From: shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green)
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 95 22:57:17 PDT
To: Bryce Wilcox <wilcoxb@nagina.cs.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
Message-ID: <v02120d11ac72f4de4e9a@[192.0.2.1]>
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At 22:42 9/5/95, Bryce Wilcox wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>I, Bryce Wilcox <bryce.wilcox@colorado.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >I hope I'm not missing anything here.
>
>
>shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote:
>>
>> Only that Ecash has no benefits for transactions that are of an illegal
>> nature. The meaning of "illegal" is of course increasing as new laws are
>> passed every session of the legislature.
>
>
>Chaum says that (especially when speaking before U.S. Congress) but I think
>he is playing both sides of the fence.  He is a die-hard privacy advocate who
>allegedly turns down lucrative business deals because he feels they would
>dilute his privacy achievements.  The truth is that Chaumian DigiCash is a
>*lot* safer for criminals than, say, credit cards, and when it is combined
>with the other tools in a money launderer's toolbox, I expect it will be a
>great boon to them.

Chaum is a privacy advocate when it comes to companies compiling dosiers on
you. When it comes to criminal use, my conversations with Chaum, his public
comments, and last not least the current implementation of his software
suggest otherwise.

>
>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.  Y

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.

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


-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com>
   PGP encrypted mail preferred.