[118935] in Cypherpunks
Re: The fourth horseman founders...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Young)
Sun Oct 10 19:12:30 1999
Message-Id: <199910102257.SAA18967@smtp6.mindspring.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 18:46:39 -0400
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
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Reply-To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
> Tax consultants say some wealthy taxpayers are also shielding assets from
>the I.R.S. by putting them into homes, fully aware that the Government --
>which used to seize as many as 1,000 houses in a year for nonpayment of
>taxes -- has not seized one in more than 14 months.
This is a fact: the wealthy do not trust banks to maintain confidentiality
about assets and are asking for hidden repositories in their mansions.
Security systems for these mini-banks are booming but not for the
established security firms who are too closely linked to regulated
industries and law enforcement.
Instead, there are a slew of one and two-person firms who
install the systems and disappear. To reappear elsewhere under
different identities, carrying digitally-signed but anonymous references
from previously satisfied customers.
Cutouts are used to hookup clients with these security mavericks,
such as architects, interior designers and speciality contractors. Some of
the fly-by-nighters are telco moonlighters deploying the skills they
have been trained in by TLAs and by legal/financial titans who serve
the mil/gov combine. Some smell like off-hours TLAs.
One man-woman team called itself NDA Ltd. Or did for a day or 2.
Maybe they're dead now. The client who used them hopes they
are not now that he's found that he can't get into his vault, and
doesn't know for sure if there's anything in it. I believe that's because
he stiffed the duo for the final 50% with a rubber check. A common
error, I was told by the two, who always install a time-delay lockout
and backdoor for "ATMing deadbeats."
