(Timothy May) Thanks for your repost of your message from the "Dawn of Time" (August 1992). Your list of "What DC Nets are Good For" was not specific enough for my taste. What DC Nets (untraceable communications) are good for: 1) Once voice/video/VR makes it to the nets and once we have enough bandwidth/speed even realtime communications can be untraceable: It's December 2000 and President Elect Clinton (Hilary) calls me for advice. The call goes to my "Virtual Communications Server" located "Somewhere on the Nets". The packets are forwarded to me after being split up and sent their various ways through anonymous remailers. My half of the conversation travels back the same way. The packets pay the anonymous remailers for their services with digital cash attached to their address headers. We notice no time lag because the nets are fast and the packets carry a "realtime" priority. With the proper setup, the President of the US will be talking to me without knowing (or being able to find out) where (or who) I am. 2) This means markets freed from even the theoretical possibility of regulation. Anything that can be digitized can be sold with no restraints save the absence of a willing buyer. Books, movies, VR epics, financial products, and all non-physical services can be traded without coercion (and without taxation). Remember too that "non-physical services" includes almost all management and professional services. The technique of "anonymous credentials" can be used to check out those you deal with. 3) The lack of regulation in the "spiritual realm" will distort market transactions in the still controlled "physical realm." People will tend to "unbundle" the non-physical aspects of their services and sell them on the nets even if it is less convenient to do so because of the *tax* savings. 4) The reduction is government "revenue" as economic activity transfers to the nets will induce a beneficial downward spiral in the authority and power of government. 5) People who become used to freedom in one part of their lives (their work and play on the nets) will not enjoy the coercion they suffer in the remainder of their lives (the place they sleep). They will have the motivation and the tools to liberate their whole lives. All without the Libertarian Party converting a single person. Freedom is a powerful recruiter. Duncan Frissell