computer scientist + coffee => code - for example, carbon copy offsetting...

not sure that this is quite what they meant...

anyhow, too much coffee, and bjorn scheuermannn and I came up with the idea of a carbon copy tax - well he did with soem friends, but then I thought of a use for it...

I call it carbon copy offsetting(*)

the loss of privacy, just as with the (temporary) loss of identity is not
a simple black&white matter - for example, I have a bunch of cards/devices that let me pay
electronically for various things, but only work in limited domains and have limits
on the amount of credit they can be topped up with - so while someone masqerading as me
can do some damage to me with them, it is a (roughly) known quantity

so rather than saying to the government:
"do not hold this data because you don't know how to do it"
say to the government:
"here's some escrow rules for holding this data"

i.e. say I trust a bank some level X to not reveal my bak account information -
X is likely high because the bank has reputation to lose in its primary business area.
I am likely to trust other agencies much less with the same information,
as their incentives are not setup right to take due care with the information.

So instead of taking them to task legally after they screw up and
instead of preventing them from potentially usefully doing somethign with my data,
I ask them to offset the higher risk by putting some money in escrow somewhere, that,
in the event of a leak, accrues to me

so for example, if they screwup with my bank account, I can use money to get on with
life while the bank fixes things up. if they screwup with passport or other ID, I get
some compensation without having to do anything ...

if the escrow schemes are run by 3rd parties,
then we just let the market set the prices....

its a bit like the government wanted all my keys in escrow
because they didnt trust me
but the boot is on the other foot...

[(*) originally the idea was to do with spam, hence "carbon copy"]