From: Alex F. Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 16 2001 - 15:30:45 MDT
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> "Nazi sellouts?" Why? They came to a Foresight Gathering and gave that
> nice demonstration involving "russiandrugdealer@hotmail.com". Is there
> something I don't know about?
They sure did, didn't they? I liked their demonstration too. Too bad
the actual service has no resmblance to it.
Eliezer, that's an excellent question, and I hope you forgive me for
posting my reply to the whole list. It needs to be said.
Yes, apparently there is something you don't know about. They demand
personal information, including a billing address and credit card
number before they let you spend more than a certain cutoff amount
over the ENTIRE life of your account (i.e. not a $100 cap per
transaction, but for the whole thing). So basically anonymity is
shot. Furthermore, they have a history of freezing accounts for
nothing more than what they consider to be suspicious patterns of
activity (i.e. transfers in excess of a few grand). That makes them
essentially useless for any sort of high volume business.
What do they get out of bending over for the man and being volunteer
police whores? Who knows. Maybe they just don't have any guts. Maybe
some sort of legal threat. Maybe simply an informer's fee. Don't know,
and if anybody does, please post! Liars need to be exposed.
Bottom line, the idea of being secure against "bad" governments yet
still subpoenable by our own supposedly "good" government is
oxymoronic. If the cost of being based in the US is running your
business the way PayPal is, then move the hell offshore like E-Gold!
For more PayPal info, here is the page (admittedly with an anti-PayPal
bias as strong as my own, but like my own, backed by actual
experiences with PayPal):
http://www.trshcity.demon.co.uk/ARTICLES/PAYPAL.HTM
- --
* I believe that the majority of the world's Muslims are good, *
* honorable people. If you are a Muslim and want to reassure me and *
* others that you are part of this good, honorable majority, all *
* you need to say are nine simple words: "I OPPOSE the Wahhabi cult *
* and its Jihad." *
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 6.5.8
iQBpAwUBO8ynB5vUJaRNHMexAQF+3AKZAQtbj1cNJ+vDjgxVe2tzExMfjnL5DASA
kaEjeGQuS3q0TJ5HwFm3Am8IoI7IwVac1G18KQiWqM4u5A9neFECSoPFwN3ynmbD
b+1bNSKjFwWBXeW6
=TXy+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:11:25 MST