If your standard of proof is “somebody wrote something online,” then GP provided you with proof that it’s possible that Coinbase lied.

> If your standard of proof is “somebody wrote something online,” then GP provided you with proof that it’s possible that Coinbase lied.

I literally cannot parse this sentence, can you rephrase?

I’m not sure how this is unclear. If Coinbase wrote a paragraph about their practices and that paragraph is “proof” of their practices, why wouldn’t another party writing a paragraph constitute “proof” of their position?

The topic of this sentence is “the definition of proof.”

Eliminate the word “proof” from your vocabulary.

All we have here is evidence, which is fundamentally different.

Okay, there are words saying that “maybe Coinbase’s work with ICE is more sinister than they divulged.”

Those are words online! That’s evidence! You cannot refute that someone wrote those words. I know that those are words online because I wrote them! Now you have evidence and testimony.

The funny part about all this is that nobody is claiming that they know that Coinbase is lying about this contract. It’s all been entirely hypothetical (hence the word “maybe.”)

What evidence or proof have you seen that there exists no possibility of a corporation lying about their relationship with a controversial government agency?

Rational thinkers don't consider beliefs just because they haven't conclusively been "disproven".

Rational thinkers accept corporate press releases as canonical truth, got it. Even mildly considering the possibility of being lied to is a sign of poor coognitive function. This is a very enlightened view of the world, I hope one day to reach this level of intellect.

Privacy is important because these hypotheticals are enabled by the lack of it, you don't need to ask if, to give a more extreme example, unrestricted backdoor access to your account login to law enforcement agencies has been used for arbitrary surveillance, you demand that these things not be done so you don't have to find out years later.

You have absolutely zero evidence the parent comment is disinformation, and as such you should not have made the claim

The author outright admitted what he wrote was speculative and not factual. You may not agree with my conclusion, but I do have evidence.

Speculation does not equal fud

I didn't say it does generally.