From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 12:03:08 -0700 (PDT)
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Subject: Re: Blinded Identities [was Re: exporting signatures only/CAPI]
Message-ID: <199610141859.LAA08217@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 04:01 AM 10/14/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:
>On Sun, 13 Oct 1996, jim bell wrote:
>
>> At 04:28 PM 10/13/96 -0400, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
>> >It is unpublished, but he kindly allowed to me describe it in a paper I
>> >wrote that discussed whether a bank would ever want to take the risk of
>> >allowing bank accounts where it did not know the identity of the customer.
>
>> And I don't think that a bank can ever be embarrassed (assuming bank 
>> accounts are anonymous) by it being revealed that some particular bad guy 
>> kept his money there, any more than other cash-based (anonymous) businesses 
>> are embarrassed if it is revealed that some bad guy used their services.
>
>I would refer you to Union Bank of Switzerland in the late 80's
>(kidnapping), BCCI (drug and intelligence money), BMI (drug
>money/offshore insurance fraud), PNC Bank (accounting fraud), and a host
>of others I won't bother to list.  Banks do suffer from these disclosures,
>in many cases quite severely.  (PNC bank was nearly ruined by their fraud
>harboring disclosures). 

Are you talking about ANONYMOUS accounts, or merely CONFIDENTIAL ones?  
(Anonymous accounts, as I use the term, are ones in which even the bank doesn't 
know the owner.)  I think you're lumping these two things together; I was not.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com