[sudo-discuss] Freedom of name: making it stick via commerce.
hol at gaskill.com
hol at gaskill.com
Fri Mar 22 09:47:05 PDT 2013
paypal is definitely sketchy...just 2 days ago I was about to use it for a website that didn't have an obvious CC option. they said i was approaching my limit (?) and asked me to give my checking account number, HAH! thanks for this info Andrew, extremely shady operation there. i don't even pay my landlord with personal checks, damned if paypal is getting my info!
Mar 22, 2013 09:42:32 AM, andrew at roshambomedia.com wrote:
I'm not talking about pay pal's reaction to money laundering, but there reaction to pretty much anything they think is maybe not right
>http://lifehacker.com/5821634/why-you-should-ditch-paypal-and-use-these-other-services-to-send-people-money
>"They like to make poor decisions in the name of security, such as holding your money under review for no reason, draining your checking account when you report fraud,putting 20% of your money in a rolling reserve account without asking, and much more. Personally, despite being a long-time user, I've had funds held for virtually no reason at all on several occasions and a number of other minor but nonetheless inconvenient problems."
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>On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Anon195714 anon195714 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
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Hi Andrew-
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Do you know for a fact that the legal issue with PayPal was "money
laundering", and that they solved it by some kind of agreement to
hold and optionally keep the proceeds of "risky" transactions?
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I'd be interested in the legal definition of money laundering. I'm
inclined to believe that the definition includes a provision about
"...for criminal purposes, or in facilitation of a criminal or
civilly-tortious act..." That is, the mere fact of anonymity does
not make for money laundering, any more than it does when paying
cash.
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>
But how does Anonymerse differ from any other transaction with a
pre-paid (anonymous) card? That is, if you get a gift card for
Target and you go into the store and buy a few pairs of underwear,
does the store require to see photo ID?, and if so, what do they do
with the name data they collect? And then, why don't they card you
when you pay cash, which after all could be stolen money?
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IF the only thing standing between us and Anonymerse is to agree to
hold up "risky" transactions, then we can agree to do that: no
purchases of firearms, ammo, chemicals, biological materials, or
"any goods that are restricted from being freely shipped via the
Post Office."
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The "Post Office" explanation is good enough to serve the purpose
without appearing to give even an inch on the core civil rights
issues. There are some who would object to such limitations, but to
my mind they are a small price to pay for the freedom to buy
_anything else_ without having one's name attached to it and subject
to stalking by Big Data.
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But "risky transactions" are not isomorphic with "money laundering"
or "criminal purposes," as someone could just as easily convert
stolen money into any conventional goods and sell the goods on Ebay.
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When the crypto debate was a hot topic, I had a few lengthy
conversations with a woman who was a federal prosecutor in a
high-profile hacker case (at the time, there was a lot of friendly
debate between hackers and feds, so a lot of people were having
these kinds of conversations; nowadays similar conversations are
occurring about biohacking).
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My position was that for every criminal act there are physical
concomitants that can be used as evidence to convict. She raised
the issues of financial fraud and child pornography. I conceded
that she had a valid point there: the evidence for those crimes
could be pure information, and if encrypted, inaccessible to
prosecution. But in any case, the crypto debate was won by
e-commerce and EFF legal actions.
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But here we're only talking about the ability to perform online
transactions with the same anonymity as cash transactions: taking
something that occurs face-to-face all the time and bringing it
online. This should be an easier debate to win.
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There's another potential fallback position that could be an
absolute win: that Anonymerse would collect legal names, but would
not provide them to third parties except under subpoena or search
warrant. That kills any objection that's based on the issue of
potential money laundering.
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There's a really major point that needs to be made here, that most
people don't get.
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And that includes most people at Sudo Room.
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I'll put it in subsequent email to follow this...
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-G.
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On 13-03-16-Sat 7:55 PM, Andrew wrote:
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While i entirely support this, money laundering is illegal as
far as i know. But, it would still be interesting to find a
loophole and make something like this in a simplified form work.
Keep in mind though that pay pal is still around due to thier
draconian practice of holding and sometimes keeping the proceeds
of any mildly "risky" transaction.
On Mar 16, 2013 7:34 PM, "Anon195714"
anon195714 at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:
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Yo's-
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It occurred to me, there's fertile ground for a viable startup
(and more
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right-livelihood jobs), as follows (people from SudoRoom &
other local
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hackerspaces could do this):
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Anonymous e-commerce (Anonymerse?;-)
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How it works from the average user's perspective:
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You purchase a prepaid card such as a gift card, using cash.
It has a
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card number but not a name on it.
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With this card, you sign up for an Anonymerse account, using
any name
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you choose, and providing the card number for purchases on
your account.
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The account comes with webmail in your chosen name, so it's
not linked
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to your broadband provider.
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Now you can go online and buy stuff you don't want linked to
your "legal
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name." A pair of socks here, a (consenting adult) porn DVD
there, a
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dissident political book, whatever.
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If the online purchases are downloads, you can download them
via your
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Anonymerse webmail account.
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If the purchases are physical goods, you can have them
delivered. But
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where, that won't be tracked to your "legal name"?
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The answer is: "Track the package, not the person."
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Ever hear of "private mailbox" services? FedEx and UPS run
these as a
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chain, but there are scores of "mom & pop" services like
this; I've used
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one since the early 80s. They have a trade association. So
we get the
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trade association onboard as follows:
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If someone wants a package shipped to a private mailbox
service and they
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are not a regular boxholder, they can receive the package by
providing
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a) the package tracking number from the Post Office, FedEx, or
UPS, and
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b) paying a nominal fee for receiving & handling, that is
equivalent to
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the mailbox service's fee for handling when they ship
something.
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So you receive the invoice and package tracking number at your
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Anonymerse webmail address, and you print out the tracking
information,
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and bring it into the private mailbox service where you've had
the
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package shipped.
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If the private mailbox services don't want to do it, the same
service
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could be provided by any "mom & pop" corner store.
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Amazon is presently setting up a deal with 7-11 stores to
handle
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packages for people who can't be at home during delivery
hours. You
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order something from Amazon and it comes in to your local
7-11, which
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holds it for you until you come in to pick it up after work.
This gives
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7-11 stores a service they can offer that local mom & pop
stores can't.
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So we go to those mom & pop stores with something that
will compete with
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7-11, and they'll be eager to do it.
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OK, now how do we prevent this being used by Fred Fraudster,
Pete
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Pedophile, and Terry Terrorist?
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One way would be for the stores to take your picture for every
package
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pickup. The contents of stores' video systems are typically
not
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available to third parties except with a subpoena or a search
warrant.
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To my mind those protections are sufficient: they are
traditional
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powers, not "expanded" or "enhanced" powers.
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Another option would be to require photo ID, same as when
buying alcohol
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beverages, which has the same protections for these types of
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decentralized transactions. For example if someone buys
alcohol for a
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minor, who then drinks, drives, and runs over a pedestrian,
the legal
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system can seek to discover where the alcohol was bought and
who bought
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it. This isn't considered a civil liberties threat, and The
Powers That
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Be have not used this information for fishing expeditions.
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So, Anonymerse Inc. can provide the participating stores with
a camera
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or recording device for photo IDs, that is encrypted with an
Anonymerse
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key. It would have a MODEM connection, not an Ethernet or
broadband
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connection, so getting data from it would not be "easy." If
an attorney
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or law enforcement, bearing a subpoena or search warrant,
wants to get
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at the data, the shop owner would convey the warrant or
subpoena to
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Anonymerse, which would provide the decryption key for that
store's data
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recording unit. At that point the data could be downloaded
via MODEM:
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it would take a while, but the wheels of justice are designed
to turn
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slowly. A "keep-alive" key might be needed to be refreshed on
a weekly
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basis to prevent the unit from self-wiping on the basis that
it might
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have been stolen.
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If this works as planned, there should be sufficient volume of
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commercial transactions to make it impossible to stop. Keep
in mind
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that when PayPal was first started, there was a lot of talk
about it
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being an illegal violation of banking regulations and so on.
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PayPal won that round. We could win the next round.
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-G.
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>--
>---------
>Andrew Lowe
>http://www.lostways.com
>
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