from:"Steve Schear"

[e-gold-list] Re: Will December make or break the Internet?

2003-12-01 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:03 PM 11/28/2003, Michael Moore wrote:


http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34163.html
I don't believe either ICANN or the ITU should "run" the Internet.  The 
goal should be to make centralized management irrelevant.  Although some 
sort of centralized IP control is required, OR the moment, this is not the 
case for the DNS.  All DNS resolution control eventually rests within each 
network node's IP stack.  What we need is a virus to 'infect' all Windows 
PCs so that alternative root servers are acquired and the all but the last 
in the list are not marked as authoritative.  This allows searching for 
resolution through a number of roots.  Although I'm generally against viral 
'marketing' in this case I think it may be the only way because almost no 
Netizens understand the way DNS works and few would be willing to download 
and install any patch SW.

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: microcommerce

2003-10-16 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:08 PM 10/17/2003 +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
http://www.apple.com   i-Tunes for MSFT users at last.

(Some genius would make a PROXY where you could spend e-gold and pay
the iTunes with that.  At a stroke this would at last complete JimR's
desire to be able to pay for music you buy with e-gold)
Why buy the cow when you can the milk for free?

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: Income tax

2003-10-14 Thread Steve Schear



The rallying cry of the American Colonists was "No Taxation Without 
Representation".  Its ironic that the same cry would apply today.  Taxation 
Without Representation is the way politics in our nation are conducted. 
Unlike in many/most parliamentary systems, the U.S. state and federal 
elections structure make it almost impossible for 3rd party candidates to 
get elected, yet their supporters continue to be taxed.  People under the 
voting age in their states who work and pay taxes have no 
representation.  All residents of D.C. have no representative in Congress 
who can vote.  Most all convicted felons are denied the vote yet they are 
expected to pay taxes.

This is wrong.  It must stop.

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: unkrain exchange

2003-10-14 Thread Steve Schear

At 05:44 AM 10/14/2003 -0700, Katz Global Media wrote:

Although its a longer route, you could transfer the e-gold into ALTA/DMT, 
trade it for dollars, Euros, etc. and then have it wired.

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: initiatory force vs. retaliatory force

2003-10-13 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:25 PM 10/13/2003 -0400, Hannibal Smith wrote:
One can prefer to pay the 10% voluntarily, but then the disadvantage is
thatsome people may cheat.
You stated previously that 10% inflation (or whatever number the state
planners decide is best for "the general welfare") is great for economic
growth.

Above, you seem to be clearly in favor of inflation (which is nothing but
disguised theft of property, and therefore of an individual's life),
precisely because a _voluntary_ 10% taxation scheme wouldn't actually work.

So you clearly understand that the only way to rob an individual of 10% of
his hard-earned wealth is through force and/or fraud, and inflation is both.
This limitations of taxation is what kept the U.S. federal government
relatively in check prior to the Civil War. Direct taxes and tariffs are
all to visible to most citizens, so if the federal government is limited to
them (which it was) then it is throttled. The unchecked growth of the U.S.
federal government didn't really get underway until the Civil War (when the
first income tax was briefly imposed) and its aftermath which left those
who opposed its growth, mainly in the Southern States, under the shackles
of The Reconstruction (nee Re-Education).

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: paypal to e-gold service

2003-10-10 Thread Steve Schear

At 04:26 PM 10/10/2003 +, SnowDog wrote:
> Did anyone actually try to "cut a deal" with PayPal, explaining the kind
> of business you were trying to do?
Yes, but the problem is that PayPal allows fraudulent money into their
system by giving their buying customers access to credit cards. There are
dozens, if not hundreds, of thieves which have access to stolen credit
cards. These people will use stolen credit cards to buy gold. Then, when the
paying customer discovers this, they will cancel their credit card, leaving
PayPal with a fraudulent transaction, who will try to recover the money from
where it was spent. This would be the exchange service.
An acquittance of mine, with a legit business, had this same problem about
2 years ago. He was getting ripped off right and left by PayPal
fraudsters. He was just about to give up using it when an inspiration
struck him: PayPal's ToS and business practices that at fault, why not make
them pay. He set up about 20 bank accounts, under phoney names, and the
same number of PayPal accounts. When an account got too 'hot' he abandoned
it and left PP with the damage. Last I heard, about a year ago, this had
fixed most of his fraud problems. Since 9/11 opening such accounts has
gotten much tougher AFAIK.

steve

[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-10-06 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:11 PM 10/6/2003 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
It is also precisely why the US government will never allow the payment of 
taxes in gold, and why in the 1930's they banned businesses from writing 
contracts denominated in gold.  The system we have can only be maintained 
by force of arms -- obey or go to jail.
Can you quote a specific passage in current federal law that holds this?  I 
looked at the legal tender laws a few years ago and found that it legal for 
a contact to demand settlement in gold or other commodity.  Aren't gold 
futures settled this way?

steve

A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored 
by judges and demagogue statesmen.
- Steve Schear



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[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-10-06 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:07 PM 10/6/2003 +0300, "FileMatrix" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think you need to check your facts. As Greenspan said All countries
> that use non-gold backed fiat money inflate their currencies. Period.
Steve, I was referring to over-inflating the currency - printing money
without having economy to back it up with.
Well, as the joke goes... we've already established what you are, now we're
just haggling over the price. Inflation is theft. What you seem to be
implying is that its OK to steal a little, everybody does this. Its only
when things get out of hand and we go from a bit of shoplifting to grand
larceny that you think there aught to be consequences. Unfortunately, as
Greenspan has observed, once countries take the fork in the road to fiat
currencies they knowingly discard the safety of specie for the flexibility
to implicitly tax through inflation. Once governments operate in
deficit-mode as the norm and try to manage the money so that they can
appear to make this painless, it is really by degree different than the
communists centrally managing their economies. That things will get well
out of hand, eventually due to this course, is a given to Greenspan.

From my perspective, your view that means its OK for citizens to print
their own currency and pass it off as legit. As long a only a relative
minority do so, and as long as its a good enough facsimile that it doesn't
get caught till its too late to identify the perps or hurt the initial
parties that accepted it, then fine. After all its just a little bit of
inflation. The basis of all law is morality. Organizations, by their very
nature, cannot be moral or immoral they are amoral. Therefore, I don't
accede that the government, especially non-governmental organizations like
the Fed, have any more authority to engage in activities than individual
citizens.

steve

..."it is not madmen who turn states into the brutal systems they are:
it is the state itself that mobilizes our "dark side" energies into
destructive practices, an end brought about only through our willingness to
lose our individuality in the mass-mindedness that is essential to all
political systems. In the language of "chaos" theory, the state becomes an
"attractor" for the kinds of people who are disposed to use violence and
intimidation against others; people who are willing to exploit the
sociopathic nature of all political systems. It is not madmen to whom we
must look for explanations of the genocides, wars, "terrorist" attacks, and
other collective atrocities, but to our perpetuation of insane systems that
amass those dark forces that we deny or repress at our peril."
-- Butler Shaffer, "The Insanity of the State"

[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-10-06 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:01 PM 10/6/2003 +0300, FileMatrix wrote:
Yes Steve, I agree with what you just said, but what you don't accept to
understand is that USA is the only country that can afford to inflate its
currency because the USD circulates in the entire world. So, for the other
countries of the world it doesn't matter if they use or not gold as
currency, because they can't afford to print more money than their assets'
value.
I think you need to check your facts.  As Greenspan said All countries 
that use non-gold backed fiat money inflate their currencies.  Period.

steve

"The State is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the 
expense of everyone else." --Frederic Bastiat



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[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-10-05 Thread Steve Schear

At 06:14 PM 10/5/2003 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
We do not need 'bad money' to motivate people to invest. Regardless of
what money they use, people will invest their savings if they see a
prospect for gain. Problem is, bad money constantly erodes the value of
those savings and therefore forces and stimulates people to make
desperate, lemming-like, ill-conceived, unproductive, and hastily
considered investments. Witness the Y2K tech stock meltdown after the
pre-Y2K monetary inflation. Witness the 1929 stock meltdown after the
pre-1929 monetization of common stocks and other monetary
mischief. Witness the German inflation of the 1920's, where people in
their desperation to unload fiat paper purchased hospital bedpans because
those were the only hard assets they could find. The boom and bust
business cycle, with its enormous waste of capital, is largely a result of
bad monetary policy.
"Prior to World War I the banking system in most of the world was based on
gold, and even though governments intervened occasionally banking was more
free than controlled. When restrained by the ties of currencies to gold
economies went into sharp, but only short, contractions.

"Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is
determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument
is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset," he said. It is only when
governments and their central bank's are exempted from this discipline that
massive economic upheavals become more common. This, Greenspan maintains,
was largely responsible for the 1930s Depression.

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare
statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion
of credit. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the
supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. In
the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from
confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there
were, the government would have to make its holding illegal," as was done
in the case of gold in the 1930s. "The financial policy of the welfare
state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect
themselves," he continued.

'Gold is the soul of all civil life,
that can resolve all things into itself,
and turn itself into all things'
-- Samuel Butler

[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-10-03 Thread Steve Schear

At 01:10 AM 10/4/2003 +0300, FileMatrix wrote:
>So, you're the big chief of a country. I am the big chief of another. We
have economies that we equally value to 1 ton of gold (which we have in our
vaults).

>The thing is, I put the gold aside and print money. Our economies
develop, at the same rate. You continue to value it in gold, I in paper
money. At some point, I value my economy to 2 tons of gold (twice as
valuable), but you continue to value it to 1 ton (because you say the value
of gold relative to goods increases).

>Now, I take my ton of gold and buy your economy. I have paper money so
can use all my gold for that, because my people can continue to use my
paper currency. Now you have two tons of gold, I have an economy 4 times
more valuable (2 mine, 2 yours). You came to me and buy back your economy.
But for this I ask you 2 tons of gold, since that's how I value it (half of
all). If you pay, I get the same economy as you, plus 2 tons of gold (1 ton
of gold pure profit, with no sweat). If you don't pay, you have no economy,
just some gold you can't eat. This is competition between countries.

Why do you think the second chef would assume the first trade was fair?

I think you're assuming that there is no on-going trade between the two
nations. If not, then the first chief would probably have to go to war to
take the second chief's country. t has happened. If there is trade then
the second chief might say we only settle in gold. Not gold, no trade.
That's how it was until 1913. If the settlement does occur in gold, it
would be long before the first chief's paper money was worth much less and
there would be rampant inflation or loss of property value vs. gold.

steve

[e-gold-list] Re: DGCBank Launched

2003-09-30 Thread Steve Schear

At 11:37 AM 9/30/2003 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Greetings E-Gold Users.

We would like to take just a moment to introduce our company, DGCBank.

We offer private and commercial bank accounts for use with most gold 
currencies.

Features many of the same benefits as a traditional bank account.

For more information please visit us at www.dgcbank.com

DGCBank
Move along, move along... nothing here of interest.  This isn't the 
financial services you were looking for.

When your  KYC (Know Your Customer) rules are eliminated, please tell us.

steve

A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored 
by judges and demagogue statesmen.
- Steve Schear



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[e-gold-list] Re: inflation, Berkshire

2003-09-23 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:51 PM 9/22/2003 -0500, Jim Davidson wrote:
The other thing about dollars is that they could *all* come
home to roost. If political or economic reasons indicated
that the dollar should be replaced with the euro for, say,
oil trading, a lot of dollars would come to the USA all at
once. Same for the dollar in the former Soviet Union. In
Islamic countries there is a real possibility of dollars
for international settlements being replaced with the gold
dinar.
And this was undoubtedly one of the "real" reasons Iraq was
targeted. Shortly before Bush made him the poster child for the "Axis of
Evil," Saddam had announced that henceforth Iraq would only sell its oil
for Euros. Other nations (especially the Saudis, French and Germans) were
carefully watching what would happen. They all understood the economic
implications of oil-for-Euros. Bush soon gave them the U.S.' answer. A
good deal of French and German resistance to the war and helping the U.S.
led reconstruction is based on this same simple self-interest. Bush and
his neo-conservatives like to cast the French and Germans as selfish and
short-sighted but are the Americans really any different? Only time will tell.

steve

"As my father told me long ago, the objective is not to convince someone
with your arguments but to provide the arguments with which he later
convinces himself." -- David Friedman

[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-09-18 Thread Steve Schear

At 08:30 PM 9/18/2003 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Also, with regards to Jim's comments about synthetic diamonds: They are
grossly over-rated.  What most of the media articles and snake oil
salesmen pushing synths do not tell you is that the technology has already
been around for years, it does make nice stones but not reliably, and that
solid appraisers CAN tell the difference -- and if there is even a margin
of doubt as to a diamond's authenticity as a naturally-occuring stone, it
is so noted on its certification and/or appraisal.
Nature is giving man a helping hand on the matter as well:  diamonds of
the degree of near-perfection to which synthetic standards aspire are
virtually non-existent in the world of natural stones, and stick out like
a sore thumb.  On the other hand, man-made imperfections look so contrived
that only a fool would not know them for what they are.
Can you offer creditable on-line references to support these contentions?

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way

2003-09-18 Thread Steve Schear

At 06:58 PM 9/18/2003 +0300, FileMatrix wrote:
As Graham said, "it will only be a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of
the worlds economies"! Gold simply can't back the world's economy! There
isn't enough! Paper money can exactly because it can be printed (and
destroyed)!


