Scott Northrop wrote:
Here in Seattle there is a proposal to turn a couple of traffic chokepoints into toll roads. Because a toll plaza would back things up even worse, I'm ... The downside is that it'll not be designed with privacy in mind at all, and will eventually have this pesky database of who went by the toll booth and when. We all know that old databases never die, they just get put on tape and stuffed in a box, to wait for someone with a curious streak to come by. This
No doubt the various cites and local governments can raise extra revenue by selling the tracking data to the IRS for their new "Compliance 2000" program, to FinCEN to see if suspicious travel patterns are being engaged in, to the War on Some Drugs soldiers to see if the car is deemed to be a drug carrier, and so on. Even better, women seeking abortions, for example, could be denied access to the toll roads that are known to lead to the evil abortionists! The possibilities are endless. All of this is old news, in that Brunner warned of ubiquitous computers in "The Shockwave Rider," and Chaum explicity dealt with the threat of position tracking in his proposal for digital, untraceable cash. Lucky Greene demonstrated at the last CP meeting a toll payment card that uses Digicash. About the size of a credit card, it handles the payment but is unlinkable to driver or car ID. Cities won't use this technology unless customers demand it. Of course, cities don't view road users as customers who can take their business elsewhere. I don't expect very widespread use of digicash. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay