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Cyphernomicon 10.19

Legal Issues:
Credentials


  10.19.1. "Are credentials needed? Will digital methods be used?"
  10.19.2. I  take a radical view. Ask yourself why credentials are
            _ever_ needed. Maybe for driving a car, and the like, but in
            those cases anonymity is not needed, as the person is in the
            car, etc.
            
            Credentials for drinking age? Why? Let the parents enforce
            this, as the argument goes about watching sex and violence on
            t.v. (If one accepts the logic of requiring bars to enforce
            children's behavior, then one is on a slippery slope toward
            requiring television set makers to check smartcards of
            viewers, or of requiring a license to access the Internet,
            etc.)
            
            In almost no cases do I see the need to carry "papers" with
            me. Maybe a driver's license, like I said. In other areas,
            why?
  10.19.3. So Cypherpunks probably should not spend too much time
            worrying about how permission slips and "hall passes" will be
            handled. Little need for them.
  10.19.4. "What about credentials for specific job performance, or for
            establishing time-based contracts?"
           - Credentials that prove one has completed certain classes,
              or reached certain skill levels, etc.?
           - In transactions where "future performance" is needed, as in
              a contract to have a house built, or to do some similar
              job, then of course the idea of on-line or immediate
              clearing is bogus...like paying a stranger a sum of money
              on his promise that he'll be back the next day to start
              building you a house.
              
              Parties to such long-term, non-locally-cleared cases may
              contract with an escrow agent, as I described above. This
              is like the "privately-produced law" we've discussed so
              many times. The essence: voluntary arrangements.
              
              Maybe proofs of identity will be needed, or asked for,
              maybe not. But these are not the essence of the deal.


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