Absolute vs. Relative Privacy
Absolute privacy exists only within oneself. The moment two humans interact, absolute privacy ends — even in the physical world. One can be observed, recorded or betrayed. Protective measures can reduce risk, but never eliminate it. That is a fact.
The ambition to build absolutely secure privacy systems in the digital world is therefore an illusion. The environment adapts; adversaries find new vectors. Even if a message is transmitted from A to B with perfect cryptographic privacy, the mere device-correlation of A and B can expose the relationship.
What can be protected in reality is relative privacy — the maximum achievable privacy under real-world constraints. Relative privacy can effectively reach 100% as long as no third party is interested in the data. The more sensitive the data, the greater the external interest — and the lower the level of relative privacy, especially in authoritarian regimes. Yet even there, a modern privacy-preserving infrastructure would increase freedom, because humans under pressure tend to improvise and add their own layers of protection.
Why Island Solutions Fail
Island solutions are the wrong path. The average user is comfortable, overwhelmed, and indifferent. A working XX-messenger or an anonymous payment system like Zcash may be technically sound — but as isolated products they overstrain adoption. Users hop from island to island with different interfaces, rules and risks. And when islands sink — where do they go?
… we must not forget that we are living in an age of climate change — both in the literal and in the political sense.
What Is Needed Instead
The solution lies in a decentralized, quantum-secure base-layer, the infrastructure of the future, on top of which applications can run — a layer that systemically maximizes relative privacy. To withstand capital-strong incumbents, we need:
-
Alliances instead of solo projects
-
Meritocratic leadership instead of egos
-
A shared infrastructure instead of competing islands
Precisely because Chaum’s principles are radically simple and robust — and because the XX-Network is currently insignificant — a responsibility emerges: stop building in isolation, start unifying. Combine systems, bundle strengths, forge alliances.
I appeal to you: stop irrelevant debates — and build a movement.