-- On 22 Apr 2005 at 16:20, Bill Stewart wrote:
Last time I wanted to use an online gold system, I used pecunix as the currency and goldage.net as the payment handler. That was partly because of the fees for the size of transactions I was doing (for small transactions, the minimum fee is more important than the percentage), but partly for convenience - one way to pay Goldage in the US is to go to a bank where they have an account and make a deposit - Wells Fargo is one of their more widespread banks.
A procedure that was, of course, anonymous. You probably made a deposit in cash. In the cypherpunk vision, internet transactions should be blinded, so that the adversary cannot do connection analysis. If Ann pays Bob, the adversary can detect this, and perhaps suspect that Ann actually is Bob. We do however have anonymous deposits and withdrawals from internet transaction services, and weakly nymous providers of accounts. Many foreign banks go through the motions of verifying foreign account holders true names, but not all them try all that hard. E-gold goes through the motions, and sporadically enforces its acceptable use policy, which requires you to submit true name information, but really does not try at all for the most part, unless the shit hits the fan. Pecunix does not require true name information - merely an email account at which you are capable of receiving mail - preferably PGP mail. WebMoney does not even require an email account. If you use their classic security system, their client just generates what I assume is a private key on your computer, and that is your identifier. Though these systems permit governments to do connection analysis, most governments are not terribly interested in doing connection analysis on foreigners, and governments do not work well with other governments. Not that I suggest that any of this is an adequate substitute for true Chaumian blinded transactions, but it is a substitute, and also foreshadows demand for such transactions, and a profitable business model based on such transactions. The real obstacle is that 99% of customers cannot understand WebMoney's security, or use Pecunix's PGP based interface. If you try to sell them Chaumian blinded transactions, the average mobster is going to be seriously boggled. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG /rjlkisXJqOtx4zr4jGWmDeW6blJQ6vawOmxFssX 4BiPlDhZsJ7G0P6TTWXEwYNbNs1ylu/oofbIhlUrv