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Privacy The Almighty Buck

Financial Anonymity and Privacy with DMT? 31

Posted by Cliff from the this-might-have-made-a-better-YRO dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I'll have to quote a fellow cypherpunk to give my question the correct framing: '...this is a time when the world needs these services more than ever. In crises there is a tendency for repressive governments to crack down on communications and free access to information. Lately the fear of terrorism has eroded many rights we took for granted. One of those rights, financial privacy and anonymity is disappearing fast, as the US takes steps to stop the movement of terrorist funds. There is a system out there that might help slow the erosion of rights: DMT. Might it be a solution to the erosion of financial privacy and anonymity?"

"DMT was launched a few years back:

'The Digital Monetary Trust is a computer system and mechanism that gives users the ability to hold assets anonymously, along with the ability to anonymously transfer these assets to other parties. You can think of a DMT customer account as an anonymously-held checking account (in which the customer is anonymous both to the bank and to other people), but one which allows the customer to write checks to third parties (and these third parties will also be anonymous to the bank and the outside world; in fact, you can even arrange for the receiver of your check to be anonymous to you also).'
Since then there has been very little public discussion about its security, anonymity, and use.

Has anyone used this system, or know of organizations that do? What magnitude of money flows in and out, and are there enough users to afford decent anonymity?"
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Financial Anonymity and Privacy with DMT? More

Financial Anonymity and Privacy with DMT?

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  • Contridiction (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@nOsPaM.gmail.com> on Monday December 15, 2003 @11:58PM (#7731628) Journal
    This will never catch on until it has the full backing and trust of the government, but since it allows total anonimity the government (any government) will never back it.

    What good is it if your assets are locked into a system that can lose them without recourse? Who do you sue if the system wipes out your account? If people can't turn to the government for help in such situations, they won't use it. The government doesn't want people to use it, so they won't help. Hell, PayPal is only quasi-legal and on the edge of being shut down as it is -- what makes you think the government is going to allow DMT?

    • Re:Contridiction (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I disagree. No govt trust is necessary. There is definite risk with using such a system, as you have little recourse if they ran off with your money. However, many people would be willing to take such a risk for the benefit of anonymity. You can also bank on the fact that these people make their money from transaction fees, and will not want to break the trust of their clients.

      No govt needs to *allow* DMT to exist. It is a decentralized system that exists outside of any one nation. It has banking ties to m
  • 1. Acquire assets
    2. ???
    3. Profit

    So, of course, the existing 'banking' system will fight this tooth and nail because it would take away from *their* profits.

    • As I hate stating the obvious, it should be apparent that I say this with a grimace:

      You, my friend, are a dumbass.

      A bank's income isn't based on the fact that most of it's customers subscribe to it's services publicly. The only thing banks make money off of are overdraw and ATM fees. Both of which can be implemented regardless of anonymity. In the minds of many bankers, offering anonymity to those who want it is merely improving demographics. A decision any businessman would favor.
      • Yeah. There's not a business practice called lending money. I've never heard of this little thing called interest.

        You, my friend, are even more of a dumbass. The money from overdraw and ATM fees buy the bank's board of directors new slippers or something. The real money is made through loans and interest on that loan.
  • It's called cash, that's why it still exists. Unless they start RFIDing greenbacks, I don't see why we need anything else. You may also search Google for "Swiss Bamk Accounts" if you need to laund^H^H^H^H^Hmove lots of cash out of the country.
    • <google>
      Did you mean: Swiss Bank Accounts
      </google>

    • Swiss Banks - not anymore (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      Last I heard the swiss have started bowing to pressure and reporting to your government what you have. I suppose a lot of money could still buy them off, but for most of us swiss banks no longer shield your money from your governement.

      There are a few countries that do still shield your money, but they are not as stable as the Swiss. Half of what the swiss give you is a bank that as been around for a few hundred years and plans to remain open for a few hundred more. (they do however go out of buissness

    • Re:The Ultimate Private Monetary System (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      cash is no longer anonymous. If you try and drop $10k cash anywhere in the United States, red flags are raised in more than one 3 letter agency. A system such as DMT is necessary to protect the anonymity of transactions over that flagged threshold. However, it is not clear that DMT does so, and hence the discussion about its ability to properly shield its clients.

    • Re:The Ultimate Private Monetary System (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Cash is no longer anonymous.

      I used to work at a bank, if anyone withdraws more than 10K we had to file IRS/DOJ paperwork about them
      If they withdrew less, 8000-9000 but on a regular schedule we had to report them too.
      It is also a crime to move large amounts of cash out of the US.

      Try buying a car, business, or anything large with cash. You are going to get annoying amounts of attention

      Oh, and swiss bank accounts don't like to work with cash. They will keep your information reasonably anonymous, but

  • How about cash? Silver and gold coin? [norfed.org]

    Most everyone accepts gold and silver, even if it's half of market value....Fed Notes aren't even near half of market value.

  • Slighty off-topic, but i can't resist the urge to help get the word out. For those anonymous types among us, who have something to say without wanting to be held accountable for what they say, or for those interested in the project, the Freenet Fork [hikaru.dyns.cx] is an up and coming project with potential...

    For EVERYONE who has used freenet in the last 2 months, and have either gave up, or gotten fed up with it, i would ask you try this out. It is a fork of freenet based off the Prodnet build of a while back... It is r

    • didn't realize this until after posting, but the main server for freenet is the lead developer's(a real nice guy, btw) 486 that is also his cvs server... so please, go easy on him (we are looking to get a couple mirrors up, since it is getting neat a VERY (mainstream)usable state). :)

  • DMT Anonmity (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From reading the DMT docs, it seems that the number of uses would greatly affect the security and anonymity of the system.

    Until a system like this is embraced by companies/people willing to take payment from DMT. All funds must be removed from the system before they can be utilized.

    If the number of uses is small then monitoring of the network and of transfers in and out could provide enough information to link transactions to users.

    I like the idea though, i can't wait till the day when true anonymous mon
  • 1. Why would anyone use this sort of system? Do you really care that the government knows what sort of underwear you buy? Doesn't Walmart already have this sort of information? How about affinity/reward cards? What legitmate purpose, besides "I don't want the goverment to know because I don't trust them" argument, would you have for using this system?

    2. If you do use this thing, don't you think that it would raise big time flags to every single goverment organization and have every open aspect of my li
  • Some claim that dimethyl-triptamine will show you the secrets of the universe [erowid.org]; I, however, doubt that it will help you with your finances.

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