For sure, there are various attack vectors against individuals from bad people, from governments and perhaps even from institutions, so each of us likely have to engage in various kinds of protective measures. Dictator69 seemed to be referring to the bad people kinds of attacks, and surely some places have more bad people than others, and like he mentioned there are likely bad people perusing social media and even forums like this, so each of us likely needs to take some precautions regarding what kinds of things we are posting about ourselves and/or our bitcoin stash, to the extent that specifics of our stash might be relevant to any conversation. 

Sometimes guys are even reasonably concerned about saying very much about their security measures, even though some of the security measures information can be helpful to other members to be able to talk about these kinds of matters.  i surely don't have any exact solution, and surely there are quite a few scenarios in which we might leak personal information to people who are not discrete in their own discussions about bitcoin matters, and even a guy might be early in his bitcoin journey so he might be enthusiastic to talk about bitcoin, and so if his stash increases by 10x or 20x, then all of a sudden his stash is much higher than his peers, and maybe he only put a few thousand dollars into bitcoin, but then all of a sudden his bitcoin stash might have a value that is greater than his annual income...so these can cause problems and/or even needs to upgrade the ways that he is holding such coins and/or how he might have access to such coins, and even some people might even wrongly believe that the guy has more coins and/or wealth than he does.

I am not against the ideas of ongoingly monitoring our own ways of how we talk about bitcoin or even if we do talk about bitcoin, yet  surely there can be problems if everyone were to completely discontinue talking about bitcoin and isolating themselves in their circles without even trying to find folks to transact bitcoin with.


He was also referring to various kinds of distance (and/or online attacks), so the attacks do not always need to be directly confronting another person, even though surely there can be combinations in person attacks and also there can be information that is gathered from online and various kinds of ways that an attacker could get information on you, whether they end up attacking in person or if they attack in a more remote kind of a way.  So sometimes a determined attacker who is targeting you may well get access to various kinds of information from a variety of places, and you might not realize that he has such information that makes you even more vulnerable when you do end up getting attacked...and likely some folks are more sloppy in their security than others.. both their physical security but also the various security safeguards that they may take with online information.. and some of the information that ends up getting leaked online might not even be our fault, since sometimes there are data breaches and we may or may not hear about the extent to which some of our data might have had been leaked or realized how we might protect ourselves once it is leaked. We also might not realize that we could have had been more careful in regards to some of the information that we give out or the kinds of services that we use, even though sometimes it can be a bit more challenging to be trying to not give out personal data if we might want an account or a service that might request various kinds of personal information from us.


Surely, if we might be asking a merchant if they accept bitcoin, then you might talk about that you hear it is a good way to transact, and you don't really need to imply that you have a lot of bitcoin, and even sometimes you could say that if we decide to transact with bitcoin then it might take a few days to get the bitcoin that are needed in the transaction.. especially if it might be a larger item purchase.


There will continue to be various kinds of attacks on bitcoiners, so we have to keep these matters in mind and figure out ways to protect ourselves without being scared into doing things against our interests or being afraid to talk about bitcoin as a solution to many problems with fiat and/or debt systems that exploit us, even though there might sometimes be improvements to some of the invasiveness of the various attacks, too (which it seems that we are going to continue to want to keep some of our coins in self-custodial ways in order to be empowered against our assets being controlled and/or frozen.. yet it seems to me that some of the ongoing attacks that are coming from governments and/or status quo rich and/or from financial institutions are likely misinformation and/or aimed to scare us out of transacting directly with each other. .and so one of the great powers of bitcoin remains with our abilities to transact directly with each other and to be careful in regards to ways that financial institutions and/or governments might freeze us out of some or all of our assets... and yeah we are balancing in regards to who are the thieves and if we are disempowering ourselves when we are getting lured out of not buying bitcoin or not securing our bitcoin privately and/or our being scared into not transacting with our bitcoin or talking with others about bitcoin.


I find your suggestion that we self-censor ourselves in regards to our in-person interactions to be problematic.  Sure, we have to be careful, yet a lot of the power of bitcoin comes from our abilities to use it to interact directly with any other person, and sure there may be various online tools to interact too and sure some of the online tools might be improved, yet online we are going to get more and more attacked with KYC requirements that might not work in our favor.  At the same time, we may well be disempowered if we are afraid to talk with friends, family and other people that we meet in the real world about bitcoin and/or the various ideas around bitcoin.


The more we talk about bitcoin, the more likely that people are going to ask how many bitcoin we have, and surely we can have friends and relatives who will ask and if we don't give them some reasonable answer then they are going to just make up shit or they might even tell other people wrong information based on their theories about how many bitcoin that you may or may not have.

There are ways that we can talk about the idea that it is not good to talk about our bitcoin holdings and to attempt to answer their question to the extent that it is a reasonable question. Some folks might hear that we are into bitcoin from other folks and then they come up to us and say that they heard that we have a lot of bitcoin or put us in an uncomfortable position in front of several other people.  so the way that we respond to these kinds of situations can be quite difficult and problematic, especially with some people who we might have had preferred not to know that we are in bitcoin.. but once they know, they might be a BIG talker and a gossiper..

and so there can be a variety of ways to try to directly talk to these kinds of people to try to get them to not be spreading misinformation about our bitcoin holdings and/or our bitcoin stash, and some of them might not even be willing to talk with us, but they start to be big mouth about our bitcoin situation, and it could well be the case that we have to limit our exposure to those kinds of people, even if they might be people in our direct families.  We might even need to get another family member to talk to them and to shut them up, to the extent that they might listen to another family member and get the message that it is not a good idea for that person to be focusing so much on the bitcoin matter.. and maybe even figuring out ways that the person might invest into bitcoin so that they know how it feels to be in bitcoin.. and some folks might be anti-bitcoin who are making those kinds of statements..


Surely, each of us has to attempt to account for our own environment and the kind of people in our social circles and in our living interaction circles.

I recall one time that I was in a police station in a somewhat bad area, and I had an incident.  The police station was designed in a way in which there were all kinds of delinquents coming in and out, and the police were making me wait so long that I hardly had any choice but to interact with the delinquents in the waiting room, and so we were talking about the situation that happened with me, and they seemed almost exactly like the same kinds of people who would have had committed the same offense that I was telling them about and the reason that I was there waiting.  I mostly try to avoid those kinds of situations, but sometimes we might find ourselves in a bad neighborhood or in a bad situation, and sometimes if we are not from the neighborhood, then we will be targeted because we stand out.. so sometimes there can be disadvantages to go into areas that we don't know anyone, but at the same time, we can also learn about the world by interacting with people in a variety of neighborhoods, including neighborhoods that are not our own.