From: rishab@dxm.ernet.in
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 94 08:04:25 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Virtual assasins and lethal remailers
Message-ID: <gate.LBmksc1w165w@dxm.ernet.in>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


doug@OpenMind.com:

> an openly conducted business.  For example, an anonymous news post
> announces a public key which is to be used to encode a contract kill order,
> along with a digital cash payment.  The person placing the contract need
> only anonymously place the encrypted message in alt.test.  Perhaps it is

And then the evil assasin, using the Cypherpunk Assasination Remailer (tm)
sends an encrypted e-mail to the victim's life-support system and alas! he dies.

No? You mean the assasin will actually have to use a {gun/knife/CIA anti-beard
poison} and be _physically_ near the victim?

Ah well, then the police just got to find the fingerprints and all the usual
things, right? What's cyberspace got to do with it?

I believe that if you try to criminalize conspiracy, than you risk mass 
invasions of privacy. Conspiring is just exercising freedom of opinion and 
expression - the crime, as always even in the days of Caesar, is in the act,
not the preparation. And the act is always quite physical, well out of the
bounds of cyberspace and the Thought Police.

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