Re: The Continued Attack on Cash (Was: "The Right ofAnonymity"...)

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 10:51 PM -0800 2/1/98, Black Unicorn wrote:
>Mr. May said:
>
>>Suffice it to say that I find nearly all cases where someone is "demanding"
>>personal information to be cases where the government has required them to,
>>for various unseemly purposes, or in cases where credit is being arranged.
>
>Of late I tried to pay off a rather large American Express bill.
>
>Suddenly, AMEX won't take cash in excess of $1,000 in any single billing
>period (30 days).  The large sign on the wall indicated the substance of
....


It's worth noting (again) that a very simple technological/social solution
to the "credit card companies have records on people" problem, the one
often cited by "privacy law advocates" as the reason for a Data Privacy
Act, is easily found.

Namely, remove any impediments to the issuance of credit or debit cards
unlinkable to the True Name of a user.  A card issuer could feature this as
a Privacy Card, either backed by transfers of backing capital to accounts,
or using Chaum-style methods.

This is fully feasible using Chaumian credential-revealing mechanisms. (Cf.
Chaum's seminal "Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete," in
Communications of the ACM, November 1985. Updated a few times and available
in reprints or other places. Try search engines for latest locations.)

However, the trends are in just the opposite direction, as both Black
Unicorn and Bill Stewart have noted in this thread. Between the War on
Drugs, the laws about money laundering, the fears of tax evasion, and the
general burrowcrat desire to record the movements and actions of
citizen-units, such a Privacy Card would be frowned-upon.

Various roadblocks, ranging from "know your customer" restrictions on banks
to anti-money-laundering laws, would be thrown up to stop any such Privacy
Card.

The real solution is easy.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."