Gold and Economic Freedom

by Alan Greenspan
[written in 1966]
This article originally appeared in a newsletter: The Objectivist published 
in 1966 and was reprinted in Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which 
unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense - perhaps more 
clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire - that 
gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an 
instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary 
first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society.

Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions. It is that 
commodity which serves as a medium of exchange, is universally acceptable 
to all participants in an exchange economy as payment for their goods or 
services, and can, therefore, be used as a standard of market value and as 
a store of value, i.e., as a means of saving.

The existence of such a commodity is a precondition of a division of labor 
economy. If men did not have some commodity of objective value which was 
generally acceptable as money, they would have to resort to primitive 
barter or be forced to live on self-sufficient farms and forgo the 
inestimable advantages of specialization. If men had no means to store 
value, i.e., to save, neither long-range planning nor exchange would be 
possible.

What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an 
economy is not determined arbitrarily. First, the medium of exchange should 
be durable. In a primitive society of meager wealth, wheat might be 
sufficiently durable to serve as a medium, since all exchanges would occur 
only during and immediately after the harvest, leaving no value-surplus to 
store. But where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are 
in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a 
durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it 
is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it 
can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are 
neither homogeneous nor divisible. More important, the commodity chosen as 
a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, 
therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable. 
Wheat is a luxury in underfed civilizations, but not in a prosperous 
society. Cigarettes ordinarily would not serve as money, but they did in 
post-World War II Europe where they were considered a luxury. The term 
"luxury good" implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit 
value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an ounce of gold is 
worth a half-ton of pig iron.

In the early stages of a developing money economy, several media of 
exchange might be used, since a wide variety of commodities would fulfill 
the foregoing conditions. However, one of the commodities will gradually 
displace all others, by being more widely acceptable. Preferences on what 
to hold as a store of value, will shift to the most widely acceptable 
commodity, which, in turn, will make it still more acceptable. The shift is 
progressive until that commodity becomes the sole medium of exchange. The 
use of a single medium is highly advantageous for the same reasons that a 
money economy is superior to a barter economy: it makes exchanges possible 
on an incalculably wider scale.

Whether the single medium is gold, silver, seashells, cattle, or tobacco is 
optional, depending on the context and development of a given economy. In 
fact, all have been employed, at various times, as media of exchange. Even 
in the present century, two major commodities, gold and silver, have been 
used as international media of exchange, with gold becoming the predominant 
one. Gold, having both artistic and functional uses and being relatively 
scarce, has significant advantages over all other media of exchange. Since 
the beginning of World War I, it has been virtually the sole international 
standard of exchange. If all goods and services were to be paid for in 
gold, large payments would be difficult to execute and this would tend to 
limit the extent of a society's divisions of labor and specialization. Thus 
a logical extension of the creation of a medium of exchange is the 
development of a banking system and credit instruments (bank notes and 
deposits) which act as a substitute for, but are convertible into, gold.

A free banking system based on gold is able to extend credit and thus to 
create bank notes (currency

[e-gold-list] Re: More on Micropayment Failure

2003-09-14 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:30 AM 9/14/2003 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
From a link that I saw on Slashdot:
http://shirky.com/writings/fame_vs_fortune.html
I've always though "micropayments" were an evil concept !!  I can hardly 
say the word! :)
Not evil but foolish. There was a cypherpunk meeting two summers back which 
attempted to identify where developers, who wanted to succeed in digital 
cash, should focus.  Tim May drew a chart which mapped cost on one access 
and anonymity on the other to explore one aspect of the demand of digital 
cash.  He was pretty convincing in showing that, at least for digital cash 
systems, the only place which seemed to make sense is for higher value, 
more anonymous, systems.

He derided micro payments as focusing on the "millicent ghetto" of 
electronic money for which there seemed to be no demand that would create 
volume and profit.

steve

"...for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, 
and wrong."
-- H.L. Mencken



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[e-gold-list] e-gold Discussion - free e-gold offer -

2003-09-01 Thread Steve Schear

Just a small clarification.  I'm looking for orders placed with Amazon.com 
(U.S.) not their U.K. or German subsidiaries.

steve



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[e-gold-list] e-gold Discussion - free e-gold offer -

2003-08-31 Thread Steve Schear

Some "friends" ;-) are close to launching an innovative Amazon Associate
web site. To perfect their automation processes they need as many samples
of recent order confirmations and shipper email PAIRS as they can
get. They require all of the header information. (This is undoubtedly
unnecessary for most on this list, but you can find instructions in how to
display and "capture" your emails with full header data at
http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/19.html)

I will to pay $1.00 in e-gold for the first 50 pairs I receive which were
originally dated after June 1st of this year. Offer ends September 30th or
when I've received 50 acceptable pairs, whichever comes first ( will
announce to the list).

If you're interested please send me both confirmations (order and shipper)
in the email body, separated by a delimiter line (e.g., 20-30 hyphens).
Follow the shipper by another delimiter line and the e-gold account
number/identifier you wish paid.

To protect your personal information please feel free to modify your name,
postal address, phone number and IP address (making sure it still conforms
to a valid address). Please use the same data element changes in both the
order and shipper emails, and try not to disturb any formatting elements.

Thanks in advance.

steve

[e-gold-list] Re: Declan on Havenco article

2003-08-14 Thread Steve Schear

At 23:38 2003-08-12 +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
more and more hilarious .. did anyone ever find out if that Declan 
fellow's girlfriend really is NSA??
If you mean his ex-girlfriend, Kristen who works at the Naval Postgraduate 
School, I would be quite surprised.

steve

A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored 
by judges and demagogue statesmen.
- Steve Schear



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[e-gold-list] Re: Privacy data storage

2003-08-14 Thread Steve Schear

At 18:55 2003-08-11 +0300, FileMatrix wrote:


Does any of you guys have such services, or thinking of offering? I may be
interested in the future, and I'm thinking that if you advertise this stuff,
other people would come forward.
P.S. A free web hosting service is not secure enough (they could even stop
offering free hosting).
Yes, store your encrypted files or PGP volumes in Freenet space.  Its free 
and if you retrieve the data regularly it will remain cached on the disks 
of others users.  You can do the same on Usenet by uploading backups once a 
week.  The paid Usenet services reliably cache about 2 weeks of content.

steve

A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored 
by judges and demagogue statesmen.
- Steve Schear



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[e-gold-list] Re: Antigua Granted WTO Hearing On US Online Gambling Ban

2003-08-01 Thread Steve Schear



Some 54 nations, mostly in Europe and the Caribbean, have legalized 
regulated online gambling, according to the Interactive Gaming Council. 
Already, there are signs that other countries may take sides against the 
United States. Several nations, including Taiwan, Mexico, Canada and the EU 
states, said today they would reserve their right to join the dispute on 
the side of Antigua and Barbuda.

 

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[e-gold-list] Antigua Granted WTO Hearing On US Online Gambling Ban

2003-07-24 Thread Steve Schear

The WTO (World Trade Organisation) this week granted Antigua and Barbuda 
the right to a hearing over its long-standing complaint against the United 
States, which has restricted the right of US citizens to gamble online - a 
major lifeline for the Caribbean jurisdiction's economy.

http://www.tax-news.com/asp/story/story.asp?storyname=12733

"Il dulce far niente"  The sweetness of doing nothing
My unemployment motto
 

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[e-gold-list] White-label out-sourcing takes off in forex sector

2003-07-23 Thread Steve Schear

White-label out-sourcing takes off in forex sector
Reuters, 07.21.03, 3:14 PM ET
By Gertrude Chavez

NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) - White label is not a brand of whiskey or a 
record company, but a rapidly expanding segment of the huge global foreign 
exchange business.

Faced with thinner margins and falling trading volumes, big banks like 
Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people), Deutsche Bank  and UBS 
 have embraced white labeling, which basically entails providing 
liquidity or quoting rates to second-tier banks in a range of currencies on 
behalf of their clients.

White-label agreements are supported by seamless "straight through 
processing" to ensure trades are executed, confirmed and recorded.

Harpal Sandhu, president and CEO of Integral Development Corp, a provider 
of forex trading technology in Mountain View, California, estimates 
outsourcing deals currently represent about 15 percent of foreign exchange 
volume done by big banks.

Global forex trading volume is about $1.5 trillion a day.

Bankers say anonymity is a major consideration, with the liquidity provider 
being just a "white label" to customers of small institutions, letting 
large banks maximize technology to scoop up flow from sectors outside their 
target markets.

"For a bank offering a white label solution, the value proposition is the 
ability to tap into markets and selling channels to which they would not 
otherwise have access," said Mark Galant, chief executive officer and 
founder of GAIN Capital in New Jersey, an online trading firm which 
launched a white label product in May 2000.

White labeling also allows smaller banks to focus on sales without having 
to worry about technology, giving their clients access to more efficient 
and sophisticated trading models.

"For the small bank, (the advantage) would be the ability to quickly roll 
out proven trading technology with relatively no upfront cost. This allows 
them to focus their resources on selling and existing customer 
relationships," said Galant.

MERGER, TECH BOOM SPUR WHITE LABEL

White labeling is not new but bankers say the merger mania that swept the 
financial sector in the 1990s and the boom in new technology fueled a 
resurgence of liquidity outsourcing.

Consolidation in the industry has also reduced the amount of forex 
interbank transactions, pressuring profit margins and creating the need for 
smarter technology and outsourcing.

"As a result of all these mergers, the number of participants in the 
interbank market has been decreasing over the past several years," said 
Vikas Srivastava, global head of Citigroup unit CitiFX e-commerce in New 
York, which launched a platform called CitiFX White Label in October 2002.

"For the small banks, it became harder and harder to make money in the 
interbank market as the top dealers secure greater market share. One way to 
optimize their business is to partner with these big banks," Srivastava said.

Technology now allows banks streaming access to liquidity in traditionally 
difficult sectors such as the spot market, analysts say. As telephone 
trading gives way to online transactions, smaller institutions are seeing 
the wisdom in adopting a system from another bank.

WHITE LABEL EXTENDED

The entry of major players has expanded the limits of the transaction, 
letting smaller institutions outsource practically everything in the forex 
arena.

Deutsche Bank extended outsourcing by white labeling its order management 
systems to let partner banks forward client orders, and Citigroup allows 
access to its trading platform not only to white label partners but also to 
their clients.

More banks are keen to join the action. Bank of New York (nyse: BK - news - 
people) is considering launching a white label liquidity platform, 
according to Richard Estes, the bank's head of FX e-commerce, to complement 
its IFX Manager launched in 1999.

IFX Manager is an e-commerce product that handles the trading execution 
needs of fund managers.

HSBC  in April said it signed a letter of intent to partner with 
Reuters  on a white label forex trading service. Tony Cripps, head 
of e-commerce at HSBC Global Markets, said the bank is looking to launch 
the platform in the fourth quarter of the year.

FX AN "AGGREGATION RACE"

"In the end, the FX market is an aggregation race," said Steve Metzler, 
global head of FX nontraditional products at ABN Amro  in Chicago, 
which launched a white label product in 2000.

"As the industry gets squeezed as a result of consolidation, we need to 
extend what we have. To run a truly global operation ... we need to extend 
our business models to other financial institutions," Metzler said.

The ultimate beneficiary is the end-user or the clients of small banks 
since, as competition heats up, they get more services at lower prices. But 
as margins erode due to increased competition, analysts say big banks with 
reasonable costs should be able to thrive.





"Il dulce far niente"  The sweetness of doin

[e-gold-list] Economic "Connections" an homage to Burke (was: Inflation and the American Revolution)

2003-07-18 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:12 2003-07-18 +, Frank Mottley wrote:
An Article by H.A. Scott Trask
from Mises.org

Because the notes were redeemable in specie only at the Philadelphia bank,
they depreciated everywhere else. In addition, the new Superintendent of
Finance, Robert Morris, issued treasury notes, known as "Morris notes,"
which promised to be redeemable in hard currency at the treasury
department at a future date designated on the note. They too depreciated.
By means of these three forms of credit currency, Congress purchased
supplies, paid the troops, and met interest on its debts. The army,
however, continued to give certificates for impressed goods.
Morris was a man both admired by some (mostly the wealthy who held
government obligations) and feared by many. On October 27, 1783, James
Warren wrote to John Adams, "Morris is a King, and more than a King. He
has the Keys to the Treasury at his Command, Appropriates money as he
pleases, and everybody must look up to him for Justice and for Favour."

The Americans could have adopted a hard currency after 1779, for specie
was pouring into the country from the Havana trade, French loans, and the
disbursements of English and French troops. What is more, large sums
remained in hoards. However, because of Gresham's Law none of it remained
in circulation; it flowed back out to purchase imports, and the country
was left with no domestic currency
except depreciated paper.
This situation reversed itself shortly, with the passage of the Articles of
Confederation which forbade Congress from issuing money or directly
taxing. The States were given that right, exclusively.

By the mid-1780s the country had sunk into a great recession and state tax
revenues plummeted. Much of the country's gold and silver were flowing
offshore (mainly to England) to pay for imported goods and to repay debts
agreed to by the treaty which ended the war. Many creditors had their
holdings seized because laws required payment in specie which was
scarce. Congress was insisting on some means to pay for military pensions
and other obligations. Their idea was the Impost on imported goods.

