From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 06:52:49 +0800
To: abostick@netcom.com
Subject: Re: NET_run
Message-ID: <01I1FTP3FADEAKTJEQ@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	IN%"abostick@netcom.com" 20-FEB-1996 09:07:55.46

>should not be confused with Steve Jackson Games' GURPS Cyberpunk module
>for Jackson's GURPS role-playing system, which was published later.)

>"What the hell does this have to do with cryp%*##~~~

	Actually, it does. Steve Jackson Games (SJG) was raided by the Secret
Service for that game, in which the Secret Service showed their total
ignorance of computers by mistaking it for a "handbook of computer crime."
Since they're the ones also concerned with counterfeiting:
	A. this indicates something about how much one needs to worry about
		counterfeiting, and one reason that even with the new changes,
		US currency is still one of the easiest ones to counterfeit
		with modern technology.
	B. they're likely to be total idiots when it comes to digital cash

On the other hand on the last point, they did look at one private currency
scheme and deem it allowable, since the (physical) bucks in that case didn't
resemble US currency. The governmental group that _did_ have problems with it
was the SEC, who decided that since its non-inflationary qualities were based
on direct funding through a group of investments, it qualified as an
unlicensed mutual fund. Moral of the story: don't base it in the US, or don't
make it run off of investments.
	-Allen