[3159] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: An Essay on Freedom, Anonymity & Financial
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dianelos Georgoudis)
Sun Aug 9 14:55:58 1998
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 12:52:51 -0500
From: Dianelos Georgoudis <dianelos@tecapro.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
Reply-To: dianelos@tecapro.com
X-Return-Receipt-To: dianelos@tecapro.com
[This message is highly political, and only slightly cryptographic.
I am letting it through on the basis that it is probably interesting
to have a brief discussion on the political implications of cryptography
for the future. Given that Mr. Georgoudis expresses a highly unorthodox
opinion for the local mailing list (i.e. that the surveillance state
is *good*) I thought I would let it through to promote/provoke some
discussion.
Please keep any responses on the topic, however, of the interaction of
CRYPTOGRAPHY with the political issues in question. I'll be a bit lax
at first but I'm likely to get very ruthless after a short time in pruning
me-too and off topic postings.
--Perry]
> The World Financial Police Attack Anonymity
> http://www.zolatimes.com/V2.23/anonymittext.html
>
> By
> J. Orlin Grabbe
> The City Times
>
> The world financial police are determined to eliminate all opportunity for
> individual financial privacy and anonymity. [...]
Excuse me, but I beg to differ.
Money laundering and tax evasion are very real, very big and very
harmful. I believe that all financial instruments, including
money, should exist in a form that guaranties non-anonymity. Even
better, all financial instruments can implicitly include not only
the identity of their current owner but also of their history,
i.e. the list of all previous owners. Actually this is one of the
most wildly useful applications of encryption technology.
Consider: almost all crimes are about money. In an international
system where money is by definition stamped with the identity of
its current and previous owners, stealing money, for example,
would be impossible. Tax evasion would also be impossible. Illegal
commercial activities such as drug trafficking would also become
impossible. Extortion and terrorism would become a lot more
difficult. Take extortion for example. The criminal could get
diamonds or paintings but how would she sell them? If the
criminals are restricted to bartering stolen portable goods for
other portable goods, then their lot becomes much more difficult.
On the whole, the potential benefit for society would be so huge,
that I cannot imagine that such a financial system will not be
created in the future. The vast majority of people wouldn't care
if the authorities could get information about the history of
their financial assets, after proper procedures are met. The
question here is not about privacy for all, it is about giving the
power to a thief to hide the source of his wealth making it
possible to continue stealing. Most people would be quite happy in
a system where their money cannot be stolen, where it becomes much
more difficult to burglarize their houses and where their
neighbour is guarantied to pay his taxes too.
Now, certainly, such a system would be created by governments and
would be international in its scope. As all powerful tools, this
one too can be abused. So our task is to see how to diminish the
potential for abuse. After all, police can be abusive too, but
nobody is suggesting that governments should stop policing the
streets. Environmental protection laws can sometimes become
stupid, but nobody is suggesting that governments should stop
regulating the quantity of toxins the next door industry releases
in the air we breathe.
Fortunately, in democratic societies people have control over
their governments. On the whole, governments in the most powerful
nations of the world are not doing too bad. Certainly, in the last
100 years, freedom and prosperity has increased in the U.S. What
is probably becoming worse is crime and tax evasion - the latter
corroding the vary basis of the social contract. The financial
system is created and regulated by governments but much of it is
implemented through private sector organizations. This state of
affairs will also help limit the potential for abuse.
Dianelos Georgoudis
email: dianelos@tecapro.com
http://www.tecapro.com
