Re: underground digital economy

[Adam Shostack <adam@lighthouse.homeport.org>]

Jim Miller wrote:

| > Certainly. There are a couple of ways, but all one needs is
| > some sort of  gateway to an e-cash

| This is the part that bothers me.  Wouldn't a gateway between anonymous  
| e-money and identified e-money would stick out like a sore thumb to  
| agencies tracking the flow of identified e-money?  Wouldn't identified  
| e-money trails start and/or terminate at the gateway?  Once the gateway is  
| discovered, all clients on the identified e-money side of the gateway  
| would be discovered.

	Anonymity only works when many people use it.  So yes, if the
gateway is discovered, the client list might be obtainable (unless
there are many entry points, each funnelling out through an point
thats designed to go down & be replaced.  Think remailer chains.)

	An ecash gateway could provide other services as well, say
currency conversion.  By offering rates slightly better than todays
market,* you can draw a lot of legit money through the system to act
as cover for other money.  Heck, people might even find its easier to
do business in the Seychelles than in New Orleans.

 *a trick which some shops play by timing their trades; if the
dollar is low today, buy a stack of dollars, when its high, sell your
excess.  Pass great rates onto your customers, and make very little on
each transaction.

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume