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1997-12-20 - Re: Is Anonymous Communication only for “Criminals”?

Header Data

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Message Hash: 0153d818612d8930a7b3955e57c363db3e1ba362a3707b240afd7ea91d03fa03
Message ID: <v0310280bb0c1b61aa9c3@[207.167.93.63]>
Reply To: <19971220182004.12276.qmail@nym.alias.net>
UTC Datetime: 1997-12-20 18:55:07 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 02:55:07 +0800

Raw message

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 02:55:07 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Is Anonymous Communication only for "Criminals"?
In-Reply-To: <19971220182004.12276.qmail@nym.alias.net>
Message-ID: <v0310280bb0c1b61aa9c3@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 11:20 AM -0700 12/20/97, Charlie Comsec wrote:

>Why would a pager company want to block calls from pay phones?  Haven't
>you seen that commercial (for MCI?) where the kids crowd into that phone
>booth and page someone to pick them up from school before the big
>storm hits?  Imagine if they had gotten a recording saying "I'm sorry.
>You can't page this number from a pay phone."  Really bad PR!

The general pressure to treat pay phones as things to be regulated away, to
be forcefully shut down (as in Chicago, if I recall correctly), and to be
treated as a Tool of the Devil has to do with the War on Some Drugs, of
course.

Because dealers use pay phones, they must be bad.

In a free society, companies would be free to offer various kinds of
blocking services. I surmise, though, that the pager companies are under
pressure from their friends in government to block pay phones more so than
they normally would.

(Even the _ability_ to block a pay phone, qua pay phone, must imply that
pay phones send out some kind of signal announcing themselves as pay
phones, which I had not heard of before. I assumed a pay phone was Just
Another Phone Number.)


The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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