The availability of Digicash in the US, for real, with spender anonymity, will be announced very soon; reporter activity on
When doing market research on this subject, it became clear that low-value payments are largely going to be used for impulse
--- begin forwarded text To: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga), www-buyinfo@allegra.att.com, ecm@ai.mit.edu, bsdc@ai.mit.edu Cc: hallam@w3.org Subject: Re: (cpx) Mondex vs. Digicash (was: Godzilla vs. Mothra) Date: Mon, 23 Oct 95 12:06:43 -0400 From: hallam@w3.org X-Mts: smtp Sender: bounce-bsdc@ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: hallam@w3.org Some comments on the comments: this subject is consistent with an embargoed press release for Monday or Tuesday. From posts to the list it's clear that a fully working system, ready for customers, will be announced. The avbilability in the US I don't consider as meaning much one way or the other. Mondex is avaliable in Swindon in the UK, a very large and very serious real world trial. More importantly Mondex has Wells Fargo Bank behind it and NatWest and HKSB, these are major league players with very tight coupling, cross ownership of subsidiaries etc. purchases. If the Digicash system allows people to set up their accounts without getting out of their chairs (which I suspect will be the case, if they do it right), it will initially get more adopters. DigiCash will be limited to the Internet, Mondex is genuine cash, it allows offline purse to purse transactions.
One or both systems could be found to have serious security problems; who knows what the outcome of their discovery & exploitation would be? I know at least one group of people who believe they have a good line on a serious security problem in Mondex.
Even if the Mondex hardware were given away for free, think how much fun it is for the average user to add a new piece of hardware to their machines... ever install a sound card and CD-ROM drive on a PC? I remember reading something like 20% of all "multimedia" kits were returned, largely due to user install problems. If there is a competing method that costs the same and _doesn't_ require
In my conversations with state and federal regulators, it is clear
It's not clear that _either_ system is going to win completely in
If they have the specs they are under an NDA. If you know people who know a problem tell them to get in touch with Tim Jones, they are very keen to get the best security possible. I'm not sure that the conventional "publish everything" dogma of cypher types is valid. I don't think they are relying on security through obscurity, they simply want it in addition. Mondex is designed with two security schemes to be exchanged at overlapping four year intervals. the hardware, people will tend go with this. They need it to be plug 'n play. I expect this to happen. that it _is_ possible to issue spender-anonymous e-cash. If you ask them, "Hey, can I create fully anonymous digital cash?", they go apeshit, but if you explain that the money uses existing (auditable) channels going in, and existing (auditable) channels going out, and that only spenders are anonymous, they relax considerably. They may change their minds later, but we're about to get an existence proof. All I know is that at the mention of DigiCash bankers start muttering Regulation E. the next 10+ years. Although there's been considerable shakeout in the last ten years, there is still a huge variety of non-electronic payment methods -- how can you be so sure that Mondex will win over Digicash, and that they won't co-exist like, say, money orders, currency and cashier's checks (three instruments with both similar and dissimilar attirbutes)? Quite probable, except that Mondex is a very credible scheme with very large and very established names behind it. I haven't heard of Mark Twain bank. I don't say that this predetermines the outcome, just that there are reasons why one might have an advantage. Phill H-B --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell
Phree Phil: Email: zldf@clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<