Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:18:27 -0800 From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com> So while I admire Eric's ethical concern about making relevant information about the properties of ecash available, it is also important to understand the possible outcome. My concern is not ethical, although upon re-examining what I said I can see how that might appear that way. My concern is entirely pragmatic. Disclosure is the ethical act, true, but in this case the ethicality is performative, it is the active principle itself. The issue is one of legitimacy and the epistemology of a group. Telling the truth is not just a morally good idea, it is a pragmatically useful one. If we do not disclose what we know now, _regardless_ of the immediate outcome, we will lose in the end. If we lose now, we will never have been able to win at all. The debate which must be taken to the public is whether we want payee anonymity or not. I am confident that people want their privacy and are willing to let others have theirs as well. If they do not, the world is not as I understand it, and I have some hard thinking to do. One thing I notice that was missing from Eric's posting was a description or reference to exactly how the payee anonymity is achieved. Is it his intention to tell people that it is possible, yet to keep secret how it is done? I didn't invent it. I'm going to let Ian describe it when and how he wants. Eric