At 12:18 PM 11/16/95, Robert Hettinga wrote:
At 8:57 PM 11/15/95, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote:
------------------- I will as soon as someone comes up with a _fully_ private digital cash system and starts using it for something. As I understand it, Chaum's ecash system is not one (i.e., non-privacy to the sender and of amounts to the bank). If I'm incorrect, please tell me and I'll set up an account with MTB immediately (if there's a text-based interface).
Ahhh. Next year in Jeresalem...
Tell me, are you actually selling something on the net yet? How many customers do you have?
Bob, let me do a minor vent here. You are critical of E. Allen Smith's viewpoint, and essentially question whether he has anything to sell. Not much of an argument. Especially when folks are urging that "people put their money where their mouth is" and get MTB accounts. Me, I don't plan to sign up for various reasons: 1. I'm not selling anything, and won't sign up just for "moral support." (I tried this once before, getting an AMIX account early on, and that system offered more of a chance for a 2-way market. Still, a waste of my time.) 2. I wish Mark Twain Bank well, but the success of the kinds of digital cash we hope to see will not likely hinge on the success of one particular operations, such as MTB. 3. The success of BankAmericard (later renamed Visa) came when real customers and real shops started to use it, not when early pioneers set themselves up as clearinghouses and whatnot. I have more interesting things to do, personally, than to be a pioneer so I can then have nothing to sell, and little to buy....when "interesting markets" start to appear, I'll look at it again. In any case, I wish all the pioneers well, and am happy to see Lucky Green's involvement. But when you urge people to be pioneers, and they express reservations or doubts about the system, attacking their motives or implying they have nothing to sell anyway is not too helpful. Just my views, but, then, I don't have any customers either. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."