I might as well confess now and get it over with. Yes I am a cyphergroupie. I do write code, but it is not cypher-code, however I do get paid for it, which along with taking care of my family consumes most of my time. I have a sliver of time that I can devote to reading mailing lists and newsgroups from the internet. If you will indulge me, I write this letter for my own amusement and with the hope that it my spark some interest.
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 10:05:35 -0400 From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga) Subject: e$: Reuters Smells the Coffee
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Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 00:01:58 From: infocker@megaweb.com Sender: infocker@megaweb.com () (from unknown.aol.com 205.188.2.111) To: www-buyinfo@allegra.att.com Subject: Cyber Economy--Govts. Cannot Control
Thought Mr. Hettinga might particularly appreciate this perspective.
Jim Rapp Alexandria, Virginia "give me more info"
As always, do not send the copyright police after me.
LONDON - Growing business on the Internet computer network could allow companies and individuals to avoid taxes and build up a black economy increasingly out of range of government intervention and regulation, computer experts say.
[snip]
"Electronic purses," loaded from banks down telephone lines, could become the favored means of payment for fast, anonymous and secure payments, with currencies of choice becoming more exotic, depending on what is acceptable to dealmakers.
Hmm, Lately I have seen an advertisement on TV from a credit card company (it might be CitiBank, I don't recall) describing a new style of credit card (Ringo Star is the spokesman for the card). Its name is "Private Issue". According to the ad you can pick your card design (the picture background of the card), and your billing date. After seeing this "e$: Reuters Smells the Coffee" post I wonder if the Bank/Credit-Card company is easing customers into thinking of private issue cash/credit as a Good-Thing(tm), or it may just be some sort of marketing gimick to sell more credit card. However, I do find the choice of name interesting - "Private Issue". The recent issue of Extropian Magazine (ya, they can be a little kooky, usually there is something interesting said in the magazine), featured a disussion of the privitazation of money (with references to Hayek's book The Denationalization of Money) and its "compatability" with ecash. When I first heard about the concept of privitizing money I thought it could not be done. But lately I have been wondering if it is possible to "sell the idea", especially after seeing the "Private Issue" ad. If you pitched ecash the right way it is possible that it could catch on. I think that the most important part of selling the private currency to small buisnesses would be if the ecash "works" just like credit cards. If any one out there is thinking of a real 'private issue'. I think that this is one of the most important design features for the potential private currency. What I mean by "works" like credit cards is not the transaction tracking bookeeping part, but the physical handling of the transaction at the point of sale. I envision a card reader machine that you run a magnetic strip card through. The machine read/writes the ecash card does what ever cryptographic steps necessary to complete the transaction and the card is handed back to the customer. Credits are transmited to the eash bank/currency issuer and the clerk hands the customer a recipt. It would also be good if the card reader machine could also process transactions with traditional credit cards. You could even have a logo sticker that you put on your shop window to show that you will accept that "new kind of credit-card". Is the bank/credit-card company laying the marketing ground work for a private currency based on ecash? If it is, it is a interesting way of selling the concept, making it a COOL RAD - avant garde thing to use. Other selling points of a private issue could be lack of inflation, better intrest rates and possible tax advantages. Of course the issuer would have to be trusworth (or at least more trusworth than the guverment!). Signing off, while shopping for Cayman Islands bank services... [-------------------------------------------------------------------------] [ Public pgp-key: email penny@tyrell.net with subject as 'send pgp-key' ] [ My opinions are mine. I have scored 90% on the the Turing Test. ] [ Alan Penny, penny@tyrell.net ]