From: Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 13:20:06 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: Political Cleanup program
In-Reply-To: <m0tROOn-0008yHC@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.CVX.3.91.951217185017.21889B@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, jim bell wrote:

> 
> It occurs to me that it would be a major advance if a system could be set up
> that would "blind" campaign donations as to their source:  The donor could
> be satisfied that his donation gets to the candidate or cause, but the
> candidate couldn't know  who actually paid the money (and the donor would be
> unable to prove that he made a donation, for example).  Admittedly there are
> a lot of details that need to be worked out, but if this could be
> accomplished it would change politics as we know it.

Just a straight Chaumian style blinding won't work, as there are too many 
covert channels available via both timing and amounts; For example, Joe 
Random Capitalist-Oppressor could arrange to pay a series of relatively 
small amounts wth different values in the cents field which could be used 
to confirm their payment (e.g. they could be composed to form a digitally 
signed value of some kind ("pollution rools" or "lung cancer is kool") :)

Sen. Dianne Running-Dog could then look for a matching set of donations 
and confirm that the bribe had in fact been paid. 

There are much better ways of reforming the political system -the 
formation of proper political parties with real programmes (the one good 
thing about the newtoid surge); changing the rules for TV advertising, 
etc. Blinding just makes things worse.

Simon // Introducing Covert Chunnels- the british side has a really slow 
         rate, and the french won't let there citizens use their side..