>Matthias Schunter Said [snip] >The CAFE system is a cheque based system. This means that the >customer receives an electronic chequebook, where each cheque is >(blindly) signed by the bank. >During each payment the customer has >to use one of these signed cheques. [snip] If the CAFE card contains cheques (which are not digital cash, and therefore must be tied back to a customer's checking account), how can the bank blindly sign them? The merchant will have to deposit the cheque in order to transfer the money out of the customer's account and into the merchant's account. I don't see how the bank can not know the identity of the customer. This is why digital cash can be anonymous - because once the bank (blindly) signs the cash tokens, these tokens ARE money. They are not pointers (in the case of cheques) to customers' bank accounts. However, if Alice (the customer) contacts her bank and requests a cheque be made out to Bob (the vendor) for, say, $12.50 then the bank can withdraw $12.50 from Alice's account and blindly sign a cheque for $12.50 payable only to Bob. Then the bank would not know Alice's identity. I don't think this is how CAFE works, since CAFE is designed as an off-line smart card system. Therefore, Alice cannot requests bank cheques from her bank made payable to Bob when she walks into Bob's store. Maybe your definition of a cheque is different than mine? ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________