At 7:38 PM 5/28/96, Bruce Baugh wrote:

In many cases, sure it is. I can't see how giving you the information to establish that I can pay a bill I owe you should be in any sense treated as a license do anything else with that info. A great many transactions are finite, and ought not have lingering implications or side deals dangling off the end.

Most lenders are interested in these things: * past history of paying bills, especially for monthly bills such as VISA (and when one applies for and accepts a VISA card, it is explicitly made clear that repayment/deliquency information will be reported to credit agencies...most people of course _want_ this information reported, as this is largely what "establishing a credit history" is all about). * lenders for larger items, such as cars and houses, will want collateral and some evidence that the monthly repayment amounts are achievable (even if a loan is secured by a car, for example, it makes no sense for them to lend money to an unemployed 18-year-old and then have to spend money and time retrieving the car, etc. * other factors which have historically affected loan repayment probabilities, such as age, sex, ethnic group, religion, educational background, etc. (Note: Some of these criteria are of course no longer legal to officially use, even if their strong and clear correlations.) Note that "credit" is not a right. Credit, like insurance, is a kind of "bet" a lender is making. A bet that he will get his principal back, with interest. To help him make this bet, people offer evidence of past good faith in loans, and choose to reveal their current salaries, ownership of other assets, etc. In no way is this coerced. Anyone is free to eschew credit, avoid borrowing money, and pay with cash or checks for all purchases.

In the long run, this is where anonymous payments come in. In the meantime, I muddle on as best I can.

No, anonymous payments have very little to do with credit. See above. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."