From: Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 93 09:30:16 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: IRS LEARNING . . .
In-Reply-To: <9310160338.AA06519@servo>
Message-ID: <8gk23ji00awHMvCUd3@andrew.cmu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>

> Anyway, back to cryptography, I do suspect that the government
> will eventually point to digital cash as justification for
> controlling all of cryptography. Or they will refuse to back it up
> in court as legal tender, thus helping undermine it.

Well, credit cards aren't really legal tender either - nobody is
required to accept them.  People accept them because of convienience,
but the government doesn't recoginze it as legal tender (Try telling the
IRS you want them to charge it to your MasterCard hahaha...)  Digital
cash would probably be the same.  The government probably wouldn't take
it, but that wouldn't stop everyone else from using it.  Hmm...  if they
decalred it not legal tender, does that mean you could take $10,000 in
digicash out of the country and not be required to report it? 
hehehehe...  or maybe you could just spend your digicash out of a
foreign bank account.  (Bank of Oceania?  hmm...)