Carl Ellison says:

For example, crypto-anarchic banks -- cute idea -- but if you ever want a cop to make your banker give you the money, the banker can't be anonymous and neither can you account be.

Perhaps the banker can't be anonymous, but the account certainly can be. Many countries have centuries of experience with this. Hell, the Austrians have 100% anonymous accounts to this day. Works just fine, and no trust is involved.

In fact, if the FBI has planted agents on this list, I wouldn't be surprised to discover someday that they were among the vocal anarchists.

Feel free to check my credentials. I assure you I earn more than enough money at my job that it wouldn't be worth the FBI's money to make the bribe big enough -- it would also have to cover the risk to me that being an anarchist presents vis a vis my job -- someday I might lose it for having strange political ideas, and salaries like mine are hard to come by in other professions. Its entirely possible that there are FBI agents on this list -- I proceed on that assumption every day. Its also possible that there are agents provocateur. However, I fully assure you that many of us are legitimate anarchists of long standing, most of us being of the capitalist anarchist persuasion. I'll fully agree that arguing for anarchy with the general public won't work at the current time -- and I agree that our image is important. However, at this point the battle is being fought by folks like EFF and CPSR. I for one don't see any reason to hide my politics, although I try not to make an issue of it. Perry

Phile Karn writes:

I want to echo Carl's sentiments. I do find talk about cryptographically enforced underground economies to be interesting, but scary as well precisely because I'm afraid of what the backlash might do to the cryptographically enforced personal privacy that I'm primarily interested in.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your position) the two are really inseperable; it is this fact above all others that I really think gives the people inside the beltway the willies when it comes to cryptography. Information has no morality and is subject to no rules save its own. It is kinda like money in that way... >:) If you have the ability to send message that is private there is nothing to prevent that message from being a digital cheque for payment of services. The "underground economy" is probably a lot larger than you would imagine, and given the current political climate you might be able to get a lot farther with the masses by telling them that digital money will give them the ability to tell the IRS where to stick thier noses than pretending it would never happen in the "crypto-enlightened age" and have an opponent bring it up as a point against strong crypto. The two are really inseperable and it seems to be of little value to pretend that they are not. jim

According to L. Detweiler:

Mr. McCoy of `strong cryptography' and `anarchy':

...

the ability to tell the IRS where to stick thier noses than pretending it would never happen in the "crypto-enlightened age" and have an opponent bring it up as a point against strong crypto.

I think this is absolutely baseless. Cash is just as untraceable as a cryptographically encoded message. Have governments collapsed on the existence of cash? (well, there's this thing called inflation, but that's something else...)

Do we really think that criminals will flourish if only they could get their hands on digital cash? don't criminals make a pretty ingenious use of all the rudimentary tools in use today? is lack of strong cryptography or digital cash preventing Up until about the 70s it was damn near impossible to enforce what the modern day fascists call the "drug war". This was because

Actually, yes. Like it or not, most major transactions ever since probably the fifties, are not at all done in "real money". Its all existed as checks, credits, assets, etc. on some bank note somewhere, and now as ones and zeroes in the international info markets. Cash has become a *big* worry for governments nowadays because of the "shadow economy" thats developed with cash. Its completely untraceable, mostly unrecorded, and so the IRS (or any other government agency for that matter) has NO way to know whats Happening. The U.S. gova'ment is losing billions of dollars because of these transactions, and many people have seriously considered outlawing cash. 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? the world had not become superbly networked as it is, and so, any strange transactions or series of transactions could go virtually unnoticed. It was only in the eighties, with the microcomputer and increased interconnectivity, was it possible to catch, for example, money laundering. Yet, at the same time, for "criminals" it was pretty damn hard to communicate. So, what happens when you have all the freedom of privacy, and all the power of communication? The crash of the drug war and the governments spellbinding and gestapo-like control of the public.

powerful new technology, despite all the rampant and paranoid fears of the populace, has always inherently favored virtue and order in the long run. Bzzzzt. Wrong again. All major technologies have only *increased* freedom, not the opposite. Technology has always caused more opportunity to think and to do, something that holders of power have never wanted you to do. Of course, it also depends on what you consider being virtue. Being a discordian/anarchist, I consider the chaos and freedom the virtue.

unfortunately it will be so unlike anything in historical experience -- so unlike any `order' we've ever imagined -- that perhaps the crude term `anarchy' is the most apropos of all in our vocabulary. Bush was Agreed, but cryptography IMNSHO, is a very strong step toward the natural progression towards true anarchy.

proliferation of strong cryptography. Cryptography is not synonymous with tax evasion, terrorism, or utter chaos. It is simply as neutral, powerful, and liberating as communication itself. In fact, for the first time we are beginning to realize what `communication' truly entails.

Again, agreed. But, as you pointed out, the effects of communication is more often liberating than not. Such the same with crypto. The reason crypto is getting so much hype is because its the safety protection for communication- the true weapon against the powermongrels.

Jim McCoy says:

If you have the ability to send message that is private there is nothing to prevent that message from being a digital cheque for payment of services. The "underground economy" is probably a lot larger than you would imagine,

It is currently estimated that at least 10 MILLION people a year fail to file income tax returns, and that another 10 MILLION file returns that are partially or wholely fraudulent. The government would like you to believe that this is rare, so they don't make much of it, but the fact remains that your odds of being prosecuted for tax fraud or failing to file are miniscule. They pick famous people every year to go after like Leona Helmsley to get publicity, but they really don't have the resources to go after more than a couple thousand people a year. A large fraction of the economy in our country is completely underground already.

and given the current political climate you might be able to get a lot farther with the masses by telling them that digital money will give them the ability to tell the IRS where to stick thier noses than pretending it would never happen in the "crypto-enlightened age" and have an opponent bring it up as a point against strong crypto.

This I disagree with. Even people who commit tax fraud every day are horrified by the notion of other people committing it. Its strange, but its a product of our "sanction of the victim" culture. The result of this is that even people who would in the back of their mind love to be able to commit tax fraud with no chance of being caught will not support infrastructure that makes it possible. This is not to say, though, that their support is needed. Countries around the world have turned tax evasion and secret banking into national industries. Look at the Swiss, for example. Computer networks will make private electronic funds transfer systems, and the capacity to take advantage of offshore banks, ubiquitous. The only way to stop it, even if it were to become illegal, would be massive tapping of all data transactions on a scale that could literally not be sustained without bankrupting the government. Imagine trying to hire a staff to monitor all binary data crossing international lines even at todays data rates -- then imagine if those rates went up by three orders of magnitude. Quite simply, whether governments like it or not, income taxation is pretty much doomed. Either they have to move to operating entirely on the level of tangible property and tangible consumption taxation, or they will starve. Perry

In article , T. William Wells wrote: : I'm really glad I gateway this mailing list into a newsgroup. : That way, I can killfile discussions such as this one. However, : for those not so blessed.... Whoops. At least one person is imagining that I gateway this into some global newsgroup somewhere... What I'm using is a set of home-grown scripts to gateway the list into a local newsgroup. There's a mail to news gateway package out there that is probably a better solution. If you can't find it or would prefer my home grown scripts, let me know. I can send you that other software (though I haven't looked at it) or I can send you my scripts. There are also things like procmail and deliver that can be used to do this sort of thing.