[3166] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: An Essay on Freedom, Anonymity & Financial
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (P. J. Ponder)
Sun Aug 9 18:49:45 1998
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 18:39:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: "P. J. Ponder" <ponder@freenet.tlh.fl.us>
To: Dianelos Georgoudis <dianelos@tecapro.com>
cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <199808091752.MAA01099@tecaprocorp.com>
I think the very notion of a surveillance state on the order imagined is
everybody's idea of a bad science fiction story line. Cryptographic
controls used to forge chains for the hapless citizens, all of whom, who
are not busy watching others, are being watched themselves. 'THX1183' or
'The Prisoner' or '1984'.
We're living in a real market and technology driven surveillance state,
but it's Macy's, McDonald's, and the grocery store that are after us, not
the FBI. (Well maybe the FBI is after us, but the threat at the moment
seems to be coming from scanning equipment at the point o' business,
and TV cameras in malls, not from Agents 86 and 99.)
Anonymous money makes sense if for no other reason than we can't let
anyone keep all the data about who spent what, when, with whom, etc. We
sure as hell don't want the government to have everyone's spending data,
or else it may soon be time to water the Tree of Liberty again.
(Jefferson noted Blood of Tyrants useful in this regard.)
We're probably not much better off with the merchant class and their
techno-priests holding it, either. A safer approach might be to keep open
some anonymous channel of value transfer, to avoid the temptation of the
data being collectibles.
--
There's probably a news group for people wanting to write and critique
science fiction stories at alt.orwellian or near there, anyway. If they
come up with anything interesting about cryptography, ask them to send it.