In 1783 Congress, after several rejected recommendations, suggested that
collectors be chosen by the states (one of the major sticking points) and
that the Impost be limited to 25 years (they originally asked for an
open-ended ability to Impost). And guess who was placed in charge of
administering this Impost? You guessed it, Robert Morris.

When the Constitution was adopted one of the key changes was to place
Congress in control of "interstate commerce" and an ability to use impost
and excise to raise funds. Most of the delegates to the Constitutional
Convention had been given explicit instructions by their state legislators
not to allow Congress these rights, but it appears that many/most ignored
them.

The feeding frenzy of debt and taxation by Congress this set off grew
markedly in the early 1800s. Due to economic factors most of the burden
fell on the Southern states (at one point it was estimated that in some
years they were paying up to 80% of the Federal expenses). During Andrew
Johnson's administration the Governor of South Carolina refused to collect
the excises at Charleston Harbor (the main Southern port) precipitating a
political rent in Congress. Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, told
the Southern States that he had no interest in curbing slavery but if they
attempted to do to him what they did to Johnson (i.e., interfere with
excise collections) that they should expect a prompt military response. It
should come as little surprise then that one of the first actions of the
Rebellion, on April 12 and 13, 1861, was to attempt to isolate and disable
Fort Sumter which overlooked and could fire on all traffic entering
Charleston Harbor, and whose main duty was collection of the excise.

Lincoln schemed to get the Confederates to attack first and so inflame
those in the North who were heavily anti-war at the time. Shelby Foote,
consultant for Glory and author of The Civil War, stated, "Lincoln had
maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back
down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war." As it is
no one was seriously injured in the attack which prevented the resupply of
food to the fort. A flotilla of northern ships stood by during the attack
but never fired a shot to protect the fort, that was never their intention.

steve

[e-gold-list] Re: Interesting Historical Perspective of the Gold Standard

2003-07-16 Thread Steve Schear

At 16:59 2003-07-14 +, Frank Mottley wrote:
A very interesting address, which some of you may have already read, as it 
was made last year. Ferdinand Lips, addressing the Austrian congress, 
presented a speech entitled "Why Gold-Backed Currencies Help Prevent 
Wars." The entire thing is a bit long to be posted here, but is linked below.

The full adress is archived here:

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w42/msg00048.htm
A good article.  However, I must disagree with one premise: "This fact 
(debt financing not backed by gold), in addition to the Versailles Treaty 
and unreasonable reparation payments, led to hyperinflation, destruction of 
the middle class and, finally, Hitler. It set the stage for World War II."

This does not explain why Italy (which was on the winning side in WW I) 
fell into Fascism in the mid-1920s, over a decade before Germany.  An 
equally, or more plausible, reason has it as an inevitable climax of a 
centuries-long philosophic development, preaching three fundamental ideas: 
the worship of unreason, the demand for self-sacrifice and the elevation of 
society or the state above the individual.  These three ideas spewed forth 
from some of the most respected philosophers of the late 19th Century 
(e.g., Kant).  An excellent book "Ominous Parallels," by Leonard Peikoff 
builds the case that the rise of Nazism was facilitated by the 
philosophical content of mainstream German culture, and that the basic 
anti-individualist, anti-reason orientations of this culture are also 
apparent in modern American culture (hence the "Ominous Parallels").

steve



"There is no protection or safety in anticipatory servility."
Craig Spencer
 

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[e-gold-list] E-Gold next? : eBay's PayPal Accused of Violating Patriot Act

2003-04-02 Thread Steve Schear



 PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A federal prosecutor has alleged eBay Inc. 
(Nasdaq:EBAY - news) unit PayPal violated a 2001 anti-terror law aimed at 
fighting money laundering when it provided payment services to online 
gambling companies, the Web auctioneer said in its annual report filed on 
Monday.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030401/wr_nm/tech_ebay_paypal_dc_4



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[e-gold-list] Re: Why _anonymous_ digital bearer instruments?

2003-03-21 Thread Steve Schear

At 06:19 PM 3/22/2003 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
thank you for the run down!

Say I have some Lucrative, value 1550 units.

So its like one certificate for 1550 units.

Say I want to give you say 20.50 units (say I've just bought a car from 
you, for example)

Do I sort of gve you the 1550 and you give me a new one, change, or can i 
"split up" my 1550 one into smaller, uh, sections?
I think Patrick has adopted the method used by Digicash: binary value coins 
(1,2,4,8,16...).  Not very intuitive for most people but it allows simpler 
optimization for change in your purse.  Keeping correct change and getting 
it when needed will, by default, be handled automatically for the user.

In your example 1550 units could be held in your purse as 1024 + 512 + 8 + 
4 + 2.  I'm not sure how he intends to handle fractional amounts but it 
could certainly be done using binary decimals.

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: DVD-Backups: service launch announcement

2003-03-21 Thread Steve Schear

At 01:07 AM 3/22/2003 -0500, Robert S.Z. wrote:
> It seems they are trying to slide in under the DMCA by using the fair use
> provision. Interestingly, the way I read the law is it doesn't preclude
> fair use only breaking the DRM of the DVD.
One of our hgosting clients tried something similar and seems to have
gotten away with it for quite a while as well. In fact it worked great
until someone posted the same remark in *their* guestbook.
Once someone said that everyone could claim ignorance [which strictly
doesn't protect you from prosecution anyway], nobody could claim ignorance
anymore and our client mailed us to shut down the site.
One can make a good case that fair use copying of DVDs is legal in the U.S.
today. It only may run afoul of the law if one "illegally circumvents"
(not just circumvents) the DRM. Technically speaking its not necessary to
"illegally circumvent" the DRM to make almost flawless copies. All PC-based
DVD players must decrypt the DRM protected digital data and stream it to
the video HW for reconstruction. Once the data is placed in the video
buffers capturing it to disk is not an "illegally circumvention", even if
one manufactures specialized HW to fool the DVD player SW. In addition,
there is an "analog hole" in all DRM systems because eventually the digital
content must be converted to analog form if humans are to able to sensing
the information. Converting the video and audio back to digital is harder
and more expensive than getting it from the HW buffers, but still practical.

So even if the agent is reasonably aware of what you are doing, he can't
be held responsible until you tell him what you are doing.
No doubt DVD-Backups would be foolish to brag. Because there are viable
technical means to make high-quality legal DVD copies customers of
DVD-Backups can rightly assume, unless convincing evidence is presented
otherwise, that the copies have been obtained fair and square.

steve

[e-gold-list] Re: DVD-Backups: service launch announcement

2003-03-21 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:12 PM 3/20/2003 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

DON'T LET A SCRATCH RUIN YOUR DVD INVESTMENT

Your DVD collection is important.  Despite error correction features
it only takes a single scratch in a critical area to make a disk unplayable.
 Now you can insure your investment with inexpensive DVD-Backups.
A new and novel use for e-gold and 'anonymized' payments.  Maybe it will 
add a few bars to the pile.

It seems they are trying to slide in under the DMCA by using the fair use 
provision.  Interestingly, the way I read the law is it doesn't preclude 
fair use only breaking the DRM of the DVD.  So, since you don't know that 
this service has created your copy by breaking the DRM (maybe they 
extracted the video feed from the analog or PC display buffers, which 
appears not to violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions) you have 
plausible deniability.  What fun.

Anyone contact them yet?

steve



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[e-gold-list] Re: PayPal flaws

2003-03-03 Thread Steve Schear

At 11:40 AM 3/2/2003 -0600, SnowDog wrote:
But it doesn't matter because merchants aren't allowed to offer discounts
for cash or other payment methods, when they accept credit cards. So there's
still a 2% - 5% additional fee when purchasing something with e-gold.
Actually, that's not strictly true. Even though brick and mortar merchants
may find it a practical impossibility on-line merchants can indeed price
discriminate based on payment instrument in an analogous fashion to how
they discriminate whether the transactions are handled face-to-face or
on-line. For example, look at what some of the largest have done to avoid
paying state sales taxes. They have established holding companies which
control both the brick and mortar and on-line outlets. Any on-line
retailer can do the same: establish a holding company which operates
several on-line business (e.g., XYZ.com and XYZ-CC.com), each a separate
legal corporation. XYZ-CC.com becomes a CC accepting merchant, XYZ.com
does not. Although it slightly complicates the consumer buying experience
there is no reason why one site can't offer a link to the other site. All
quite legal and likely to pass CC association rules.

>
> Generally, all you have to do to put $100 in an e-gold account is buy a
> money order for $105 and send it to an exchange provider. If you don't
> like spending the extra $5, try bringing a sandwich for lunch one day
> instead of going out to a restaurant. That'll put you about $2 ahead.
$105 for the $100 money order will yield what? About $95 of e-gold? It's not
a bargain.
It all depends on how and where that $105 was earned. The trouble with all
the DGC and DBC payment systems thus far is they are attempting to compete
head-to-head with mainstream payment instruments where they are strongest,
in the mistaken notion that in order to become viable they must service
mainstream consumer needs. This is folly.

When looking at these now mainstream instruments one should consider their
history. Originally credit cards were only for the wealthy and the
business elite. Travelers Checks, pioneered by Wells Fargo in the late
19th century, were targeted at eliminating the use of cumbersome letters
introduction and credit then common for wealthy travelers. Both are now
mainstream but only after many decades of restricted marketing and use.

DBC and DGC need to look for customers who have the desire and means to use
their instruments. This means not focusing on the millicent ghetto or
mainstream payments. Most/all DGCs (and to a lesser degree DBCs) operate
under (or at least advertise that they adhere to) Know Your Customer
policies. This, IMHO, is the greatest impediment to their wider
acceptance. These new instruments need to find ways to adequately
establish both their trustworthiness and their agnosticism toward parties
using their service.

E-gold's strengths are that it is irrevocable and international. It has a
chance for people who require payments with those attributes.
E-gold's weakness is that it attempts to adhere to KYC rules. DGCs and
DBCs should no more care about who uses their service then a country's
treasury cares about who uses their currency. (other parts of the same
government may, of course, care).

steve

[e-gold-list] It was bound to happen...

2003-01-26 Thread Steve Schear

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED
: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE
NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY
SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL
BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO
AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN
ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY
PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY
MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR
OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE
NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON
FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE
ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A
WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.

MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF
SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST,
THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS PARTNERS
IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF MONARCHIES, AND
SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND JAPANESE PARTNERS.
BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.

MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL OF
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF
HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM FROM POWER.
UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOULDER THE BURDEN
OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY COST THE SUM OF 100
BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000 - $200,000,000,000), BOTH
IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT.

WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE
THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND OUR
COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED
COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD CHENEY, WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER
IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND
CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS
DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER.

I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT
(10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT
VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL
FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER
BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE
AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE
DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE
INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO
CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY
REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE
FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS
BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

Switchboard: 202.456.1414 Comments: 202.456. Fax: 202.456.2461 Email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] --

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[e-gold-list] Re: ADL & E-Gold - a philosophical query

2003-01-26 Thread Steve Schear

Sorry George but I've got to oppose your statist views in this case and 
side with the others.  Despite the propaganda of altruism, I find more of 
the activities of the Nation States against my short- and long-term 
interests than those who seek to keep their personal interests private.  I 
value the liberty to conduct my affairs, which do not cause direct harm to 
others, more than I value the lives of those who seek to restrain those 
activities.  The right to be left alone is a cornerstone of liberty and 
those who seek to undermine it are tyrants, no matter what their exposed 
motives.

Thomas Jefferson was quite clear on what patriots should do with 
tyrants.  I think my .sig goes to the heart of the matter.

At 05:10 PM 1/25/2003 -0500, George Matyjewicz wrote:
At 12:05 PM 1/25/2003 +0200, Arik Schenkler wrote:

> In Germany they first came for the Communists,

> Then they came for me --
> and by that time no one was left to speak up.
>
>--- Pastor Martin Niemoller

Meaning, that we need to oppose government activities?

Nope.  That was in answer to...
"Maybe nothing.  Perhaps at some point people just need to realize that 
they can't control everything.  If bad people use money, cell phones, 
cars, guns, the internet, 

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the
government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert
to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest
dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal,
well-meaning but without understanding.
 -Louis Dembitz Brandeis, lawyer, U.S. Supreme Court judge, and writer 
(1856-1941)

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[e-gold-list] Re: landmark lawsuit

2002-12-11 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:34 PM 12/11/2002 +1100, Goldtoday wrote:

A landmark decision for the publishing industry.

Be careful what you say on the 'net.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5653567%255E2862,00.html

From the article:
"The court dismissed suggestions the Internet was different from other
broadcasters, who could decide how far their signal was to be transmitted."

This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast
medium. Information from Web sites must be requested, the equivalent of
ordering a book or newspaper, for delivery. Under this logic a retailer in
one country, selling a controversial book to someone in another
country, could involve publishers in yet a third country to litigation in
the second country. Bizzare.

The real question is whether any judgement is enforeable.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from
the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the
result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always
followed by dictatorship." --Alexander Fraser Tyler

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[e-gold-list] Re: Okay, this is getting ridiculous ...

