dkirmani comments on The internet makes it easier to cooperate, that’s the problem

[dkirmani]

From Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age:

“So there’s no way to trace the path taken by a message.”

“Right. And the real situation is even more complicated. The media net was designed from the ground up to provide privacy and security, so that people could use it to transfer money. That’s one reason the nationstates collapsed–as soon as the media grid was up and running, financial transactions could no longer be monitored by governments, and the tax collection system got fubared.”