~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C'punks,

Okay, back to basics. David Merriman wrote:

But if the system is set up for total anonymity, _who would know_ that an escrow agent was the "bag man"? Just like no one would know who the contractee was, or the contractor:

The escrow agent is a publicly known entity. That's how it gets a reputation. How do you imagine an escrow agent could get a reputation for being a murder's bag man if it didn't advertise as such.

If the escrow agent has a reputation for reliability, honesty, integrity, etc, then the nature of the transaction is irrelevant. Any reasonably intelligent hit man would have sense enough not to commit all his 'business' to any single escrow agent, just as no reasonably intelligent C'punk would trust all his/her mail to a single remailer. I still don't see the problem: the whole process is anonymized. There is no reason that the escrow agent would have to know *why* the "money" is in escrow, nor who the financer is, nor who the recipient is to be. All that is necessary is for the hit man to provide suitably disguised/encrypted evidence that the terms have been met. Presumably, the person contracting the hit would be aware of how to go about setting all this up would have sufficient wit to establish a means of independent validation; if not, then the hit man would certainly have sufficient motive to do so :-)

If it advertises as such, I believe most people would refuse to do any business with it. If it doesn't advertise, how will it get those sorts of clients?

The only *fundamental* feature of an escrow agency is it's reputation for reliability/stability/security/etc. The nature of the transactions simply don't matter, just as a remailer's reliability is based on it's up-time, cycle time, input/ouput isolation, etc, regardless of the nature of the messages passing through it. What sorts of clients? The ones that pay the escrow fee? Doubtless, the escrow agency would have a means of ensuring their own payment :-)

There is no reputational incentive to perform the loathsome service, and plenty of incentive to (a) just keep the money, or (b) blow the whistle to the cops and the intended victim (and keep the money). Please note, this was all intuitively obvious from my previous post.

True enough - *but only as long as the nature of the service could be identified*, which would not apply to a properly operated escrow agency. Dave (adjusting Nomex undies under asbestos coveralls) Merriman - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman@metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.