You do a disservice to crypto and our group by implying, even in a backhanded way, that Bell's "AP" system was or is in any way feasible. Where's the true untraceable cash needed? Please explain. --Tim May

In 1995 the U.S. Secret Service reported less than one percent of seized counterfeit bills were created using a home computer. Last year, 47 percent of seized bills were produced with a computer and printer. and...Who needs untraceable anonymity when throwaway pseudonymous accounts should suffice? and...untraceable digital cash is not strictly needed.Merely enough trustworthy netizens to promise to send their pledge to the 'predictor' who remains anonymous.Do you take payment in kind? Strangers on a train? The hawala system for APster. Security for pledgers who default? The remailers will be bigger than SETI but Howie and Chaum light the way.

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A few ideas to get the ball rolling: Active privacy protection: Collect the information a zealous G-man or Gestapo craves - (AP police? pr.) fingerprints, DNA, dossier, phone logs, etc., but encrypt and un traceably divide it through remailers in locations chosen randomly by input from me and those collecting it. As long as I keep regularly anonymously authenticating myself, the pieces can neither be located to destroy or compromise them, or reunited. If my transmissions stop for some period, say because I blew myself up in a suicide attack, the different providers send their pieces to the authorities and the game is up. I can assign a digital Power of Attorney or inheritance for others to maintain my privacy when I can't, but, if a grand jury investigating the plane I hijacked publicly and legally indicts or subpoenas me (or the alias under which I bought my plane ticket), they can broadcast a code that retrieves some or all the data. However their actual locations are unknown: if I set it up that way, after some interval they also send it to my lawyer, a selection of newspapers, etc. Un-audit able taps: Record full taps of all telephone and email conversations. Encrypt with multiple keys and/or divide the bits and store with redundancy and active privacy protection in multiple locations through remailers, as before. The conversation may only continue while the recording is anonymously proven to be occurring. During the statutory storage period, the providers anonymously check one another, and regenerate in a new randomly chosen location if one provider disappears. On the statutory expiration date, all the pieces do. Watchdog timer: Like the processor in a control system, the computers of a jet require regular interaction with their assigned, authenticated, and conscious pilot. Otherwise they announce his incapacity to the world, and hand themselves over to remote control from an authenticated ground controller. (Not necessarily blinded, but included because topical.) Also, I have a few more related older ideas on my website below. Good luck! Howie Goodell -- Howie Goodell hgoodell@cs.uml.edu Pr SW Eng, WearLogic Sc.D. Cand HCI Res Grp CS Dept U Massachussets Lowell http://people.ne.mediaone.net/goodell/howie Dying is soooo 20th-century! http://www.cryonics.org

Timmy hates this so theres probably something to it.Lets put tims head in with that other nazi,disney. ""I do not promise to streamline government or make it more efficient; for I mean to reduce its size." (Barry Goldwater) Take that to its ultimate practical extreme; that's what I'm proposing. "Howie G. (and jimmy B?)