Re: "Drift net fishing," GAK, FBI, and NSA

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 2:05 PM -0700 10/6/96, Steve Schear wrote:
(quoting me)

>>(They already got access to the credit card databases, decades ago, of
>>course.)
>>
>
>Are SSN and other ID required when opening a 'pre-paid' credit card
>account?  That is, the ones for persons with poor credit who are required
>to maintain a balance sufficient to pay off the charges?  Perhaps we could
>put our heads together and determine a way to become franchised by MC/VISA
>and offer 'affinity' type accounts with no address requirements (all
>statments are sent via remailer/nym email).

A couple of people on this list talked about a similar thing, a "Privacy
Card," with the explicit policy of not reporting transactions in detail to
the Big Three (the government-friendly TRW Credit, Equifax, and Transunion).

The idea being that if a "market for privacy" exists, someone ought to be
able to make a nice piece of change offering a card that protects privacy.

One problem is that many people _want_ credit card transactions reported to
the Big Three, to build up their credit record.

(But many don't care. I've been using a VISA card issued by my stock broker
for 12 years now. It's a "debit card," though it's handled by a merchant
exactly as a credit card, and they probably can't see any difference. What
I gathered when buying my current house, is that none of these transactions
were part of my "credit history," as I was actually using a debit card. All
of those now using, or planning to use, a debit card would be ideal
candidates for a "Privacy Card.")

Such a deal would have to be one of Visa, MasterCard, or Discover, with
American Express a distant fourth. (I don't even know if these
companies/tradenames would even allow such a thing, of course.) The cost of
rolling out a brand new type of card would of course be prohibitively high.

(I have no expectation than this will be done, and I think I said so at the
time. Ever the realist, in some ways,  I knew no one would take on such a
complex project. Just as no one followed through with the "Cypherpunks
Credit Union" idea, discussed at several meetings in 1993.)

--Tim May

"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."