Anonymous Payments

In the 23rd of August 2012 article “Payment methods for JonDonym,” it was intimated that anonymous payment methods are increasingly difficult to come by. As the author correctly stated, Ukash payments have discontinued processing payments that could “facilitate malicious activity,” including Internet anonymizers. Indeed, Ukash first commenced this campaign in January 2012 and not a few Internet anonymizers have already been affected.

Though this may seem like an isolated incident, it is anything but. Over the last few years, there has been a growing trend against anonymous and private digital money, better known as eMoney or eCurrency. Indeed, in many states, it is now legally required to submit state issued ID to purchase prepaid cards or cash cards above a predefined monetary value. This trend, however, is both alarming and disconcerting.

However, it now appears that Liberty Reserve, a reliable eMoney system since 2002, may also have succumbed to political pressure, no doubt by governments and the international banking cartel. The website has been down for days and has been on and off sporadically for quite some time. There is abundant Internet chatter that Liberty Reserve may be going the way of eGold. Though Liberty Reserve denies all such rumors, there is little reason to be sanguine.

As technology continues to expand, there is little reason to doubt that all anonymity—Internet and otherwise—may go the way of the dinosaurs. The global police state, so apprehensible and unthinkable, appears to be inching ever so closer to total reality. 1984 is knocking on the doors.