From: Marc Horowitz <marc@Athena.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 93 20:39:53 PST
To: thug@phantom.com (Murdering Thug)
Subject: Re: more ideas on anonymity
In-Reply-To: <m0nSbit-000jr0C@phantom.com>
Message-ID: <9302280438.AA26643@steve-dallas.MIT.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>> > If I perform some service for you, and you acknowledge that the
>> > service is complete as performed, then you have no need for my
>> > identity.
>> 
>> > Therefore, should not discrimination against anonymity when names are
>> > not germane be considered (depending on one's ideology) unreasonable,
>> > inefficient, coercive, intrusive, or illegal?
>>
>> Try telling this to the person behind the counter when you're trying
>> to rent a car, rent a hotel room for the night, or rent a mailbox for
>> 6 months.

Thug, you didn't seem to get Eric's point.  When I walk up to the
newspaper guy on the corner, I hand him 35 cents, he hands me a paper.
We're both happy.  My name is irrelevant, because there's not a hell
of a lot either of us can do to screw the other one over, so he
doesn't need to know my name.  I don't need to know his.

With certain exceptions, like the mailbox example, most situations of
"rent foo" require the lessor to take a risk, and he wants *some*
assurance that he'll get his rented thing back.  I'm not going to rent
a car to someone without ID, for cash, because I have no guarantee
that he isn't going to drive away with it and never come back.

I'm not saying discrimination against cash doesn't exist.  It does,
and that's reprehensible.  But not all cases of "plastic, yes, cash,
no" are discriminatory.

>> This brings up the question of using False ID when conducting
>> perfectly legal transactions, in order to preserve one's privacy.  Can
>> anyone reading this list with a legal background answer whether this
>> is legal or not?  

This is a very good question.

		Marc