[OSX-Users] Re: syncing home mac cal with work via ipod?

[Nick Gibbins]

On 20 Jan 2011, at 15:58, mc schraefel wrote:

> On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:37:21 +0000, Nick Gibbins <nmg at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>> On 20 Jan 2011, at 12:25, mc schraefel wrote:
>> 
>>> whatever happened to anonymous ecash?
>> 
>> Killed due to entirely reasonable concerns about money laundering.
> 
> failure of imagination, that, don't you think?
> 
> we have anonymous cash now. why not a digital version? 
> 
> if it's hard isn't that research?

Yes, we have anonymous cash, but there are already concerns that some 
banknotes (the EUR500 note, for example) are too large for legitimate use.
If you want to ship around large amounts of untraceable money, high 
denomination notes are ideal. EUR1M in EUR500 notes will fit in a handbag 
(about 3 litres in volume) and weigh 2.2kg. EUR1M in EUR20 notes will 
fill a largish rucksack (almost 60 litres in volume) and weigh 40kg. 

Recent SOCA estimates are that 90% of the EUR5000 notes in circulation 
in the UK are in the hands of organised crime. Consequently, the EUR500 
notes have been withdrawn from sale in the UK. A similar situation existed 
with the CDN1000 note before it was withdrawn at the request of RCMP in 
2000.

Anonymous digital currency suffers from the same problem but to a greater 
extent - digital cash has zero bulk, and so few impediments to its illicit 
use for money laundering - unless you deliberately hobble it by limiting
transaction size and/or frequency.

There is a separate (but related) issue on the effect of high denomination 
banknotes on tax evasion that also applies to anonymous digital cash, but 
that's another argument.
-- 
Dr Nicholas Gibbins                                     nmg at ecs.soton.ac.uk 
Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~nmg/ 
School of Electronics and Computer Science         tel: +44 (0) 23 80598879 
University of Southampton                          fax: +44 (0) 23 80592865