[3167] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: An Essay on Freedom, Anonymity & Financial
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barney Wolff)
Sun Aug 9 19:28:13 1998
From: Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 18:46 EDT
Parry, I think your take on the possible Hoover affair is backwards. He
would have been terribly vulnerable, if anyone with a motive to discredit
him had come into possession of credible evidence. And that's what's
wrong with the assumption that vast power will not be abused. Even if
the government remains benign, and the individual watchers benign, some
criminal is bound to find some watcher with something to hide, and coerce
cooperation.
But all this moralizing is beside the point. Preventing anonymous
transactions is impossible, not just immoral. If national currency is
withdrawn from circulation, we would see small pieces of high quality
paper with John Gotti's picture on them instead of Ben Franklin.
Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
