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

[Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>]

On Sun, 6 Oct 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> 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.

Coming to a bank near you.

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

The easy solution includes optional release of high balance and payment
history only to the big three at the customer's option with full
disclosure and customer waiver before the release as to the nature of the
data to be shared with the credit company.

> 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.

Several offshore banks made the habit of issuing "secured" Gold
Mastercards in corporate names.  Essentially they were debit cards and
could be used anywhere with atms to withdraw cash on the spot.  Most of
these practices were ended by shrewd attacks from the United States (the
U.S. branches of these banks started having undefined and rather vague
license problems and regulatory headaches until they agreed to direct
their offshore branches to stop issuing these cards).

> (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.)

There are several people who are aware that privacy is a marketable
service in credit card banking and insurance now.  In my view such an
institution will exist within 12 months.

> 
> --Tim May
> 

--
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