"why does it matter where zcash is incorporated when the apparatus you're describing operates without regard for borders?"
Yes, they can do intelligence ops and attacks in others countries, but can't issue a subpoena along with gag order. Attacks can be defended against, secret court orders - not. A decision to make this currency US based killed it before it was even born. That's sad, because technically ZCash looks quite interesting.
"Zero knowledge" is not an excuse, it's way too easy to "miss a bug" or few to leak an information. NSA is known to talk/force companies into adding backdoors to their products. Users can never be sure, so why risk it?
It is too easy to miss a bug, which is why there was an audit.
I really don't understand the risk of US incorporation that you're talking about, or why it is better or worse than any other country without introducing other potentially even less desirable risks. Can you explain further?
More recently the US is known for failing to force companies to add back doors (see Apple/FBI). It's probablg worth noting Jospeh Bonneau (EFF) is on the board of Zcash. I just don't see the risk that you're seeing, sorry.
No other western country (to my knowledge) has secret courts, that were also proven to target tech companies. If such reason is not enough for you, I don't know what else could it be then.
right, but we already covered that. there is no court order in the world that can compel to you to provide what you do not have. so why is the US a bad place for ZCash to incorporate?
Are you sure such argument would fly against (possibly and probably technically illiterate) judge? I'm not. Apple was a separate case, because it is publicly known and loved company, and there are very few companies that have luxury to say the same. How did that play out to Lavabit (that's a controversial example, but it's to illustrate that court doesn't hesitate to crush a company to achieve its goal)?
Also, RSA scenario[1] is not unrealistic too imho.
That's it, I'm not going to argue in circles anymore, I don't trust and will not trust any US based, privacy related tech company unless something fundamentally changes in its legal and power structures -- there are more than enough reasons and examples for me. If you do -- that's fine by me.
Forum-shopping is a problem, I don't disagree. But Apple didn't win that case on PR, and Lavabit didn't lose that case by making smart decisions. These are not analagous situations.
If you could name a single country that would offer better protections, we might have something to talk about. Western Europe, seriously? [1]
The reason we are going in circles is because you're unwilling to trust ZCash, not because of where it's incorporated. If, like me, you trusted ZCash, it wouldn't matter to you where their articles of incorporation were filed, because you would trust that the zero-knowledge implementation would prevent law enforcement from mattering at all. If open source, audited code by some of the brightest minds in the space doesn't earn your trust, nothing will. IcelandBux won't save you.
Yes, they can do intelligence ops and attacks in others countries, but can't issue a subpoena along with gag order. Attacks can be defended against, secret court orders - not. A decision to make this currency US based killed it before it was even born. That's sad, because technically ZCash looks quite interesting.