The Crypto Winter

[Declan McCullagh]

On Sun, Nov 18, 2001 at 05:16:54PM -0500, Faustine wrote:

> On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely do you think it is that these
> problems will be resolved in, say, the next decade? Where are the
> people most likely to make it happen? Fascinating stuff.

Huh? In my message, to which you replied, I said something like
"governments will not allow true anonymous digital cash to be deployed,
at least within their borders."

There's no time limit, at least a near-term limit, on that particular
prediction.

How can this "problem" be resolved? I'm not sure it can, at least if
governments insist on the regulatory trappings of the modern nation-state:
Acting against "tax havens," insisting on infringing upon financial 
privacy in the name of thwarting tax evasion, money laundering, drug
smuggling, and now terrorism, and so on. Perhaps if the tax system were
to change to one centered on property taxes, anonymous digital cash
would be less threatening to the tax structure, but then you have the
other problems like the canonical kidnapping-extortion-assassination
ones that have been discussed before and would cause law enforcement
to step in with regulatory escrow demands.

Scale of 1 to 10? 2.

-Declan