At 22:42 9/5/95, Bryce Wilcox wrote:
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I, Bryce Wilcox <bryce.wilcox@colorado.edu> wrote:
I hope I'm not missing anything here.
shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote:
Only that Ecash has no benefits for transactions that are of an illegal nature. The meaning of "illegal" is of course increasing as new laws are passed every session of the legislature.
Chaum says that (especially when speaking before U.S. Congress) but I think he is playing both sides of the fence. He is a die-hard privacy advocate who allegedly turns down lucrative business deals because he feels they would dilute his privacy achievements. The truth is that Chaumian DigiCash is a *lot* safer for criminals than, say, credit cards, and when it is combined with the other tools in a money launderer's toolbox, I expect it will be a great boon to them.
Chaum is a privacy advocate when it comes to companies compiling dosiers on you. When it comes to criminal use, my conversations with Chaum, his public comments, and last not least the current implementation of his software suggest otherwise.
Suppose you have acquired a million dollars worth of legal, above-board DigiCash dollars and you want to surreptitiously transfer this wealth to a below-board friend. Your friend creates a temporary anonymous account at an understanding bank. Y
Won't work. Ecash, except as used for frequent flyer like points, will exist in only *one* world wide e$ currency, issued by a single entity composed of various major banks and subject to US laws. Getting Ecash accounts will therefore be subject to the same legal requirenments that apply to normal US checking accounts.
Now without active physical surveillance, nobody other than yourself and your friend will ever know where the money went, and you can't prove that you gave it to him, either...
You or a sting operation can always reveal the recipient by publishing the blinding factor. Besides, your Ecash client keeps a log of the payees. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.