2002-12-06 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:26 AM 12/7/2002 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

The situation still exists wherein e-gold spends work sometimes
and don't work sometimes. How long has this been going on?
Somewhere between 24 and 48 hours, I think.


It's absolutely insane.

It's completely ludicrous -- ridiculous.  And there's no reason for it.

Furthermore, my tests more and more suggest that it is more likely to 
happen on LARGE (over 2 or 3 kilos) spends. That suggests all sorts of 
horrible things.

If you're trying to spend 5 kilos of gold to a supplier, client or 
whatever you don't wanna really keep the person waiting because of egolds BS

It suggests that e-gold may be enforcing security or operations policies 
which interject manual intervention under certain circumstances.  Perhaps 
its due to security flaws which hackers or others have uncovered.  Perhaps 
they are profiling their customers for law enforcement purposes.  Perhaps 
other more innocuous reasons.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: DBCs now issued by DMT

2002-12-03 Thread Steve Schear

At 06:45 PM 12/3/2002 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

I suppose that if it's not blinded, or at least functionally anonymous,
like you'd get with statistically-tested streaming cash, it's not *that*
bearer, but, hey, that's just *my* opinion, right?


Since it has no payee or associated holder information and can "circulate" 
via re-issuance (even if there is a charge) it has bearer "characteristics".


I would assume that anything that has accounts with client names on them is
probably not bearer, either, though Mark Twain did something quite like
that.


DMT accounts have no customer information associated.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Lateko: BE warned!

2002-12-01 Thread Steve Schear

At 04:41 AM 12/2/2002 +, Colonel Bosco wrote:

No-one said anything about Security.

If you wish to use YOUR Company to be a front for illegal activity then 
feel free to do so.

Those who do could not even hope to hold a candle to similar activities by 
those in government.  Those who chose to operate without asking questions 
about the identity of their clients, the source and intended use of funds 
are just practicing good 'ol fashion private banking.


It seems the Companies who operate in a less than professional manner are 
the ones who are dragging down (as your quote references below) 
reputations in the DGC community, not me!\

In my opinion the term professional in banking and other regulated 
industries has been revised in an Orwellian manner.


If the DGC community DOES NOT Police itself (and do so quickly) then you 
WILL see Governmental Regulation and Enforcement.

I will treat any who attempt to regulate my financial activities the same 
as those who would try to cut off my supply of oxygen.

Either clean the DGC system up from the inside out and gain mainstream 
acceptance, or do nothing and watch the system destroyed.

I worked for many years at a leading NY bank.  I suspect that if enough 
people come to realize how the world's mainstream financial system serves 
well only those with large sums or government connections they will choose 
an analogous solution to the millions of patrons who, tired of being 
fleeced at CD and DVD retailers, are nightly swapping content on 
peer-to-peer systems.  If so, then we may just see a return to true private 
banking.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Lateko: BE warned!

2002-12-01 Thread Steve Schear

At 04:05 AM 12/2/2002 +, Colonel Bosco wrote:

You Sir, are the proverbial loose cannon!  With your Banking track record 
(of constantly having acct's closed, frozen, or being asked to leave) if I 
were a Bank manager (and saw you coming) I would Pay You to NOT open an 
acct with my Bank!!

And you sir appear to be a willing dupe of those who would take our liberty 
in exchange for a pocket full of mumbles about security. Those who lose 
their money in foolish schemes or buying products from those they do not 
know at prices too good to believe get what they deserve.  You and they are 
like drowning non-swimmers thrashing about in the water. Pay them no heed 
nor get close or they will drag you down with them.


A State must pay attention to virtue, because the law is a covenant or a 
guarantee of men's just claims, but it is not designed to make the citizens 
virtuous and just
-- Aristotle


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[e-gold-list] Re: GoldNow privacy

2002-11-29 Thread Steve Schear

At 05:48 PM 11/29/2002 +1100, Graham Kelly wrote:

Ben,

Thank you for the testimony... yes, we do deal privately with folks, but
we ALSO need to verify customers name, address, and phone numbers, as we
never want to be accused of money laundering, or dealing with NON
entities etc etc. Also, we appreciate our customers, and want to deal
with REAL people. So, I make no apology for not dealing with non
verifiable "people". BTW, this information is not shared with ANYONE,
including scurrilous "agents" acting on behalf of "OSRevovery? Inc".

Sorry, but accepting the premise that money laundering can exist without
the a predicate crime is the equivalent of trail without right to be
confronted with evidence or accusers. Anyone who adheres to this policy,
including most financial organizations, are just part of a tyranny. When I
exchange e-gold for other value all I care about is whether I later possess
that value.

steve

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general
knowledge among the people... Be not intimidated,
therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the
utmost freedom...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled
out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness,
delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used,
are but three different names for hypocrisy,
chicanery, and cowardice." -- John Adams

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[e-gold-list] Re: I'm here in OZ!

2002-11-28 Thread Steve Schear

At 06:07 PM 11/28/2002 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I'm of mixed emotions about pgp signing list messages. It's
a good way to solve the security problems of email, ..



J, I'm guessing what the poster meant (possibly) was that the egold list 
software would somehow check that the emails were real.

(I dont know of a system that does this)

its utterly usless adding a signature to things, OTHER THAN when you are 
communicating closely with people who know you extremely well, and that 
you have met personally, know well for years etc.

For instance, I could now create a signature saying I am "George Bush" or 
"Lady Thatcher" or "Graham Kelly" or "Jim Ray" ... so what?

Not true.  I think you're ignoring PGP's WoT (Web of Trust), a key ;-) 
feature.  By having you key signed by those you hope others are already 
familiar with and trust, for example having had their key ID verified 
through out-of-channel communications (esp. face-to-face or phone) it 
provides and introducer-type function for less know nyms.

steve


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[e-gold-list] RE: Moderator message, please read. Re: ahahahahaha !!!!!!!!!

2002-11-27 Thread Steve Schear

At 09:40 AM 11/28/2002 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Two things,

1) It doesn't take a genius to see that the two messages from Graham weren't
actually from him. I wonder if it wouldn't have been appropriate to catch
the messages and delete them before a war starts.




How the hell do we know where the real Graham is ?!?

Can any associates of Graham's give a consensus of his real address, fone 
number or the like?

Ahhh... Perhaps its time to consider digitally signing message posted to 
the list.

steve


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[e-gold-list] RE: Moderator message, please read. Re: ahahahahaha !!!!!!!!!

2002-11-27 Thread Steve Schear

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

At 09:40 AM 11/28/2002 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>Two things,
>>
>>1) It doesn't take a genius to see that the two messages from Graham weren't
>>actually from him. I wonder if it wouldn't have been appropriate to catch
>>the messages and delete them before a war starts.
>
>
>
>How the hell do we know where the real Graham is ?!?
>
>Can any associates of Graham's give a consensus of his real address, fone 
>number or the like?

Good question.  Perhaps its time list members consider using PGP to 
digitally sign their postings.  Leading email programs can be configured to 
automatically verify signed messages from keys uploaded to a public key 
server .

steve
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: PGP 7.0.4

iQA/AwUBPeVjAqenadS+YleJEQJKcwCgsxXOp6HRebfjrOuCWYicnWkQuowAoO2g
Mvth4V1gWIAZbq2WAtkot3Fb
=IX4M
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

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[e-gold-list] Re: whatever transpires!

2002-11-24 Thread Steve Schear

At 11:11 PM 11/24/2002 +1100, Graham Kelly wrote:

Next time we have a US "office", it'll be based in St Kitts or similar...
what an indictment to the US business system! No wonder long established
US companies are RAPIDLY moving offshore! For just simple protection!

Or have the U.S. office operate as an independent agent and under a thin
shell corporation with only offshore directors and offficers. Its cheap
and effective at thwarting deep pocket searches. Offshore directors or
officers rarely face trouble in their resident countries from civil
corporate misdeeds. Even serious criminal matters rarely lead to extradition.

Founders of tech-oriented companies often ignore simple procedures which
offer jurisdictional arbitrage. Perhaps its money, a unfortunate focus on
only business matters or technology of their ventures, or Boyscout ethics,
but too many weasels are looking to make a mark out of them.

I've got an idea. Many on this list are e-gold business owners, or hope to
be, facing possible problems from past or future weasels. Many are located
in a variety of countries. All need protection from these criminals in
suits. Why don't we band together for mutual protection. What I have in
mind is an offshore directors and officers exchange program to promote
jurisdictional arbitrage. I haven't thought through the details but the
idea is to create a sort of board/officer LETS guild. Participants would
offer to serve as officers or directors of guild members in exchange for
these other guild members serving similarly in their own
ventures. Compensation would be worked out between the parties on a cases
by case basis, as is customary, but the service obligation would be known
to all guild members.

Thoughts?

steve

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[e-gold-list] Finally, anonymous ecash

2002-11-11 Thread Steve Schear

http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2002/11/11/4183/2039

Yodel Bank: Anonymous Digital Cash
By Anonymous Hero, Section New Releases
Posted on Mon Nov 11th, 2002 at 04:18:03 AM GMT

Thanks to developments in anonymous communication, such as Freenet and
the invisible irc project, anonymous digital cash has become a reality.

Yodel Bank is offering 'yodels' as a form of currency you can exchange
with people who you've never met outside of anonymous means. For
example, you could pay for some web design or a hosting service
anonymously, play video poker with real anonymous money on iip, or make
a donation to a charity without disclosing who you are. Yodel Bank is
relatively new, but now that you can transfer money over IIP and
Freenet, a real vibrant anonymous economy is springing up, and it's
unclear how governments will react to this 'private' banking.

The author of Yodel Bank can be reached on IIP under the name yodel on
#yodel. He claims to be fully anonymous to the world, and has purchased
the domain name and hosting by using his currency. He understands that
trust is something that takes time to develop in an anonymous bank.


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[e-gold-list] Re: They've solved the small change problem

2002-11-07 Thread Steve Schear

At 01:44 AM 11/7/2002 -0600, Jim Davidson wrote:



E-gold lets me spend a millionth of a dollar's worth of
gold.  Wow.


True, but watch out for the spend fees.  When the size is moderate spend 
fees are small in comparison with the transaction.  However, when the 
transaction size is a small fraction of a cent spend fees can approach 40% 
of the spend.  This percentage of fee increase is necessary because while 
transaction costs are small they become increasingly significant with small 
spends.  See Greg Broiles' 11/25/2001, Re: How Penny Per Page Might Work.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: [dgc.chat] voluntary compliance

2002-11-04 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:57 AM 11/4/2002 -0500, Chad Z. Hower wrote:

:: Clause. Of those of know about these matters most have decided that
:: illegal or not its now deemed the law of the land and nothing
:: can be done
:: to roll back the clock when so much time has passed and so much

Try it for yourself. And when they come and take your house and car, tell me
that they dont have the power. They may not have the right, but they do in
fact have the power as long as the courts agree.

Every one who has tried these tacts in court or other, has lost.

Its true that individuals who have resisted have paid dearly, but what do
you think happened to the signers of the Declaration of Independence? Its
always been true that even when undeniably confronted by tyranny most
people would rather grin and bear it or deny its existence than confront
their cowardice. We all fear an uncomfortable or uncertain future or a
life cut short, well almost all. There is a fairly sizable group of
citizens many of whom have largely lost these fears: the terminally
ill. If those of us who have not, to their knowledge, been placed to the
"front of the line" could find ways to motivate these now less fearful
perhaps something revolutionary could be born? Anyone seen Fight Club?

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: [dgc.chat] voluntary compliance

2002-11-03 Thread Steve Schear

At 03:57 AM 11/2/2002 +, Graham Kelly wrote:

I LIKE the present US constitution... IMHO, I think that the US govmint
folks feel it needs to be "updated", but it appears that most US citizens
are happy with it.


That's because most citizens today are as dumb as a doorknob when it comes 
to the understanding original intentions of the founders, vis-a-vis a 
limited federal government and a republic among the States, and how those 
ideas were hijacked by Lincoln, the illegal passage of the 14th Amendment, 
and the Supreme Court caving into FDR's and Congressess' threats leading to 
an unwarranted the expansion of federal power under the Commerce 
Clause.  Of those of know about these matters most have decided that 
illegal or not its now deemed the law of the land and nothing can be done 
to roll back the clock when so much time has passed and so much power and 
privilege is at stake.  They have forgotten a key underlying our system of 
laws:

  "Fiat justitia et ruat caelum" (Let justice be done though the heavens 
may fall.)
  --legal maxim originating with the Senate of Rome.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary compliance

2002-11-01 Thread Steve Schear

At 09:49 PM 10/31/2002 -0600, Jim Davidson wrote:

Imagine your delight
when you subpoena the several past IRS commissioners who
have stated that compliance is voluntary and Americans
who don't live in US territories such as Puerto Rico owe
no taxes. Imagine your delight when you present the tax
laws to the judge.

Can you cite on-line case transcriptions/ruling where this has happened and
the outcome has been favorable to the citizen?

> Therefore, if you have income (especially income from possibly
> illegal sources) you do not wish to declare you are legally
> empowered to assert you 5th Amendment privilege on your filing.

I would not recommend making such an assertion in writing on
their tax form, though.

