Virtual Currency and Money Laundering
Max Burns at The Monetary Future - asks whether the f.b.i should monitor virtual worlds, like Second Life, to attempt to stop money laundering. I commented:
"Money laundering" is not a crime. It's illegal by statute, but those statutes are pure bunk. Yes, they can help to track down real fraud, like phishing, but at great expense to honest people. Sort of like punishing all the kindergarten children because one or two misbehave and won't admit it. That's pure bunk, too.
The correct way to cut down on phishing is to use public key encryption for access to accounts, not user names and passwords. See trubanc.com for a simple implementation of that concept.
Or simply teach people about phishing. Those too dumb to learn deserve to lose their money. Don't punish the rest of us by stealing our privacy in the name of stopping "money laundering."
