Mostly untraceable ordering of books by mail

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, January 15, 2002, at 06:38 PM, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote:

> Michael Motyka wrote:
>
>>> E-books are already a fact, but most are sold with the same retail
>>> machinery as regular books, so changing the medium doesn't change the
>>> risk.
>>>
>> I mean something more along the lines of encrypting each of your
>> electronic books and burning it to a CD. Nobody should be able to tell
>> by looking what you read, nobody should be able to compromise someone
>> else's library. Then the issue of reading habits become null. All tools
>> should be open source. Essentially they already exist - just need a
>> little packaging.
>
> That's pretty much what I understood you to say. The problem is that
> somewhere in the bookdealers' and jobbers' archives, the sales record
> will have to be accessible by title and by customer or customer
> category. In the case of a cash sale, of course, there's no problem, but
> if a credit card was involved the dealer has to be able to retrieve the
> record by name in case there's a chargeback or complaint. So the
> vulnerability to a police razzia still exists.

For physical books, there's always physical cash. (Pace the "Uncle 
Fester's" book bought in the Denver bookstore, that the Feds want the 
bookstore to reveal the buyer of.)

For online purchases, this trend of Feds snooping on reading habits 
could be a business opportunity for an anonymized online buying system. 
How could physical delivery be arranged?

First, purchase with some form of untraceable credit card.

Second, delivery to a local bookstore or even a Mailboxes, Etc., with 
pickup by matching the ID. For a small commission.

(This should not be in violation of any laws. This is not a mail cover, 
nor a money changing, etc. operation. Just a package delivery service.)

One can imagine t.v. cameras set up, but unlikely if there are thousands 
of such delivery sites.

Organizations like the ACLU, EFF, etc. could even set up such 
book-ordering services, perhaps via liberty-sympathetic lawyers in 
various cities and towns, to make the PR point that such services are 
the only way around government snooping on the citizen-units.


(Of course, any normal bookstore is free to order a book and then take 
cash for it. I've ordered books without ever leaving my name or number 
and then paying in cash. This works better for conventional books than 
it does for controversial books on bomb-making, pot-growing, or sex.)


--Tim May
"Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little 
bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now 
racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events 
following 9/11/2001