In addition to the articles and editorials, I'm seeing articles slamming anonymity and pseudoanonymity (we need a better word!) in business contexts. See the latest RISKS Digest (16.79, available on Usenet in the group comp.risks) for a couple of articles of interest. One is about the Singapore plans for an automatic vehicle intentification (AVI) system to implement "road pricing" on congested roads. Phil Agre's article makes some good points, and mentions using digital cash to avoid the Big Brother problems, but notes that Singapore is not seriously considering it. The real "drumbeat" article is about cellular phone fraud and toll-free number fraud. Actaully, a couple of related articles. (Everyone should at least skim "RISKS.") Anonymity is cited as a problem. But this misses the point, that the real problem is lack of a proper payment model. As David Chaum points out, there are really only two basic payment approaches: transfer of something of value or an account-based transfer. Cash or barter are examples of the first, checks or credit card payments are examples of the second (though each has some wrinkles). Digital cash, when online cleared, behaves mostly like real cash. The phone companies that are complaining about fraud have inadequately arranged for security and need to adopt a mode that fixes this. Since physical money can't be fed into the slots of a handheld cell phone (or at least can't then be delivered to the service owner!), the solution has traditionally been an account-based payment system. (Accounts can also be better protected against fraud by having PINs, etc.) What about telephone calling cards? I don't recall the details well enough to know if they could be used on handheld units. Maybe they could be used. This could eventually be a market for digital cash. (If fraud is a serious-enough problem, costing enough, then a service which could lower costs by using digital cash could make market inroads.) What we need to watch out for are proposals to limit anonymity, to mandate national ID cards, so as to somehow limit such cases of fraud. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay