At 12:21 PM 11/9/95 -0800, jim bell wrote:

I think that one thing that's needed is the concept of probabilistic payments.

Problem: If the recipient verifies the coin infrequently, then someone can browse with slugs, accepting a modest probability of random URL failure. If the recipient verifies the coin regularly, then the cost of verification is still the same as ever. Another poster earlier suggested the following solution, which seems to me much better: When you access the home page of the Playboy dirty pictures web site, you automatically buy a bunch of seemingly random numbers from them: Every time you click on a URL, you spend one or more of their numbers. If you have some left over when you are through, you can keep them or cash them. This would mean two expensive transactions (high calculation and communication costs) per provider, instead of one expensive transaction per click. It also means that providers could make their tokens as cheap or expenisive as they wished, down to microcents if they felt so inclined. It also means that every shop around the world would be issuing their own money, making it impossible to trace anything in practice even if everything was traceable in principle. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com