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Comment by maxerickson

3 days ago

So know your customer regulations at the gas station then?

Sure, whatever it takes. You somehow think it’s incredulous when Pornhub was deplatformed from credit card rails easily, and is still age gated in 23 states through statute. This is far worse, and laws can be made to do whatever the target outcome is.

I get it, your mental model differs, and that’s fine. The tools exist and can be used. They could start by blacklisting the BIN of any federal government payment card, and tighten further iteratively based on continuous monitoring and ground truth acquisition. If aggressors have to start carrying large quantities of cash around to operate, sounds like that’s going to be an operational risk.

Federal supremacy is based on respect of their authority and providing them material support in state through economic exchange. Revoke both and they are powerless on the ground, and are at the mercy of the locals.

https://smartpay.gsa.gov/smarttax/recognizing-your-account/

  • You are proposing that every customer identify themself for every transaction, and that every store verifies that identity against a state maintained list.

    "Stop their payment cards" just makes things a little inconvenient for the bad guys. What you are proposing makes everything very inconvenient for everyone. Mental models differ indeed.

  • Even in the absolute best case scenario where this just works, the bare minimum retaliation is withholding of federal funds, and I guarantee you any state or state populace in that scenario will blink first.

    • Blue states fund red states, they are the economic engines of the country. California has the forth largest economy in the world. The federal government has more to lose. Red states are poor. Blue states can simply withhold federal support, keep federal tax revenue in state and let the federal government try to sue for it.

      I encourage the federal government to try to support itself off of red states.

      https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-mo...

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