From: IN%"frissell@panix.com" "Duncan Frissell" 8-DEC-1995 16:15:52.58 At 02:52 PM 12/8/95 -0500, Jon Cooper wrote:

The US government can stop it. It is irrelevant what *should* stop it, but it's extremely useful to note that the US government's political climate of paranoia and FUD in general will certainly not allow truly anonymous cash systems inside of our country in the forseeable future.

But who's going to ask? If an anonymous payment system springs up outside the US, we can use it as a store of value if nothing else or for shopping overseas. Domestically, we can convert non-anonymous payment systems into semi-anonymous ones. What counts is difficulty of transaction and market demand not legal structure. Thus, about five minutes after the "temporary VISA card" travelers check substitutes are issued, I can start selling them for (discounted) cash to all comers. Likewise Ecash laundry servers letting anonymous people use non-anonymous Ecash. It remains to be seen how much customers value anonymity. There should be a niche market in any case. ---------------------- I would also add that what one is doing when trading digital cash is bartering for information. While the government has been successful in placing limits on point-based bartering systems such as recordkeeping and taxes, the lack of central books will make it quite hard to do so for digital cash. Trying to outlaw barter arrangements, when what is being bartered is an apparantly random string of numbers, is quite simply not going to work. -Allen