Anonymous money is easy with trust networks was Re: I2P conspiracy theories flamewar

Recent thread from Frost:

----- purvis@cdmvMgJFK49ZrgiXmEg01ETRgAY ----- 2005.10.10 - 21:25:17GMT
-----

It would be really cool if there were a spinoff project to find a way to
anonymously wire money to people.  I don't mean info as a commodity.  I
mean real, spendable loot.  Wouldn't Uncle Sam shit a brick over *THAT*
possibility?

-- 
"Force shites upon reason's back."  --- Ben Franklin
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----- Toad@wZMkUztjjXSZciSF0+69ObPs8C8 ----- 2005.10.12 - 13:55:59GMT
-----

Yodel offered such a service over IIP... is he active on I2P? It was
really hard to get money in and out because it was based on DMT, (which
service is either heavily monitored or doomed). Maybe he'll come back on
Freenet 0.7 IRC.

Currency transfer is really ludicrously easy actually. All that money is
is "I owe you X time". Not everyone's time is equally important, hence
we get things like dollars. But basically it's a set of IOUs - it's even
created from debt mostly nowadays (this causes all manner of problems as
the bank lends you $N it has just created out of thin air, and then
expects you to pay back $2*N, which you have to get from somebody else's
borrowing... bottom line, if the system stops growing, it crashes, and
there are *always* losers and bankruptcies). There was a money transfer
network in the third world somewhere which got shut down a couple years
back in the name of the War on Terror based on this principle - I give 1
unit to X to eventually give to N, X tells Y "give 1 unit to N, I owe
you 1 unit", Y forwards it to Z, Z forwards it to N. Every so often the
agents reconcile their debts with their local contacts. This is even
easier with fake currencies such as LETS, provided that the trust is
there (because they are zero sum, i.e. don't have coinage, and encode
obligations in a far more sensible way). And public key crypto based
identities can help with security. You can easily run it over a darknet,
with sufficient trust, and with routing such that there is fairly strong
anonymity. I want to give 1 unit of currency to CofE. I send a
TransferRequest out towards his PK. It is routed normally through the
darknet. When it reaches his rendezvous point, it goes back to him. He
sends back an acknowledgement, signed with his PK. All the agents along
the road update their owings tables. Now, obviously we would need a few
more passes to make this completely secure, but it looks quite possible
to me.

Now, what the moral and legal implications would be, THAT is complex!
Expect to get into serious trouble. Read up on the Jim Bell
Assassination Protocol on Thought Crime for a radical (and IMHO immoral)
use of it. And remember, the key in most serious-crime investigations is
"follow the money". I don't think we should ever offer anonymous
currency transfer over freenet for this reason. Well, if the USA
declares martial law, I'd seriously consider it.
-- 
Matthew J Toseland - toad-EI5O+8PHWbJeeLb3ft/[email protected]
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.

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