Re: Blinded Identities [was Re: exporting signatures only/CAPI]

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 04:28 PM 10/13/96 -0400, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
>It is unpublished, but he kindly allowed to me describe it in a paper I
>wrote that discussed whether a bank would ever want to take the risk of
>allowing bank accounts where it did not know the identity of the customer.

Why should that be a problem?   It's the customer's money, isn't it?  It's 
not like the bank is making a loan.  It's the customer who should be 
worried...about the bank's identity.

Remember "plausible denial."  Shouldn't we believe that if a bank cannot 
know its customer, likewise it isn't responsible for who that customer is?  
A bank's legitimate interests should  not include acting as enforcer for the 
government, so any system that prevents this from happening is helpful.  

And I don't think that a bank can ever be embarrassed (assuming bank 
accounts are anonymous) by it being revealed that some particular bad guy 
kept his money there, any more than other cash-based (anonymous) businesses 
are embarrassed if it is revealed that some bad guy used their services.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com