The Supreme Court has ruled several times that "properly completing and
filing " IRS tax forms is required under federal law. In essence, they
compare your duty to do so with answering a subpoena (I do not subscribe to
this line of reasoning). As in a subpoena you must appear, but cannot be
compelled to give testimony. Refusing to appear (i.e., not filing forms,
or filing forms from which income other than that shielded under 5th
Amendment privilege, cannot be determined by the IRS) can be actionable. I
can find no federal court documents on-line which deal with those who have
apparently followed the SC's instructions on taking the 5th and would
welcome citings.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Changes to Member Agreement - ACTION REQUIRED

2002-10-30 Thread Steve Schear

At 04:20 PM 10/30/2002 +1100, you wrote:

So paying tax is voluntary?  I thought they would audit you if you don't 
pay taxes and fine you etc?

Maybe I'm missing something?

Filing of tax forms is mandatory if the sources or amounts of your income 
require it under IRS provisions (many of those who do not think so have 
found out different in front of a judge).  Interestingly, however, you 
cannot be compelled to give testimony against yourself.  Tax forms signed 
and submitted by you are considered testimony, not evidence, should you 
ever be brought to trial based on your filings.  Therefore, if you have 
income (especially income from possibly illegal sources) you do not wish to 
declare you are legally empowered to assert you 5th Amendment privilege on 
your filing.  (The IRS can still assess you taxes on those amounts you 
shield under the 5th, if they can figure out what and how much they are).

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Business Idea

2002-10-09 Thread Steve Schear

> >"John Kyle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote

At 06:27 PM 10/9/2002 -0700, Craig Spencer wrote:
>John,
>
> > If I spend the next 6 months in my attic writing a sequel to
> > Atlas Shrugged, and the moment I begin to sell them someone posts
> > the entire thing to the internet and everyone downloads it for
> > free, where is the justice in that?
>
>Respectfully, I suggest that it is your responsibility to figure
>out a free-market way to do business which profits yourself.  If
>you fail to solve you own marketing and distribution problems it
>is not other people who are at fault and are obligated to make up
>the deficiency.

One approach is subscription.
Another is to depend upon social pressures for compensation (e.g., tipping).
Lastly, one can use the Hollywood completion bond model.  In this third 
approach an artist must build up a sufficient reputation so that fans or 
other sponsors are willing to pay for the completed work before its done 
(or even started).

> > And for those who say maybe it's time laws and property rights
> > should change, rights pre-exist and are independent of laws.
>
>Exactly right, again.  However, many laws do not actually protect
>rights but violate them.  Patent laws are a prime example of this.
>
> >Laws only come into effect later to protect fundamental and
> >inalienable rights.

I believe Thomas Paine discussed there in detail.  The natural rights which 
[man] retains [in society] are all those in which the power to execute it 
is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among this class are 
all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind; consequently religion 
is one of those rights. The natural rights which are not retained, are all 
those in which, though the right is perfect in the individual, the power to 
execute them is defective. . . . He therefore deposits this right in the 
common stock of society, and takes the arm of society, of which he is a 
part, in preference and in addition to his own. . . .

Property rights are generally considered in the latter class.  So even 
though property rights preexist laws, unless one is personally powerful 
enough to prevent others from taking your property you need to depend on 
society to defend and enforce this right.  That being said, society can 
have no greater moral authority than that afforded it by any single member, 
and there is nothing inherently immoral if one is sufficiently personally 
empowered to enforce one's rights in opposition to society's.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Business Idea

2002-10-09 Thread Steve Schear

At 11:20 AM 10/9/2002 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>At 10:44 AM 10/9/2002 -0400, James M. Ray wrote:
>>
>>>... Over $80 million was spent by Napster not-getting this idea
>>>before they died, so it's definitely yet-another pile of money on the
>>>ground, waiting for somebody to pick it up, IMO. ...
>>
>>Yes, I always thought Napster was committing suicide and needlessly 
>>antagonizing the artistic community
>
>aka "theft" (either you believe in ownership of property or not!)

I think too many people are looking at this from too narrow of a 
perspective. In the long run technology shapes laws and not the other way 
around.  The only reason we have copyright is because someone invented the 
printing press. The only reasons we have the RIAA and MPAA is because of 
Thomas Edison, et al.

It is reasonable to ask if existing laws and property rights should be 
maintained with the advent of new technology, or if it is in (almost) 
everybody's better interest to drop them as quickly as possible.  Do 
current copyright protection ultimately benefit consumers and music 
creators or is, instead, it is mainly instrumental in creating abnormal 
profits for intermediaries such as record companies and music publishers.

Basically, the music and movie industry argues that giving away copyrighted 
music for free violates its "intellectual property," and indeed, compares 
the downloading of copyrighted music to "piracy" or "theft". Permitting 
such "theft", music producers argue, is socially very damaging. No one 
would have an incentive to produce music were Napster and similar 
organizations allowed to operate. This arguments has two parts: the first 
says that downloading music is theft, and the second says that if 
downloading is permitted the incentive to produce good music would 
disappear and we would all be living in a gray and sad world, instead of 
enjoying at the lyrics of the Iglesias family.

The first statement is the silliest and easiest to dismiss: it does not 
require a Ph.D. in economics to see that downloading music, copyrighted or 
not, is quite different from theft in the ordinary sense of the word. 
Theft, as we ordinarily mean it, amounts to depriving the owner of the use 
of the object of his property or, at least, greatly reducing his access to 
it. If you steal my MP3 player, I can no longer use it. Whether you use it, 
resell it, or just throw it away, it is theft. In this sense "intellectual 
property" is quite different than property of material objects. Indeed, the 
argument is not over the right of the music industry to sell its product, 
nobody is stealing CDs via P2P, but rather over their ability to regulate 
the future use of their products by those who purchase them. As far as we 
know, no one has accused people who make available music from their CDs on 
the Internet of having stolen the CDs. Rather the question is, having 
purchased the CDs, the music industry would like to prevent us from further 
distributing the music. But is there a valid economic rationale for this? 
If I purchase a car, I can resell it in direct competition with the 
manufacturer of the car.  In fact, also if I purchase a CD I can resell it. 
I can also let other people listen to it in my home or backyard, or take it 
to the office and make it available to my colleagues, or play it during a 
gigantic party. The limit, apparently, is reached when I start making 
copies of it, either virtual or not. Strangely enough I can make copies of 
my Armani's suit, as long as I do not put an Armani label on it, but I 
cannot do the same with my CDs. Why?

Why indeed should I not sell on the Internet the music I have purchased, in 
direct competition with the "producer" (if you can call the RIAA a producer 
of anything except misleading hot air)? This is where the second part of 
the RIAA argument comes in: you should not have the right to resell the 
music because, by breaking the monopoly, you eliminate the incentive to 
produce further good music. What is at issue, then, is not "theft", but 
rather the legal protection of a monopoly. Naturally, if the monopolist has 
to compete with his own past customers then his ability to extract money 
from his new customers is reduced.  One consequence of this is that it 
would be much more difficult to "price discriminate," charging a higher 
price to those customers who place a particularly high value on his 
product. Naturally, not having to compete with one's customers has a great 
deal of value, and it is not terribly surprising that the "producers" of 
music wish to protect it. To better protect themselves, in fact, these 
"un-natural" monopolies have recently (March 2000) created the Copyright 
Assembly, which "... enlists into its membership the vast array of American 
enterprises involved in sports (professional football, basketball, 
baseball, hockey, NASCAR, NCAA), music, song-writing, advertising, 
software, broadcasters, both networks and stations, cable, movies, 
pu

[e-gold-list] Re: ATM/Debit cards on sale....

2002-10-08 Thread Steve Schear

At 08:24 PM 10/8/2002 -0400, George Matyjewicz wrote:
>At 11:06 AM 10/8/2002 -0400, Digibuck Inc. wrote:
>>ALL FUNDS FDIC INSURED
>
>FDIC insurance is only available to US financial institutions.  Hence are 
>we to assume this is a US-based card?

Not entirely true.  Its possible for non-financial institutions to receive 
FDIC protection through what's called pass-through.  It mainly requires the 
funds are deposited in a U.S. bank account eligible for FDIC 
insurance.  That's what PayPay recently did.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: www.hushmail.com now includes secure online storage

2002-10-07 Thread Steve Schear

At 11:59 PM 10/6/2002 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>I have been doing this same task with file attachments to drafts
>for some time but hush has now made it easier. Hush accepts e-gold.
>As for backups, I have never gotten Hush to confirm that they back
>up their systems. If anyone has that info, please forward to me.

I'd be amazed if they didn't.

Readers on this list who are concerned about making crypto secure backups 
of their data should consider downloading the free MNET peer-to-peer client 
and donating a bit of their unused storage to the system. 
http://mnet.sourceforge.net/ Mnet is an open source distributed data haven 
that allows you to download and publish (not share) files   This means your 
data is not stored as files on other people's machines, rather all of the 
data is broken up into "blobs" each with a unique address within the MNET's 
enormous address space.  These blobs are cached on member' hard drives in a 
RAID array fashion, with automated redundancy across the member's 
machines.  To reconstitute a file you need to have the "treasure map" which 
specifies the address of each published blob.  If you don't publish the 
treasure map (i.e., keep it private) only you can reconstitute the file.

Because each member's machine only stores a small number of blobs (if any) 
of a particular published file, and because these blobs are bit interleaved 
from the original file ordering, MNET system participants do not know what 
data they are holding.  They have creditable plausible deniability.  Neat eh?

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: more naughty bits

2002-09-29 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:01 AM 9/28/2002 -0500, Jim Davidson wrote:
>I have just one question for Steve.  If pubic key crypto
>is strong, where are we expected to store our key rings?

That's been the subject of much debate and industry.  I usually store my on 
my HD with diskette backup.  I've experimented with USB dongle S(tatic)RAMs 
and others I know have used PC-Card SRAMs

Public key crypto is much slower computationally then private key and so is 
most often used to encrypt and decrypt a private key used to actually 
encrypt a message or file.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Is there any way we can make smart cards work with E-gold?

2002-09-27 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:56 AM 9/28/2002 +1000, you wrote:
> > [SNIP] Have these cards encrypted at about 128 bits,
> > where the government would really need to work to get into any of them
>
>Now that is funny. 128 bit encryption is about as strong as
>those paper cups you get at grimy MLM conventions (not
>that I've been to any of those mind you. lol) ...

You may be confusing the bit strength of symmetric (e.g., private key - DES 
and AES) and asymmetric (e.g., pubic key - RSA) encryption.  Private key 
crypto is much stronger bit-for-bit than public key crypto.  128-bit 
private key is still considered very strong, although the industry is 
moving to 256-bit to future-proof data (that is unless quantum computers 
become practical), while strong pubic key crypto currently starts at 2048-bits.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Quick, easy, critical... but clearly missing

2002-09-24 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:27 PM 9/23/2002 -0400, David Beroff wrote:

>In the future, this could actually
>be expanded to the postage-based email system
>that many have envisioned, where a person could
>configure that they would not read unsolicited
>commercial emails unless they were getting paid
>at least X mg.

Such a project is underway, but instead of using payments with external 
value they are using a proof-of-work computational currency (hashcash), 
wherein the sender must prove they undertook a minimal level of 
CPU-intensive activity.  See http://www.camram.org

I am others have examined the digital postage conundrum and have concluded 
that it will almost certainly require digital stamps, of a bearer variety, 
to function.  Book-entry systems are ill suited since they cannot easily 
offer anonymity, which makes them a non-starter for many.

steve

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[e-gold-list] re: Passing the Buck

2002-09-03 Thread Steve Schear

Jack,

Regarding your Sept 3 piece "Passing the Buck,"
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/03/opinion/03KRUG.html?ex=1032080085&ei=1&en=b203a467ac43dfef,

Mr. Greenspan is indeed trying to avoid blame or criticism for our economic
woes, but to be fair the Fed no longer has the arrows in its quiver it once
held. Also, the basis of the Fed's control and our monetary policy may, in
the end, be most at fault. In 1976, when Alan was not under a political
spotlight for his every public utterance, he wrote what many belive to be
his true thoughts regarding the basis of proper economic management.

Under the title "Gold and Economic Freedom," he laid out a few
straightforward arguments why free banking and the gold standard stands as
the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth. Prior to
World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the
world) was based on gold, and even though governments intervened
occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. When restrained by
the ties of currencies to gold economies went into sharp, but only short,
contractions.

"Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is
determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument
is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset." It is only when governments
and their central bank's are exempted from this discipline that massive
economic upheavals become more common. This, Mr. Greenspan maintains, this
was largely responsible for the 1930s Depression.

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare
statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of
credit. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply
of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. In the
absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from
confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there
were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in
the case of gold in the 1930s. If everyone decided, for example, to convert
all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter
declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose
their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be
worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state
requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves."

"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold.
Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of
wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a
protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in
understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: [dgc.chat] IRS - friend or foe?

2002-08-25 Thread Steve Schear


At 10:49 AM 8/25/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>At 11:22 PM 8/25/2002 +1000, Michael Moore wrote:
>>http://www.taxableincome.net/
>>
>>A fascinating site.  If true could reduce your taxes considerably.
>
>Even if true, be careful.  In practice the IRS and the US imperial 
>government do not honor your rights to property, free speech, free 
>association, self-defense, and due process.  No constitution or other 
>piece of paper can make dishonorable men behave honorably.

