16.17.1. Strong crypto makes possible the creation of institutions
which can persist for very long periods of time, perhaps for
centuries.
- such institutions already exist: churches (Catholics of
several orders), universities, etc.
16.17.2. all of these "persistent" services (digital banks, escrow
services, reputation servers, etc.) require much better
protections against service outages, seizures by governments,
natural disasters, and even financial collapse than do most
existing computer services-an opportunity for offshore escrow-
like services
- to maintain a distributed database, with unconditional
privacy, etc.
+ again, it is imperative that escrow companies require all
material placed in it to be encrypted
- to protect them against lawsuits and claims by
authorities (that they stole information, that they
censored material, that they are an espionage conduit,
etc.)
16.17.3. Escrow Services
+ "Digital Escrow" accounts for mutually suspicious parties,
especially in illegal transactions
- drug deals, information brokering, inside information,
etc.
+ But why will the escrow entity be trusted?
+ reputations
- their business is being a reliable escrow holder, not
it destroying their reputation for a bribe or a
threat
+ anonymity means the escrow company won't know who it's
"burning," should it try to do so
- they never know when they themselves are being tested
by some service
- and potential bribers will not know who to contact,
although mail could be addressed to the escrow company
easily enough
- like bonding agencies
- key is that these entities stand to gain very little by
stealing from their customers, and much to lose (hinges on
ratio of any single transaction to size of total market)
- useful for black markets and illegal transactions (a
reliable third party that both sides can trust, albeit not
completely)
16.17.4. Reputation-Based Systems
+ Credit Rating Services that are Immune from Meddling and
Lawsuits
+ with digital pseudonyms, true credit rating data bases
can be developed
- with none of the "5 year expirations" (I mean, who are
you to tell me I must not hold it against a person that
records show he's declares Chapter 7 every 5 years or
so?...such information is information, and cannot be
declared illegal, despite the policy issues that are
involved)
+ this could probably be done today, using offshore data
banks, but then there might develop injunctions against
use by Stateside companies
- how could this be enforced? stings? entrapment?
+ it may be that credit-granting entities will be
forced to use rigid formulas for their decisions,
with a complete audit trail available to the
applicant
- if any "discretion" or judgment is allowed, then
these extralegal or offshore inputs can be used
- related to "redlining" and other informal
signalling mechanisms
- remember that Prop. 103 attempted to bypass normal
laws of economics
+ AMIX-like services will offer multiple approaches here
+ ranging from conventional credit data bases, albeit
with lower costs of entry (e.g., a private citizen
could launch a "bankruptcy filings" data base, using
public records, with no expiration-they're just
reporting the truth, e.g., that Joe Blow filed for
personal bankruptcy in 1987
- this gets into some of the strange ideas involving
mandatory rewriting of the truth, as when "credit
records are expunged" (expunged from what? from my
personal data bases? from records that were public
and that I am now selling access to?)
+ there may be arguments that the "public records" are
copyrighted or otherwise owned by someone and hence
cannot be sold
- telephone book case (however, the Supremes held
that the "creative act" was the specific
arrangement)
- one ploy may be a Habitat-like system, where some of
the records are "historical"
- to offshore data bases
+ Book Reviews, Music Reviews
- sometimes with pseudonyms to protect the authors from
retaliation or even lawsuits
+ "What should I buy?" services, a la Consumer Reports
- again, protection from lawsuits
16.17.5. Crypto Banks and the "Shell Game" as a Central Metaphor
+ Central metaphor: the Shell Game
- description of conventional shell game (and some
allusions to con artists on a street corner-the hand is
quicker than the eye)
+ like entering a room filled with safe deposit boxes, with
no surveillance and no way to monitor activity in the
boxes....and user can buy new boxes anonymously,
transferring contents amongst the boxes
- only shutting down the entire system and forcing all
the boxes open would do anything-and this would "pool"
all of the contents (unless a law was passed saying
people could "declare" the contents before some
day....)
+ the shell game system can be "tested"-by testing
services, by suspicious individuals, whatever-at very low
cost by dividing some sum amongst many accounts and
verifying that the money is still there (by retrieving or
cashing them in)
- and remember that the accounts are anonymous and are
indistinguishable, so that the money cannot be seized
without repercussions
+ this is of course the way banks and similar reputation-
based institutions have always (or mostly) worked
- people trusted the banks not to steal their money by
verifying over some period of time that their money was
not vanishing
- and by relying upon some common sense ideas of what the
bank's basic business was (the notion that a bank
exists to continue in business and will make more money
over some long run period by being trustworthy than it
would make in a one-shot ripoff)
+ Numbered accounts
- recall that Switzerland has bowed to international
pressure and is now limiting (or eliminating) numbered
accounts (though other countries are still allowing some
form of such accounts, especially Lichtenstein and
Luxembourg)
+ with crypto numbers, even more security
- "you lose your number, tough"
- but the money must exist in some form at some time?
+ options for the physical form of the money
+ accounts are shares in a fund that is publicly invested
- shares act as "votes" for the distribution of
proceeds
- dividends are paid to the account (and sent wherever)
- an abstract, unformed idea: multiple tiers of money,
like unequal voting rights of stock...
+ could even be physical deposits
- perhaps even manipulated by automatic handling
systems (though this is very insecure)
- the Bennett-Ross proposal for Global Data Services is
essentially the early form of this
16.17.6. cryonicists will seek "crypto-trusts" to protect their assets
+ again, the "crypto" part is not really necessary, given
trustworthy lawyers and similar systems
- but the crypto part-digital money-further automates the
system, allowing smaller and more secure transactions
(overhead is lower, allowing more dispersions and
diffusion)
- and eliminates the human link
- thus protecting better against subpoenas, threats, etc.
+ and to help fund "persistent institutions" that will fund
research and protect them in suspension
- they may also place their funds in "politically correct"
longterm funds-which may or may not exert a postive
ifluence in the direction they wish, what with the law of
unintended consequences and all
opl
+ many avenues for laundering money for persistent
institutions
+ dummy corporations (or even real corporations)
- with longterm consulting arrangements
- "shell game" voting
+ as people begin to believe that they may just possibly be
revived at some future time, they will begin to worry about
protecting their current assets
+ recollections of "Why Call Them Back from Heaven?"
- worries about financial stability, about confiscation
of wealth, etc.
- no longer will ersatz forms of immortality-endowments fo
museums, universities, etc.-be as acceptable...people
will want the real thing
+ Investments that may outlive current institutions
- purchases of art works (a la Bill Gates, who is in fact a
possibel model for this kind of behavior)
- rights to famous works, with provision for the copyright
expirations, etc. (which is why physical possession is
preferable)
- shell games, of course (networks of reputation-based
accounts)
- Jim Bennett reports that Saul Kent is setting up such
things in Lichtenstein for Alcor (which is what I suggested
to Keith Henson several years ago)
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind