From: Bryce Wilcox <wilcoxb@nag.cs.colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 95 08:46:25 PDT
To: shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green)
Subject: Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
In-Reply-To: <v02120d11ac72f4de4e9a@[192.0.2.1]>
Message-ID: <199509061545.JAA24947@nag.cs.colorado.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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 I, Bryce Wilcox <bryce.wilcox@colorado.edu> wrote:
>
> > Suppose you have acquired a million dollars worth of legal, above-board
> > DigiCash dollars and you want to surreptitiously transfer this wealth to 
> > a below-board friend.  Your friend creates a temporary anonymous account 
> > at an understanding bank.


 shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote:
>
> Won't work. Ecash, except as used for frequent flyer like points, will
> exist in only *one* world wide e$ currency, issued by a single entity
> composed of various major banks and subject to US laws. Getting Ecash
> accounts will therefore be subject to the same legal requirenments that
> apply to normal US checking accounts.


1.  Sez who?


2.  We are discussing the feasibility of using DigiCash currency for illegal
money laundering.  We have to assume (ceteris paribus) that the would-be
launderers are still capable of the same tricks that they are currently
capable of, which, apparently, includes access to anonymous bank accounts.

 
> > Now without active physical surveillance, nobody other than yourself and 
> > your friend will ever know where the money went, and you can't prove 
> > that you gave it to him, either...
 
 
> You or a sting operation can always reveal the recipient by publishing the
> blinding factor.


If you do it via his one-time bank account then you can only reveal to which
one-time anonymous account you transferred the money-- no more.


Even if you and your beneficiary don't have this option, the transaction
is still much safer and more convenient if done via DigiCash than via any 
other current currency.  Criminals and conspirators live with the everpresent
problem of betrayal, and this "one step, one way, requires the cooperation of
the payer" traceability seems to me to be a small hassle on the way to a big
win for such people.


> Besides, your Ecash client keeps a log of the payees.


Crytographically (and in the limit, legally) meaningless, right?  I could
edit my log right now to say I gave you a thousand cyberbucks in return for
an illegal copy of some information, but no-one would care.



I appreciate your correspondance.


Bryce

signatures follow:


                                    +                                           
      public key on keyservers      /.      island Life in a chaos sea        
      or via finger 0x617c6db9      /           bryce.wilcox@colorado.edu     
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