Re: extortion via digital cash

[Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>]

At 01:46 PM 10/15/96 -0500, Andrew Loewenstern
<andrew_loewenstern@il.us.swissbank.com> wrote:
>scottb@aca.ca writes:
>>  I was wondering, what if you demanded payment via Ecash,
>>  through nym servers, aliases, etc.  From what I understand,
>>  it is just like cash, ie: no record of transaction, but you
>>  get the added bonus of not having to meet the other party-like
>>  a fund transfer.
>
>This has been discussed quite a bit on the list before and there is even a  
>bit about it in Applied Cryptography.  Basically the extortionist must be  
>careful in how he arranges payment.  

As Andrew says, yeah, you can do it.  Chaum's Digicash is currently
implemented as payer-anonymous but not payee-anonymous, primarily because
Chaum's worried about this kind of problem.  But Chaum's original
mathematics give payee-anonymity as well, and there are ways to
adapt the payee-non-anonymous implementations to get that back
(though you'll have to write your own application code to do some of it.)
In some implementations it's sometimes easier to be payee-anonymous
if you're willing to take the risk of double-spending (i.e. trust the
payer not to double-spend the money before you can take it to
the cambio to trade it for unmarked money.)

And, yes, there are all kinds of scary applications for it,
such as Blackmail, extortion, ransom for kidnappers (which breaks the
main connection that police have with those kidnappers who really _do_
want to collect the money and return the victim alive),
and paying assassins (who have less risky payoff problems.)

It also has many non-scary but politically incorrect applications,
such as making change and trading foreign currency (aka money-laundering),
paying for politically incorrect recreational substances,
bribing politicians to do things they shouldn't, 
bribing government employees to do things they should but aren't, 
getting paid for work without the inconvenience of taxation, etc.

Tim May's Cyphernomicon and the various Blacknet authors talk about
this in some detail.  

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk
  Imagine if three million people voted for somebody they _knew_,
  and the politicians had to count them all.