Agreed.  There are legal (at least in the U.S., as recognized by Supreme 
Court rulings with current legal standing) non-offshore, simple and 
effective ways to avoid reporting many sources of income, but few either 
know about them or have the confidence to use them.



>>Can't do much about the Australian Taxation system regrettably, especially
>>as on average 65% of one's income 'goes' in tax collectively.
>
>So an Australian works from January through August entirely for the 
>benefit of government.  That is eight months spent in slavery each year.
>
>But most people don't see it that way.  How can you complain when you have 
>such a comfortable life, complete with air conditioning, TV, and good 
>food?  Besides, those eight months go to a good and noble cause, much 
>larger than your own petty and selfish concerns.  You would be greedy to 
>want to keep the fruits of those eight months.  Better to sacrifice them 
>to government and other people who are not tainted with such impure motives.

Yes, attributing our standard of living to those in government is a real hoot.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: On the outright laughability of internet "democracy"

2002-08-16 Thread Steve Schear

At 02:16 PM 8/15/2002 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:

History shows that powerful governments almost always attempt to crush 
independence movements with brutal force.  They do not want us slaves to 
escape their plantation.

>Let me phrase my question more optimistically.  Why will the future of 
>independence be more successful and less bloody than its history?  What is 
>different this time around?

The widespread, even individual, possession of weapons of mass 
destruction.  No blood, more players.  Get ready for Mad Max.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: On the outright laughability of internet "democracy"

2002-08-15 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:40 PM 8/10/2002 -0400, Kenneth C. Griffith wrote:
>Stated more succinctly: information technology + financial cryptography +
>weapons of mass destruction = the state is definitively obsolete, but no one
>has realized it yet.

Yes, this follows directly from "The Sovereign Individual"

>Instead of voting for politicians in your own city-state, you will be able
>to just move to the city-state whose legal framework, and economic
>environment most closely resembles your own values.  In a world of
>microbrews, custom cars, and nanotechnology, its only a matter of time until
>we see customized microstates.

Your inclusion of nanotech is particularly insightful. I have been working 
on a paper I hope to get published in an established political/economic 
journal.  The working title is Nanotech: The End of Economies.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: On the outright laughability of internet "democracy"

2002-08-11 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:29 AM 8/12/2002 +1000, Ian Green wrote:
>PS: Has anyone considered that a well designed, voluntary, constitutional 
>direct democracy system would logically result in a reduction of 
>legislation much greater than 10dB? Professional legislators justify their 
>existence by bombarding us with legislation so that they can pretend to be 
>doing useful work! Direct democracy (as with the IETF and Open Source 
>development community way of doing things) should be a step in the right 
>direction.

Beyond each country's economic, historic and cultural particulars the root 
of many of all our problems are political systems which are not derived 
from natural law and do not sufficiently restrain man's search for outlets 
to his baser instincts. In recent years the U.S. has promoted democracy as 
the fundamental long term solution to the woes of the developing world. But 
democracy has many forms and is not, by itself, a political panacea. As 
noted by Alexander Fraser Tyler, "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian 
Republic, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It 
can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves 
money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always 
votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public 
Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose 
fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship."

Most U.S. citizen assume, naively, that we have a near ideal political 
system. Though two hundred years is a long time span in the political 
arena, I submit the jury is still out on us as well.

   steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Hashcash (was: Re: [dgc.chat] Wherein, gold is revealed...)

2002-07-10 Thread Steve Schear


At 11:22 AM 7/10/2002 -0400, James M. Ray wrote:
   (Like "Mojo" and some other ideas that get tossed around) I doubt it
   will ever catch on without convertability into something that can be
   spent.

There no technical reason why those minting hashcash could not sell the 
"stamps" for consideration.  In fact, if hashcash catches on some SPAMers 
may indeed outsource their stamp creation.

   Sure, everyone *says* they dislike Spam, but how many of 'em
   dislike it enough to install software that has a great potential to
   interfere with useful email (at least, in their minds it does) with
   no possibility of financial benefit, and "chicken & egg" problems
   before it ever has much appreciable anti-Spam benefit?

Isn't that what blacklists, the current SPAM prevention contender, are all 
about?

   Another problem I have with Hashcash
   is that the computation is hard merely for the sake of being hard.

Not at all, its computationally in order hard to create a non-trivial value 
to the stamps.  How much would gold be worth if the price of extraction 
were to fall to 1/10?

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: [dgc.chat] Wherein, gold is revealed as having four critical properties

2002-07-10 Thread Steve Schear

At 09:01 PM 7/9/2002 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
>I now summarize what I think are the core required properties of anything 
>that purports to be a medium of exchange with a stable value:
>1.  Durability
>2.  Divisibility
>3.  Recognizability
>4.  Guaranteed slow growth (approx 2%)
>This puts aside all considerations of practical utility and aesthetic 
>beauty.  Any substance or thing having these properties can qualify as a 
>stable money.  With regard to aesthetics, I would simply say that the 
>substance cannot be revolting or downright dangerous to handle, but would 
>impose no further requirements than that.
>Another interesting question to consider might be, does it have to be a 
>physical substance?  Is it even possible to devise some informational 
>"substance" with no physical basis that has these four properties and thus 
>qualifies as a stable money?

This has received quite a bit of attention by a group seeking to create a 
form of digital postage for SPAM reduction.  The approach uses what are 
called "proof-of-work" functions. The particular one under consideration, 
called hashcash, is a family of computations which are highly asymmetric: 
i.e., they are computationally complex for one party (the sender) to 
perform while simple for another party (the recipient) to check.  Further 
the computation includes the date (for expiry) and the recipient's email 
address (so it can only be used with that one party once).  For more 
information see http://www.camram.org/

steve

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[e-gold-list] Password Safe (was Re: Protecting Your E-gold Accounts)

2002-07-09 Thread Steve Schear


[This is an excellent example of providing both an auditing means and a 
known reputation behind a password protection utility.  Open source is one 
of the best ways to prove your code has no intentional backdoors.  An audit 
from a known software security consulting firm should also be acceptable, 
however, software revisions are often frequent while audits are generally 
not and any change can introduce new bugs or backdoors. So, I prefer open 
source.

PS: I worked with Bruce at Counterpane.  steve]

===
http://www.counterpane.com/passsafe.html

Counterpane Labs http://www.counterpane.com/labs.html brings the security 
of Blowfish to a password database

You can download Password Safe 1.7.1 from this web site. 
http://www.counterpane.com/ps171.zip

Password Safe Support
Version 2.0 of Password Safe is an open source project -- please see its 
Sourceforge page http://sourceforge.net/projects/passwordsafe/ for feature 
requests and bug reports. For support of 1.7.1 and earlier versions, see 
the Password Safe FAQ http://www.counterpane.com/passsafe-faq.html or 
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Many computer users today have to keep track of dozens of passwords: for 
network accounts, online services, premium web sites. Some write their 
passwords on a piece of paper, leaving their accounts vulnerable to thieves 
or in-house snoops. Others choose the same password for different 
applications, which makes life easy for intruders of all kinds.

With Password Safe, a free Windows 9x/2000 utility from Counterpane Labs, 
users can keep their passwords securely encrypted on their computers. A 
single Safe Combination--just one thing to remember--unlocks them all.

Password Safe protects passwords with the Blowfish encryption algorithm, a 
fast, free alternative to DES. The program's security has been thoroughly 
verified by Counterpane Labs under the supervision of Bruce Schneier, 
author of Applied Cryptography and creator of the Blowfish algorithm. 
http://www.counterpane.com/schneier.html

Password Safe features a simple, intuitive interface that lets users set up 
their password database in minutes. You can copy a password just by 
double-clicking, and paste it directly into your application. Best of all, 
Password Safe is completely free: no license requirements, shareware fees, 
or other strings attached.

Password Safe is a product of Counterpane Labs, the research arm of 
Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. 
offers leading-edge expertise in the fields of 24x7 intrusion detection and 
prevention, preemptive threat discovery, forensic research, and 
organizational IT systems analysis.

See Counterpane's Blowfish page for more information on the Blowfish 
algorithm, including links to more than 120 other products that use 
Blowfish, and visit Counterpane's home page at http://www.counterpane.com/.



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[e-gold-list] Re: The QQQ

2002-06-16 Thread Steve Schear

At 08:31 AM 6/16/2002 -0400, Bob wrote:
>Basically it's the 100 largest stocks on the NASDAQ. It recently went
>below it's Sept. '01 lows. This is big big news that I doubt the mass
>media has said anything about. But I don't know. I don't pay too much
>attention to them. When I do, I find it astounding the mindless
>Enquirer human interest type stuff they call news. Whether it's
>ABC, NBC or the front page of the Boston Globe.
>
>http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=qqq&sid=&o_symb=qqq&freq=1&time=8&x=33&y=13
>
>Indirectly bullish for the precious metals.

Yes, but only indirectly. Much of the available funds searching for a new 
home have gone either into foreign stocks (mostly Japanese and European) or 
real estate.  The irrational exuberance phase should obviously be over, but 
the market is still not fully corrected.

If I've learned anything from my own investing its that only a disciplined 
approach works to stave off the emotion that can cause one to go off cliffs 
with the mob. One of those disciplines is attention to the historic P/E 
ratios and what underlies them. Historically the P/Es of well managed 
companies were in the mid-teens, now many are almost double. I can think of 
no reason for such a differential except continued irrationality on the 
part of un-savvy investors.

More troubling still is the asset base of these high flyers. Until the '90s 
most company assets were 'hard' and tangible", with IP and goodwill making 
up only 20 or so percent. Now many company balance sheets contain 50% or 
more intangible assets. As we have seen goodwill can evaporate in a 
heartbeat hollowing out the balance sheets of these companies. Too rich and 
risky for my blood.

Of course  Wall Street's accounting practices are no where near as big a 
scam as the gov't's own off sheet account practices.

A big time bomb may be brewing over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both have 
used account sleight of hand to mask the quality of their assets and risk 
management techniques. Currently they are shield from SEC enquiry. If they 
come under real scrutiny then watch out economy.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re:South Carolina's evil database of children's DNA

2002-02-22 Thread Steve Schear



>http://www.goupstate.com/docs/Opinion/Editorials/5878.asp
>
>"Published: February 21, 2002
>State of mistrust
>South Carolina agencies continue to violate citizens'
>privacy. This time the state is distributing our
>children's DNA. Lawmakers need to institute firmer rules
>on the collection and distribution of individuals'
>personal information.

We don't need more rules or regulations, which those in government are free 
to change when the winds shift, we need to maintain copies of all 
electronic records concerning us (including all our telecom records at 
telcos and ISPs) and technologies (in the hands of citizens) which control 
access to the information when its in the hands of others.  The same sorts 
of software now being deployed by corporations to "control" email after 
delivery can be adapted to serve the citizen.  For example, see: 
http://www.probix.com/ and http://www.protegrity.com/


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[e-gold-list] Re: Guilt by association? (was; Bill Gates Could Save Buenos Aires)

2002-02-22 Thread Steve Schear


I addressed this email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and cc'd e-gold-list.  It is 
current practice for the bot to reconfigure the header so as to leave out 
the original recipient?

steve


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[e-gold-list] Guilt by association?

2002-02-22 Thread Steve Schear


William Baldwin's 3/4/02 article "Bill Gates Could Save Buenos Aires" was 
very interesting but its treatment of e-gold as having creditability 
problems simply because its domiciled in the Caribbean is amazing given the 
number of listed former U.S. corporations who have moved offshore to escape 
taxation or other regulation.  E-gold may have trust problems but they have 
nothing to do with its nexus instead perhaps with auditing and accurate 
disclosure (a problem now recognized as more widespread among listed and 
substantial public companies).  It would appear William equates offshore 
with unsavory when it suits him.

Steve Schear


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[e-gold-list] Slashdot | Class Action Lawsuit Says PayPal Restricted Funds

2002-02-21 Thread Steve Schear


CNET News.com reports a class-action law suit was filed Wednesday in 
California Superior Court in Santa Clara County. The suit charges PayPal 
with illegitimately restricting customers' access to their money. The suit 
asks for an unspecified amount of damages. Have you been ripped off or 
locked out?"

http://slashdot.org/yro/02/02/21/2327221.shtml?tid=99



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[e-gold-list] re: terrorist use of gold

2002-02-19 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:08 PM 2/19/2002 +, Billet and Acrylic UK Gold Services wrote:
>That makes interesting reading John
>It makes you wonder if the war on Terrorism is winnable (if there is such a
>word)

There is no War on Terrorism any more than there is a War on Drugs. There 
are only wars on people who displease or effectively resist the 
powerful.  The West has promoted itself as supporters of the rule of law, 
but only the sheeple really believe this. The challenge for America and its 
allies is whether it can diffuse the root causes which are leading to the 
asymmetrical warfare being waged against them without our societies 
becoming an unwelcome place to reside.

I'm betting they cannot and that Davidson and Rees-Moog are correct.  They 
predict that we are witnessing a geopolitical point of inflection brought 
on by simplified, widespread and even anonymous electronic value transfers 
and a shift in the economic return on violence which will increasingly 
favor smaller entities (even individuals) wielding weapons of mass 
destruction.  Another factor which may come into play is the ability to 
anonymously contract for or encourage acts against the powerful either by 
individuals or through anonymous pooling and distribution of electronic 
money (unbundling and dissociation of actors).

