Re: Borenstein Speech
I know better then this.
Nat Borenstein is speaking nearby on Monday.
What's the global definition of nearby? :( I'll be the one yelling "thief, thief" as he talks about safe-tcl... MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC RESEARCH LABORATORIES 201 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139 617-621-7500 OPEN PROTOCOLS FOR INFORMATION COMMERCE Nathaniel Borenstein, Chief Scientist First Virtual Holdings Inc. Date: Monday, November 28, 1994 Time: 9:30 am Abstract: Traditional one-way payment mechanisms, such as cash, credit cards, and digital cash, presuppose the necessity of payment validation in advance of the completion of a transaction. In contrast, a "closed loop" protocol that verifies both payment information and customer satisfaction permits a far simpler payment engine in an open Internet environment, and is well-suited to a broad sub-class of Internet commerce applications. In this talk, I will present the underlying philosophy, design rationale, and specification overview for a recently-developed set of open protocols for information commerce. (Dr. Borenstein is well known for his work at Bellcore on the MIME standard for multimedia messaging; he is also the author of the Andrew Message System, ATOMICMAIL, Metamail, Safe-TCL, and _Programming as if People Mattered_.) Host: David B Anderson <anderson@merl.com> Directions to MERL can be found in ftp://ftp.merl.com/pub/directions.map
It's kind of ironic, because on the one hand Borenstein is using some nice technology which would lend itsef very well to crypto protocols, electronic cash, and other privacy-protecting transactions. But it is being used to facilitate VISA card payments and many people have raised questions about the security of the system. When you place an order, you get a safe-tcl style "enabled mail" message (which Tim would hate!). This is readable but if you have safe-tcl running it will actually pop up a dialog box or something which you can click on to confirm your payment. I think this would be a good thing for DigiCash to copy if/when they start supporting email transactions. It would be fun for Magic Money too. Borenstein and First Virtual also have a whole set of MIME extensions for electronic transactions which might also serve as a model for more general types of payments. Maybe Rich could ask whether they are considering that. In general, FV has a lot of good ideas IMO, but it's too bad they are still tied to the old models of payment. Hal
participants (2)
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Hal -
Rich Salz