On Sat, 11 Sep 1993, Da Mystic Homeboy wrote:
What would happen if all our transactions become untraceable? How is the government supposed to prove anything, except by becoming fascist corporate fanatics (which is what is trying to happen right now). Better yet, if all our communications are in private, how are the information companies going to get their money? Whos going to have established credit- the very basis of our modern kapitalism?
While I'm very much in favor of digital cash & strong encryption and excited by their potential uses, it seems to me that you're leaving out an awful lot when you paint your vision of the "private" future. Neither is likely to dramatically reduce the amount of general-purpose information available on people and businesses. With the ATM always around the corner, there's almost no reason for me to use a credit card, yet I do (frequent flyer mile credits aside) because it's convenient. The same for giving my unlisted telephone number to the plumber (who, in the years to come, undoubtedly will maintain it in a database and may even sell it) because I want him to call if he's going to be three hours late to fix the leaky pipe. As far as who's going to have established credit, the answer is darn near everyone who can get it. Credit is a powerful tool in a market economy -- to get an idea of how important it is even to average people, just look at the number of articles published by feminists on the plight of recently divorced women who had previously relied on their husband's credit rating. Rather than using the new tools for anonymity, I'll bet that most people, most of the time, want to use them to more securely establish *identity* (i.e., I don't want that jerk down the street with a Radio Shack scanner using my credit for his own purposes). In the end, I would suggest that a digital cash/strong encryption future will include a delicate balance in which each of us is constantly broadcasting personal information in the clear for purposes of convenience (even though we will quickly lose control over how that information is used) while simultaneously using privacy tools to permit more secure transactions and communications. This is not to suggest that there won't be a continued underground economy, but I don't see it taking over the world.