A cross-posting...
--
In people's conflict, time is the terrain and tradition the target. 
Clandestine warfare is not about "hiding," but "constantly escaping." (I 
believe T.E. Lawrence wrote on that extensively.)

What you really escape is not the enemy, but arranged conflict. You break 
space to fight in time. Most people see guerrillas yielding territory, and 
talk about how they master space and mobility...but, they are 
territory-focused. They see "hiding," because they are space-focused. TIME 
is their terrain, their tool, and even their terror. The Apaches were time
warriors, they didn't stand their ground -- they stood their time. 
Terrorism is "time warfare" with noncombatant targets.
Disperse war through time and space -- and you've hit the American 
blindspot. Unbundle and disassociate the actors also, and yes, you might 
have something...
--

steve

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[e-gold-list] Fakes In Peru's Gold Museum

2002-01-14 Thread Steve Schear


The most popular museum in Peru, the Gold Museum (Museo del Oro) in Lima, 
is at the heart of an argument which is stirring archaeologists the world 
over, but is also stirring the Peruvian government. After countless tests 
and 20 years of argument, the pre-Columbian gold pieces in the collection 
have been declared fakes.
http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/09/0109connguide.html


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[e-gold-list] Re: Enron reflected in gold accounts racket

2002-01-08 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:52 PM 1/8/2002 -0500, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
>From: Central Bank Oversight & Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>   To: Central Banks, Secretariats, Governors, Risk Analysts, 
> Executives, Concerned Others
>
>
> Enron reflected in gold accounts racket
>   By: Tim Wood
>
>Posted: 2002/01/07 Mon 10:29  | © Miningweb 1997-2002
>PRINCETON, NJ -- The circle is closing on US government accounting
>improprieties that mirror the events behind Enron's collapse.

I'm not sure the article really says this.  My understanding is Turk 
concludes that the Fed appears to be operating within its limited legal 
oversight by Congress, even if its actions may be unwise.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: The End Of Anonymous Money?

2002-01-02 Thread Steve Schear

The use of RFID to track currency a bad idea.  Getting the chip technology 
compatible with currency handling requirements will be 
difficult.  Protecting it against hackers with cheap and effective 
electro-magentic pulse equipment will be next to impossible.

A cheaper and more robust solution would embed random length and oriented 
glass/plastic fibers in the paper. When exposed to a line illuminator as it 
is passed through a verifier, each bill would have a unique "illuminate 
here" - "light comes out there" signature that can be read out and matched 
to a DB generated at the mint. Because of the fiber's resilience it will be 
more difficult to damage or thwart than RFIDs.

steve

At 12:23 AM 1/2/2002 -0500, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
>Euro bank notes to embed RFID chips by 2005
>By Junko Yoshida, EE Times
>Dec 19, 2001 (5:14 AM)
>URL: 
>
>SAN MATEO, Calif. - The European Central Bank is working with technology 
>partners on a hush-hush project to embed radio frequency identification 
>tags into the very fibers of euro bank notes by 2005, EE Times has 
>learned. Intended to foil counterfeiters, the project is developing as 
>Europe prepares for a massive changeover to the euro, and would create an 
>instant mass market for RFID chips, which have long sought profitable 
>application.

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[e-gold-list] Re: eCash reported morbidly wounded

2001-12-07 Thread Steve Schear

At 09:05 AM 12/6/2001 -0500, James M. Ray wrote:
>Gotta love Pud's dot.com deathpool -- "Severity: 100 - new hall of
>fame inductee!"  ;^) And Bob Hettinga's right, this is absolutely a
>severe case of deja-vu (or is that, "they'll never learn?").
>JMR
>
>Subject: eCash reported morbidly wounded
>From: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 20:04:41 -0500
>
>Cool.
>
>Anyone wanna go on a patent buying expedition -- again? :-).

There was never any serious reason to license the Chaum blinding patents 
upon which eCash rested.  They applied only to the client and their use was 
or could be made invisible to the mint.  Software patents, including 
Chaum's, are not enforceable in a number of western nations (e.g., 
Australia, South Africa and New Zealand).  Therefore, the development and 
release of client software using blinding from these locales would not run 
afoul of international patent laws.

steve

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[e-gold-list] A prescient goldbug says he's found the bottom of the market.

2001-11-26 Thread Steve Schear


Golden Oldie
Bernard Condon, Forbes Magazine, 12.10.01

Having called the top of the gold market 22 years ago, a goldbug thinks he 
has found the bottom.
In 1977 James Sinclair boldly predicted that gold would rise from $150 per 
troy ounce to $900.

Gold never reached that mark, but it came close on Jan. 21, 1980, peaking 
at $887.50. The next day, says Sinclair, he unloaded his entire gold 
position, personally netting $15 million. Pointing to the Federal Reserve's 
efforts to fight inflation, Sinclair then predicted at an annual gold 
conference that the metal would languish for the next 15 years. Which it 
did. On Friday, Jan. 20, 1995, it closed at $383.85.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/1210/190.html



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[e-gold-list] Re: How Penny Per Page Might Work

2001-11-26 Thread Steve Schear


At 10:15 PM 11/25/2001 -0500, Andrew McMeikan wrote:
>For sweetspot applications that are considered immoral in *any* place in
>the world then you get at least a potential problem for those that
>promote/encourage/use depending on the reach and proportional power of
>those offended

Agreed.  But then again this already applies to credit cards (interest is 
illegal in some Muslim nations) and other mainstream financial products and 
their usage.


>I can think of evil 'guilds' that should be defied yet how do you protect
>against them when they have increadibly large power?  It is these very
>large 'guilds' that object, they notice even if the ones you are truely
>against are smaller and powerless.

An excellent test of any ecash system's anonymity is Child Porn.

>Traffic analysis is the bamboo spike in the bottom of the financial crypto
>pit, find a way to avoid the spike, win the prize.
>
>Remember you might only want to beat the small bad guys, but you must also
>be able to beat the biggest because they wont be on your side.

Quite a bit of work has been done and continues in this area.

http://netcamo.cs.tamu.edu/

"Within the NetCamo ( Network Camouflaging ) project, we study how to
prevent traffic analysis in mission-critical QoS-guaranteed networks."

Some of the people from this project gave a talk at the USENIX Security
works-in-progress session on "a quantitative analysis of anonymous
communications." Abstract is at:
http://www.usenix.org/events/sec01/mcdaniel_wip.html

Also,

Roger Dingledine and Paul Syverson have a recent paper on reputations for
MIX cascades which may be of interest, given previous discussions on how
to build more reliable remailers.

See it at
http://www.freehaven.net/doc/casc-rep/casc-rep.ps
http://www.freehaven.net/doc/casc-rep/casc-rep.pdf

slides at
http://www.freehaven.net/doc/casc-rep/slides-oreilly.ps


steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Steve Schear's analysis Re: How Penny Per Page Might Work

2001-11-26 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:31 PM 11/25/2001 -0800, Ragnar wrote:
> >Most of all, think about why so many efforts to sort of deploy
> >digital cash or untraceability tools have essentially failed
> >due to a failure of nerve, a failure to go for the brass ring.
>---
>
>Very good analysis, Mr. Schear.  Very cogent.

Thanks, but I can't claim credit for this one, although I am in substantial 
agreement.  The author is a leading Cypherpunk who sometimes objects to 
cross-postings with his attribution.

>I believe e-gold and a few other providers of e-currency
>understand these concepts (without admitting it).  The biggest
>fear is not whether companies such as e-gold will become popular
>or not.  They will.  The fear, at least from my perspective, is
>how soon big brother government will intervene.

They may have already.  There is no way for users to know whether U.S. law 
enforcement has been monitoring e-gold transactions (with or without their 
approval).  Only systems who's mathematical and technological underpinnings 
(esp. distributed architectures and open reviewed source code) provide 
assurance of privacy are to be so trusted.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: How Penny Per Page Might Work

2001-11-25 Thread Steve Schear

At 03:21 PM 11/25/2001 -0500, David Brooks wrote:

> >How is e-gold useful?  Transaction fees are orders of magnitude
> >larger than the transaction amount.
>
>Steve,
>   With respect, I believe you do not understand the
>transaction fee structure of e-Gold.  This is quoted
>from the e-Gold webpage:
>http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/fees.htm
>
>"The fee for this transaction is 1% of the transaction
>amount, subject to a maximum of 50 cents (US$)
>equivalent value."

You're right.  I didn't have my thinking cap on.  Still, I have a hard time 
believing that if e-gold became a micro-payment nexus, with many users 
holding only small balances and executing frequent small transactions 
(especially below one cent equivalent) that this would not become a profit 
problem.

As to the truncated message, I meant to provide a link to an analysis of 
where many (including myself) believe the primary (perhaps only) 
financially viable markets to launch ecash.  Unfortunately, the web site 
has been down for about a week.  Fortunately, I have a copy...

Look, this is all part of something I talked about at the June physical
meeting in Berkeley: by failing to acknowledge the "high-value" markets
for untraceability, characterized by such things as Swiss bank accounts
and income-hiding, porn-trading rings, and information markets, the
whole technology of privacy/untraceability gets ghettoized into
low-value markets like "untraceable subway tokens" (wow, gee!), weak
versions of proxy surfing tools, and boring attempts to get people to
use digital money for things they don't mind using Visa and PayPal for.
At the June meeting I drew a graph which makes the point clearly. A pity
I can't draw it here. (Yeah, there are ways. My new Web page should have
some drawings soon. But this list is about ASCII.)

Plot "Value of Being Untraceable in a Transaction" on the X-axis. This
is the perceived _value_ of being untraceable or private. Start with
"little or nothing," proceed to "about a dollar" then to "hundreds of
dollars" then to "thousands" then to "tens of thousands and more." (The
value of being untraceable is also the cost of getting caught: getting
caught plotting the overthrow of the Crown Prince of Abu Fukyou, being
outed by a corporation in a lawsuit, being audited by the IRS and them
finding evaded taxes, having the cops find a cache of snuff films on
your hard disk, and so on.)

Some examples: People will demonstrably get on planes and fly to the
Cayman Islands to open bank accounts offering them untraceability (of a
certain kind). It is demonstrably worth it to them to pay thousands,
even tens of thousands, of dollars to set up shell accounts, dummy
corporations, Swiss bank accounts, etc. For whatever various and sundry
reasons. (They may be Panamanian dictators, they may be Get Rich Quick
scamsters, they may be spies within the FBI or CIA.) They expect a
"value of untraceability" to be high, in the tens or hundreds of
thousands...or even much higher. Even their lives. Call this the "Over
$100K" regime.

I cite this because it disputes directly the popular slogans: "People
won't pay anything for privacy or untraceability." (In fact, people pay
quite large sums for privacy and untraceability. Ask Hollywood or
corporate bigshots what they pay not to be traced.)

People will also pay money not to be traceable in gambling situations.
They gamble with bookies, they fly to offshore gambling havens, and so
on. The _value_ to them is high, but not at the level above. If they're
caught, they face tax evasion charges, maybe. Call this the "$1K-10K"
regime. (The spread is wide, from low-rent bookie bets which even the
IRS probably doesn't care much about to schemes to avoid large amounts
of tax.)

At lesser levels, some choose to pay cash for their video tape rentals
(with deposits arranged) just to avoid leaving a paper trail. (Bet
Justice Thomas wishes he had.)

And then at very low levels there are the cases where the benefits of
untraceability are worth little or nothing to most people. I call this
the "millicent ghetto." Actually, the ghetto begins down at around a
dollar or less. Sadly, a huge number of the proposed "untraceable
digital cash" systems are targetted at uses deep down in this ghetto.
(Perhaps because they have no hint of illegality?)

On the Y-axis. Plot here the _costs_ of achieving untraceability for
these levels of achieved. This is the cost of tools, of using the tools,
of delays caused by the tools, etc. For example, flying to the Cayman
Islands to personally open a bank account may cost a couple of days in
time, the airfare, and (more nebulously) the possible cost of having
one's photograph taken for future use upon boarding that plan for
Switzerland or the Caymans.

Lesser costs, but still costs, would be the costs of using Freedom (much
frustration, say most of my friends who have tried to use it), the costs
of getting a Mark Twain Bank digital cash account and

[e-gold-list] Re: How Penny Per Page Might Work

2001-11-25 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:59 PM 11/24/2001 -0500, you wrote:
> From the Hettinga-lists. I disagree with some of the author's conclusions,
>since he apparently hasn't noticed that e-gold exists, but it's an interesting
>read anyway.
>JMR

How is e-gold useful?  Transaction fees are orders of magnitude larger than 
the transaction amount.

Centralized online clearance per transaction is too expensive to bootstrap 
micro payments.  Only offline, batch online or subscription (including a 
single payment for up to X page view) transactions are practical.

We'll probably see pay per page online when we see pay per page offline and 
fractional stock share trading from leading brokerage companies.

