Peter Sunde: We need cash for anonymous transactions

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/19/future-of-money

by vetler • 14 years ago

32 19 14 years ago

wired.co.uk

rdssassin• 14 years ago

If there's a need for cash, it will exist in some form.

If the governments of the world get rid of cash, meaning all of our transactions are identifiable and traceable by gov'ts and corporations an immediate black-market cash system of some kind will spring up. Of course, they'll make it illegal, and if caught then you'll go to jail just for buying something legal but embarrassing. Then various methods will be invented to help ensure people aren't caught as easily.

Such is the way of things.

NameNickHN2• 14 years ago

There is still trade by barter. ;-) If push comes to shove, people will find a way.

eru• 14 years ago

I wonder what the new cigarettes or nylon stockings will be.

NameNickHN2• 14 years ago

Sunde is partly right, I guess. There are things that probably most people don't want to appear on their credit card statement. But then again, there are enough people who already use their credit cards for paying for shady services or for porn and they don't give a damn.

DanBC2• 14 years ago

See, for example "Operation Ore" where a website with images of child sexual abuse was raided, and it contained many names and credit card details.

Many of those will have been fraudulently used, but it appears from some arrests (and convictions) that some people do, indeed, pay for illegal "child porn" using their credit cards.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ore)

ragmondo• 14 years ago

What - you mean like the Diety of Cryptography (Bruce Schneier) figured out how to do 10+ years ago ? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471117099?ie=UTF8&tag=...

smanek• 14 years ago

Where does applied crypto talk about anonymous currency?

I read Cryptography Engineering (its successor) last year, and don't think I remember anything about that ...

I'm sure it discusses standard public key crypto, but it's a huge leap to go from that to a truly anonymous digital currency. Even with blind signatures it's really hard to prevent the 'bank' from maintaining an audit trail. My understanding is that even Bitcoin maintains an auditable transaction trail, so it's still not as good as cash.

PS: s/diety/deity/

PPS: I'd consider it bad form to use an affiliate amazon link there

DanBC2• 14 years ago

(http://www.schneier.com/book-applied-toc.html#chap6)

    Chapter 6: Esoteric Protocols 
    * SECURE ELECTIONS
    * Secure Multiparty Computation
    * Anonymous Message Broadcast
    * DIGITAL CASH

aerique• 14 years ago

Milne said that the value of mobile was in predictive behaviour, so you could walk into a café and it would immediately trigger the barista to create your usual coffee. "It think that's going to be a big driver for mobile."

Ugh, is that supposed to be a compelling argument?

leftnode• 14 years ago

Right?

"Here sir, I made you your favorite coffee."

"But I wanted to try something different this time."

"Ok, well you'll have to pay for both."

ulf• 14 years ago

Maybe one step too far. more along the lines of:

"Hi there <yourname>. Your usual big latte today or something else?"

"The usual please (It's nice not having to make those big decisions.)"

runn1ng• 14 years ago

[insert the inevitable BitCoin comment here]

ccozan• 14 years ago

we have in Germany the so called "Moneycard" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geldkarte ), which is quite anonymous, and misses any kind of authentication. Interesting would be to be able to transfer the amounts from one moneycard to the some other moneycard, same way I would give someone a 5 Euro bill in hand. This seems to be impossible ( or forbidden). At this moment the uses are just to buy transportation tickets, cigarettes or parking fees. Since is totally offline, it behaves like money, but electronic. Paying with this takes a 0.3% of amount for the transaction. So, if someone could monetize this, we would totally forget the banknotes or coins. However, you still need interraction with some terminal to load it, so it similar to going to an ATM and fetch the real money.

slowpoke• 14 years ago

There's also the PaySafeCard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafecard), which I wish would have a lot more adoption than it currently has, especially outside the EU.

You can buy them at gas stations or supermarkets, pay completely in cash and receive a code (although you don't have to, you can also exchange money for codes online), which you then use to pay online. You stay completely anonymous that way, and it's quite convenient. They don't even charge transaction fees, though they start deducting small fees from a code after a certain time period if it isn't used up (I think it was a year). You can check the cash balance of a code on their website.

Peter Sunde: We need cash for anonymous transactions

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