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

[Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>]

On Mon, 14 Oct 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 04:01 AM 10/14/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:
> >On Sun, 13 Oct 1996, jim bell wrote:
> >
> >> 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It is unpublished, but he kindly allowed to me describe it in a paper I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.
> >
> >> 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.
> >
> >I would refer you to Union Bank of Switzerland in the late 80's
> >(kidnapping), BCCI (drug and intelligence money), BMI (drug
> >money/offshore insurance fraud), PNC Bank (accounting fraud), and a host
> >of others I won't bother to list.  Banks do suffer from these disclosures,
> >in many cases quite severely.  (PNC bank was nearly ruined by their fraud
> >harboring disclosures). 
> 
> Are you talking about ANONYMOUS accounts, or merely CONFIDENTIAL ones?  
> (Anonymous accounts, as I use the term, are ones in which even the bank doesn't 
> know the owner.)  I think you're lumping these two things together; I was not.

Nor am I.
Most accounts during the period where the above incidents caused problems
were opened by proxy then transfered repeatedly.  The use of Swiss
"passbook" accounts in collecting kidnapping randsome was epidemic in the
1970s and 1980s.  These accounts, as they are bearer based and opened
through proxy, were entirely anonymous.

Many examples of effectively and literally anonymous accounts existed in
the 1970s and 1980s.

BCCI was famous for not caring who the account holder was, and shell
corporations were shamelessly used to conceal deposit taking and account
management by depositors who weren't satisified with trusting BCCI's
reputed "disinterest."

Again, Mr. Bell, I understand the temptation to try and create
otherwise absent facts to support your argument, but please learn the
subject before you start running at the mouth.

> 
> Jim Bell
> jimbell@pacifier.com
> 

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