Untraceable Payments, Extortion, and Other Bad Things

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

I've noticed a few references in the press, and maybe on this list, to the
idea that because some bad things may be done with untraceable payments
(true Chaumian digicash, not the watered down version offering only
one-sided untraceability), that governments will "not allow" such
untraceable payments.

This won't work. So long as there is at least *one* such service, anywhere
in the world....

I'll explain.

A few definitions:

"Bad things" are the uses to which strong crypto, anonymous systems,
information markets, untraceable payments, etc., may be put to commit
various crimes and dastardly acts. For example, untraceable payments for
untraceable contract assassinations (thus removing the primary means by
which such contractors are caught, the arrangements to begin with and the
payments). Or, espionage in which the spy transfers information digitally
via a "digital dead drop," eliminating the need for a physical contact
point (an obvious vulnerability, as recent cases have shown) and also
allowing efficient payment via untraceable funds transfers. And extortion.

Extortion is an interesting example to focus on. "Pay $25,000 or the
following action will occur." A bomb, a virus, release of secrets, etc.
Blackmail is of course a form of extortion, as is kidnapping. The acts
involving *physical* actions will of course be less affected by crypto
advances than will purely information-domain acts, e.g., where secrets will
be released unless a payment is made. Physical acts have a nexus of
detection at the act itself, the kidnapping, the bomb-planting, etc.
(Though often the original act is very hard to protect against, and
traditionally it has been the payoff that has been the nexus for catching
the perpetrator...with untraceable payments, kidnapping becomes less
dangerous for the kidnapper, especially if he kills his victim...I surmise
that new technology, such as cameras and wireless Net video calls will be
used increasingly to provide the payer of a ransom increased assurance that
the victim was still alive at the time the transfer was made...the video
call could even go through remailers, if the frame rate was drastically
reduced or if PipeNet comes into existence.)

But I'll focus on simple extortion, with no complications of physical,
meatspace actions. Pure cyberspace.

"Untraceable payments" refer to payer- and payee-untraceable Chaum-style
cash. Although for the discussions here of extortion, payee-untraceable
(the person being paid would not be traceable is my sense of this term)
digital cash would be sufficient; that the payment originated from XYZ
Corporation or some account at the Bank of Albania would not stop the acts.

Chaum has in recent years attempted (I have to presume) to take the "edge"
of fully-intraceable digital cash by making it only partly untraceable.
Many of us hypothesized that "mixes" (as in remailers) could be used to
fully-untraceabalize (?) even partly-traceable systems. I recall Lucky
Green, Hal Finney, and others in such discussions. "Banks" were proposed to
do this. Recently, Ian Goldberg claims to have a system which formally
accomplishes this.

(Keep in mind my original claim, that all it takes is _one_ such system...)

Now suppose that the U.S. Government formally and officially and with
actual enforcement halts all such untraceable systems, at least in terms of
U.S. banks, credit unions, local moneychangers, etc. Even halts all
partly-untraceable systems, to head off the Goldberg Gambit.

Does this stop extortion?

Suppose there exists a supplier of fully-untraceable (or payee-untraceable
at least) cash *somewhere* in the world. It could be a physical bank, a la
the Bank of Albania, or it could be an underground payment system, a la the
Mafia, the Tongs, the Triads, whatever. A reputation-reliant system which
says "Present us with the proper set of numbers and we will provide money
to the bearer, or follow instructions, and so on." (I'm informally
describing the process of "redeeming" a digital bearer instrument,
converting the set of numbers into some other form of specie, or item of
value, whatever. Maybe gold, maybe dollars, maybe an entry into an account
somewhere. The "untraceability," via the blinding operation, means that the
bearer is not linked to the transaction made earlier, so there is not risk
at the bank or Triad. I'm also not distinguishing between offline and
online clearing here...my feeling for a long time has been that online
clearing has many advantages, but I suspect it does not work too well in
the extortion case described here, until something like PipeNet can be used
as part of the process.)

So, Ed the Extortionist tells Vic the Victim to please purchase $25,000
worth of Bank of Albania crypto-credits, by whatever means he has to
(including, presumably, even flying to Albania, or using other funds
transfer mechanisms, or perhaps even using crypto credits he had
accumulated in other transactions.) Whatever, it is assumed that Vic
_wants_ to make the transaction, just as with kidnap ransom demands. (Not
"want" in the ultimate sense, but "want" in the sense of the local
transaction. In extortion and kidnap cases, the victim of the extortion or
the family of the kidnap victim may choose not to make the payment...I'm
dealing with the more interesting case of where the payment is being made.)

How Ed receives the funds without the bits being followed through
cyberspace is of course an easy exercise for readers here. Anonymous
remailers with reply-block capabilities, a la Mixmaster, or, my preference,
posting in a public place, a la the Usenet or other widely-disseminated
message pools.

Ed takes the crypto credits and redeems them as he sees fit (after some
unblinding stuff, of course). The redemption order is unlinkable to the
extortion. (Modulo the usual issues: if Ed and Vic happened to be the
_only_ users of such a system, then of course simple input-output mapping
would finger Ed, as with such uses of remailer networks. Correlations are
always a danger. Correlations in timing, in deposit size, etc. The usual
fixes apply: more users, more bits sloshing around the network, time
delays, etc. Offline clearing facillitates some of these measures. Ditto
for breaking up the payment into N separate smaller-denomination transfers.)

What could the U.S. do? If Vic the Victim is careful, and either flies to
Europe or the Caribbean to make the arrangements, or uses various
Cypherpunks-type communication methods, he should be able to wire money
from a conventional account, or use real cash, and purchase the crypto
credits from the Bank of Albania. Likewise, if Ed the Extortionist has
freedom of travel or freedom to use various channels, he can cash in his
crypto credits. This no matter what the U.S. does.

So, even if "Mark Twain Bank" and "Bank of America," and, indeed, the rest
of the U.S. banking establishment eschews untraceability, the presence of
such services anywhere in the world is enough to make the act described
workable. And that "anywhere in the world" can, as I mentioned earlier,
encompass the various underground banking systems already widely in use
(Tongs, Triads, chop marks, etc. in Asia, and presumably similar systems
elsewhere). Or it could encompass fairly conventional banks which offer
such untraceable routes for a premium. A $5,000 commission on top of the
$25,000 transfer would make a lot of the world's banks sit up and take
notice. And so long as they were not told what the fund transfer was all
about--Vic is unlikely to gain anything by telling them--they have
plausible deniability and moral comfort.

Yes, this has all been obvious for a while. (The mapping of the scenario I
describe to a specific digital cash system depends of course on the nature
of the system, on cryptographic protocols, and so forth.)

And I surmise that the U.S. Government must have realized this. And
realized that only by _completely quashing_ all such untraceable payments
systems can the goals of stopping such "bad uses" be met.

Unfortunately for them, and unfortunately for the victims of such crimes,
no such worldwide stoppage of all such systems seems possible, even with
draconian police state measures. There are just too many interstices for
the bits to hide. And too much economic incentive for some persons or banks
to offer such funds transfer methods.

Fortunately for the bulk of us, the likely number of deaths and economic
losses from such crimes of kidnapping, extortion, and even murder for hire,
is still likely to be vastly lower than the number of deaths caused by
powerful central governments enriching themselves and their cronies with
foreign wars. Not to mention the deaths in the Drug War, the lives wasted
in other interferences in private behavior, etc.

This is why I look forward to this Brave New World of fully untraceable
communications and fully untraceable economic transactions.

--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."