Bob and others (including myself have run the numbers).  This is wrong 
place to bootstrap ecash.  See

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: is "sacked" (means "fired from

2001-11-16 Thread Steve Schear


At 04:35 AM 11/16/2001 -0700, Metanoic wrote:
>"is "sacked" (means "fired from
>place of employment"), that always gives me a laugh!  "
>
>Whomever;
>I have heard this term all my life in America and around the world. I have
>worked in international consulting, hired and fired many people.  It is a
>common word used in DC environment and among any generation of people
>working in the world and with with I have associated with since 1971-today.

http://www.non-sequitur.com/index.php3?inmonth=8&inday=29&inyear=2001&x=25&y=7


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[e-gold-list] Vibes of retribution

2001-10-19 Thread Steve Schear


A very funny, well produced, musical piece.

www.gotlaughs.com/funpages/bin2.cfm

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Bin Laden Assassination Politics, pt. 2: (was ip: Bin Laden rigged oil and gold prices)

2001-09-23 Thread Steve Schear


At 12:07 AM 9/24/2001 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>The money-making operation, thought to have earned millions for terrorist
>coffers, follows to the word a 1998 exhortation by one of bin Laden's
>Islamist front groups to "kill the Americans and plunder their money".

Predictably inscrutable.

stve


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[e-gold-list] Re: postal service?

2001-09-13 Thread Steve Schear

At 07:54 AM 9/14/2001 +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Market makers in the US - is postal service even working?  I assume FedEx 
>is totally shut down?

I spoke with one of their employees yesterday.  They are essentially on 
furlough until their ground fleet is flying again.

>Can I still have a money order sent by express post within the USA?

You can, but don't expect Express service.  According to my local carriers, 
all postal mail is being distributed via train (Amtrac) and truck.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Wireless access

2001-09-13 Thread Steve Schear


What wireless access options to e-gold and its MM are available for U.S. 
transactors?

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Insanity

2001-09-11 Thread Steve Schear

At 10:57 AM 9/11/2001 -0700, eCurrencyCrawler wrote:

>I have never been a man of war, but these feelings are now changing.
>
>...good GOD, a thrid plane just hit the Pentagon... I cannot continue

All need of us need to consider how our government's responses to this 
event may affect of civil liberties, without which our personal safety 
pales, and what our individual actions can accomplish.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Insanity

2001-09-11 Thread Steve Schear

At 11:06 AM 9/11/2001 -0700, eCurrencyCrawler wrote:
>Yes, I am sorry for the close minded message... I isolated the problem, my
>mistake. I am sorry this isn't simply an attack on this country... this
>is an attack on continent... a civilization... my GOD, the people... the
>families...

And perhaps a very effective attack at that...

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[e-gold-list] Re: Gold and Gambling

2001-09-10 Thread Steve Schear

At 03:39 PM 9/10/2001 -0400, eCurrencyCrawler wrote:
> > > ...I am totally uninterested in online gambling, and I suspect that goes
> > > for more people...
> >
> > There are also a LOT of other people who ARE interested in gambling.
> >
>
>Both opinions are valid, heh, in my opinion. Although, here's the REAL
>pitfall to online gambling - ILLEGAL IN USA!

So it P2P file sharing.  I laugh my ass off every time some would-be 
on-line gambling entrepreneur complains that "I cudda been a conteda but 
the Feds wouldn't let me."  Grow up.  Anyone who even considers operating 
an on-line, U.S.-based, casino, sportsbook, lottery, raffle, and is 
surprised at the State AJ or DoJ response is naive in the extreme.  I 
looked into these ventures in '95 and had an opinion from a leading gaming 
law firm prepared.  It was all pretty-well spelled out then.  Doing all 
these things is possible but one must think things through a bit better and 
carefully use jurisdictional arbitrage is success is to be at all possible.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot (was: When will e-gold become mainstream?)

2001-08-27 Thread Steve Schear

At 03:21 PM 8/24/2001 -0600, Mike McNamara wrote:
>I'd have to agree that it's generally not practical for market makers to 
>accept "soft currencies" in exchange for "harder currencies" like 
>e-gold!  Particularly on an instant basis -- which of course is what 
>appeals to Joe Blow Consumer.

This may have contributed to the recent collapse of Flooz.

One of the main motivations for using e-gold and other online currencies is 
privacy.  Unfortunately, most e-currency developers and their supporters 
have exercised a sort of denial regarding privacy. The short analysis 
below, recently posted to the cypherpunks list (where almost every aspect 
of digital cash and payment instrument characteristics and societal impact 
has been discussed since the early '90s), attempts to identify the "sweet 
spot" intersecting costs/usage difficulty and the user's need for 
privacy.  The uncontroversial conclusion is that consumer applications, 
which have been almost the exclusive focus of commercial e-currency 
systems, are the worst place to initially deploy these products.  Small 
wonder that most have failed.

PLOTTING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF UNTRACEABILITY

Look, this is all part of something I talked about at the June physical
meeting in Berkeley: by failing to acknowledge the "high-value" markets
for untraceability, characterized by such things as Swiss bank accounts
and income-hiding, porn-trading rings, and information markets, the
whole technology of privacy/untraceability gets ghettoized into
low-value markets like "untraceable subway tokens" (wow, gee!), weak
versions of proxy surfing tools, and boring attempts to get people to
use digital money for things they don't mind using Visa and PayPal for.

At the June meeting I drew a graph which makes the point clearly. A pity
I can't draw it here. (Yeah, there are ways. My new Web page should have
some drawings soon. But this list is about ASCII.)

Plot "Value of Being Untraceable in a Transaction" on the X-axis. This
is the perceived _value_ of being untraceable or private. Start with
"little or nothing," proceed to "about a dollar" then to "hundreds of
dollars" then to "thousands" then to "tens of thousands and more."  (The
value of being untraceable is also the cost of getting caught: getting
caught plotting the overthrow of the Crown Prince of Abu Fukyou, being
outed by a corporation in a lawsuit, being audited by the IRS and them
finding evaded taxes, having the cops find a cache of snuff films on
your hard disk, and so on.)

Some examples: People will demonstrably get on planes and fly to the
Cayman Islands to open bank accounts offering them untraceability (of a
certain kind). It is demonstrably worth it to them to pay thousands,
even tens of thousands, of dollars to set up shell accounts, dummy
corporations, Swiss bank accounts, etc. For whatever various and sundry
reasons. (They may be Panamanian dictators, they may be Get Rich Quick
scamsters, they may be spies within the FBI or CIA.) They expect a
"value of untraceability" to be high, in the tens or hundreds of
thousands...or even much higher. Even their lives. Call this the "Over
$100K" regime.

I cite this because it disputes directly the popular slogans: "People
won't pay anything for privacy or untraceability." (In fact, people pay
quite large sums for privacy and untraceability. Ask Hollywood or
corporate bigshots what they pay not to be traced.)

People will also pay money not to be traceable in gambling situations.
They gamble with bookies, they fly to offshore gambling havens, and so
on. The _value_ to them is high, but not at the level above. If they're
caught, they face tax evasion charges, maybe. Call this the "$1K-10K"
regime. (The spread is wide, from low-rent bookie bets which even the
IRS probably doesn't care much about to schemes to avoid large amounts
of tax.)

At lesser levels, some choose to pay cash for their video tape rentals
(with deposits arranged) just to avoid leaving a paper trail. (Bet
Justice Thomas wishes he had.)

And then at very low levels there are the cases where the benefits of
untraceability are worth little or nothing to most people. I call this
the "millicent ghetto." Actually, the ghetto begins down at around a
dollar or less. Sadly, a huge number of the proposed "untraceable
digital cash" systems are targetted at uses deep down in this ghetto.
(Perhaps because they have no hint of illegality?)

On the Y-axis. Plot here the _costs_ of achieving untraceability for
these levels of achieved. This is the cost of tools, of using the tools,
of delays caused by the tools, etc. For example, flying to the Cayman
Islands to personally open a bank account may cost a couple of days in
time, the airfare, and (more nebulously) the possible cost of having
one's photograph taken for future use upon boarding that plan for
Switzerland or the Caymans.

Lesser costs, but still costs, would be the costs of using Freed

[e-gold-list] Re: E-Gold Purpose!

2001-07-30 Thread Steve Schear

At 12:34 AM 7/30/2001 -0500, SnowDog wrote:
>There are two other primary functions of e-gold that are being overlooked:

>2) E-Gold allows individuals to buy large amounts of gold at a very low
>price, and store it without having to rent a safety deposit box, with the
>convenience of being able to sell it easily. In this regard, e-gold is used
>as an investment, and I believe there are a lot of people using it this way.
>Try buying gold coins at a local coin shop They'll frequently charge you
>over 10%; sometimes 20%. Now imagine the pain of having to physically take
>those coins to a safety-deposit box, hold them and then haul them back to
>the coin shop to sell them when you're ready. Imagine how uncomfortable a
>lot of people are, walking around with thousands of dollars of cash in their
>pockets after doing this. E-Gold solves this problem.

Now imagine the pain of finding out that due to some alleged e-gold 
activity their bullion has been frozen or confiscated... E-gold-like 
mechanisms are good for commerce but as a value store they may be less 
desirable.

steve

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[e-gold-list] Re: Gold-Age SS-Raid Update 07/24/2001

2001-07-25 Thread Steve Schear



>with the tower, to reset the CMOS -- I'll have to get specs from HP
>before I go taking this baby apart. In short it's going to take quite a
>bit of time and effort to figure out if there is any data intact for me
>to recover on either of these machines. This kind of destructive
>data-mining was totally unecessary, since I gave them all the passwords
>to the various systems they took.

All good reasons to use thin clients at you place of business and keep all 
data bases offshore, backed-up though a distributed network and encrypted.

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: On "Crooks vs. honest people"

2001-07-07 Thread Steve Schear


At 10:36 AM 7/6/2001 -0400, Craig Spencer wrote:
>Julian Morrison wrote:
>
> > a) If you do business with unidentified people, you can be dragged into
> > their crimes, you can be swindled, and you can help crime in general
> > prosper.
>
>Strictly speaking the problem is not that they are unidentified.  It is
>that they are criminals.  Identification may filter out some of the
>criminals but it does not filter out all of them and it interferes
>with some perfectly legitimate business.
>
> > b) If you force identity and audit trail of all people, you leave people
> > no way to bypass pseudocrimes such as being unwilling to be bled white
> > by elected thieves. Plus you have to raise your prices to cover the
> > workload of playing detective over every transaction.
>
>Right.
>
> > The main problem with (a) assuming you're smart enough not to buy into a
> > scam is that of unidirectional anonymity. They know and can tell that
> > they dealt with you; you don't know them from Adam.
>
>I don't see why unidirectional anonymity *per se* is a problem.  Unless
>you mean it allows the innocent, identified party to be scapegoated for
>the crimes of the unknown.  ???
>
> > So the solution
> > focusing on (a) is *bidirectional anonymity*. For example an automated
> > MM system that matches "want to buy" against "want to sell" in such a
> > way as to make an audit trail impossible.
>
>That would be a good business.  But I don't see it as addressing the
>crime problem.
>
> > The problem with (b) comes in two parts: first, the state requiring you
> > to prevent pseudocrimes, second the waste of time and effort. To the
> > first part, the solution is validated pseudonymous reputation. To the
> > second, an external service providing reputation services. You only deal
> > through them, and so you can evaluate the trustworthiness of a mask
> > without being required to inform on its wearer.
>
>I think this is a good and promising idea.  But I am not sure it is a
>complete solution.  It would have to be tried and its consequences
>observed.
>
>For this end I have in the past made the following suggestion to a few
>persons on this list.  Establish a functioning PGP path server and sell
>access to its services.  [I lack the means, both financial and
>intellectual, to do this myself.]  MMs or whoever could use this tool in
>many ways of their own devising to verify nymous reputation.
>
>A path server is somewhat like existing key servers but finds and
>provides
>endorsement paths between PGP keys.  There have been path servers in
>operation in the past
>  http://www.rubin.ch/pgp/pathserver
>but they seem to have gone defunct.

How about http://dtype.org/keyanalyze/

steve


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[e-gold-list] Re: Crooks vs. honest people

2001-07-07 Thread Steve Schear


At 12:45 AM 7/6/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Michael Moore wrote:
>
> > this has been an ongoing problem in commerce  and banking and part of
> > the answer  (not the right one perhaps) has been to introduce the 'know
> > your customer' policy.  Unfortunately this also tends to cut across the
> > rights of the individual.  So the problem is where do you draw the line
> > between the rights of the individual and the efforts to curb criminal
> > activities?
>
>Yes, that is the problem.  Or more to the point how to eliminate any
>need
>to trade off between the two.
>
> > So far there has not been an effective solution to this problem.  The
> > 'Authorities' take the stance of suspect everyone and introduce various
> > restrictive legislation (hence their 'know your customer' policy) as,
> > from their viewpoint, curbing criminal activities is more important
> > than civil rights.
>
>IMO, the most important thing for authorities throughout history and in
>all places has been to curb civil rights.  The petty activities of their
>freelance criminal bretheren are just a convenient excuse.
>
>You gave a good description of the situation.  But we need some new
>ideas for solutions.

A solution is to use jurisdictional arbitrage to limit the financial 
exposure of the corporation and criminal exposure of the exchange 
operators.  In the U.S. only corporate officers and those evidencing direct 
control (e.g., signing checks) can be held accountable for the activities 
of the corporation.  All of a U.S. corporation's officers can be foreign 
citizens.  If those citizens are in countries without extradition treaties 
or which refuse extradition for activities which are not criminal in their 
boarders...

steve


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