From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 00:52:24 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Untraceable Contract Killings
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970609112236.19258B-100000@cp.pathfinder.com>
Message-ID: <v03102818afc32f6b5b30@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 4:02 AM -0700 6/10/97, Anonymous wrote:
>Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> wrote:
>
>        Moral issues aside, one of the problems plaguing
>        Bell's scheme is that it's not limited to
>        eliminating "government thugs who violate your
>        rights," as he likes to describe it. If it
>        existed, anyone with some spare change could
>        wipe out a nosy neighbor or even an irritating
>        grocery store clerk.
>
>Not likely, but for another reason.  Assuming you had the money to take
>out your neighbor, it's going to be fairly obvious who did it.  (How many
>neighbors do you have?  Pretty short list of suspects.)

Nonsense. The mechanisms for arranging the hit are untraceable. Thus, it
hardly matters who the "suspects" are, as nothing is provable. (Assuming no
implicating ephemera are left lying around on disk drives....)

By the way, this is not really Bell's "assassination politics," this is
just anonymous contract killings, known about to some of us since Chaum's
work was first published...cf. my own "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," 1988.

I may sound touchy on this issue, but I'm seeing more and more articles
here and relayed from outside essentially giving Bell the credit for
inventing these kinds of markets, when in fact he's a relative latecomer.

--Tim May




There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."