doug@OpenMind.com:

an openly conducted business. For example, an anonymous news post announces a public key which is to be used to encode a contract kill order, along with a digital cash payment. The person placing the contract need only anonymously place the encrypted message in alt.test. Perhaps it is

And then the evil assasin, using the Cypherpunk Assasination Remailer (tm) sends an encrypted e-mail to the victim's life-support system and alas! he dies. No? You mean the assasin will actually have to use a {gun/knife/CIA anti-beard poison} and be _physically_ near the victim? Ah well, then the police just got to find the fingerprints and all the usual things, right? What's cyberspace got to do with it? I believe that if you try to criminalize conspiracy, than you risk mass invasions of privacy. Conspiring is just exercising freedom of opinion and expression - the crime, as always even in the days of Caesar, is in the act, not the preparation. And the act is always quite physical, well out of the bounds of cyberspace and the Thought Police. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab@dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA