Re: A 'Funky A.T.M.' Lets You Pay for Purchases Made Online
On 2003-07-22, Sunder uttered:
If the digicash isn't anonymous, it's worthless.
I'd argue to the contrary. First, "most people have nothing to hide". The folks will want digicash for reasons other than anonymity, as argued by this particular "inventor" (I've wanted to handle my cash automatically eversince I got my first debit card). Second, once the cash is online, it's considerably easier to pool it, confuse the authorities about it, connect it to the existing anonymity infrastructure, build secondary services which allow its origin to be completely masked, and so on. These sorts of hacks can well bridge the gap between ordinary cash/credit and truly anonymous online specie. They aren't the final solution, but they can help overcome the chicken and egg problem inherent in all digicash. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
If the digicash isn't anonymous, it's worthless.
I'd argue to the contrary. First, "most people have nothing to hide". The folks will want digicash for reasons other than anonymity, as argued
You are misusing the term "cash". What you are describing are essentially "internet debit cards." While it is attractive to insert word "cash" into any harebrained "net money" scheme, exactly because of positive associations with CASH, it is misleading and deceptive. Cash means off-line clearing and anonymous. If it is complicated to understand, open your wallet, take a banknote out of it and ponder what it is for a minute. ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
You do have somewhat of a point, but consider this. Real cash is anonymous. If you want to do electronic payments that are non-anonymous you can simply use a credit card or debit card (or something like paypal, egold), or for larger quanitities you can do wire transfers - so why would we need yet another a non-anonymous "cash" that isn't cash? Just because it's cool and we can call it electronic cash? What's the point? Why would you bother building it? Why would anyone bother using it? Confusing the authorities is a dumb thing to consider as a reason. They will smarten up pretty quickly if they think you're doing something illegal, and it won't make any difference what cool technical toys you have used. ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :25Kliters anthrax, 38K liters botulinum toxin, 500 tons of /|\ \|/ :sarin, mustard and VX gas, mobile bio-weapons labs, nukular /\|/\ <--*-->:weapons.. Reasons for war on Iraq - GWB 2003-01-28 speech. \/|\/ /|\ :Found to date: 0. Cost of war: $800,000,000,000 USD. \|/ + v + : The look on Sadam's face - priceless! --------_sunder_@_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------ On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
On 2003-07-22, Sunder uttered:
If the digicash isn't anonymous, it's worthless.
I'd argue to the contrary. First, "most people have nothing to hide". The folks will want digicash for reasons other than anonymity, as argued by this particular "inventor" (I've wanted to handle my cash automatically eversince I got my first debit card). Second, once the cash is online, it's considerably easier to pool it, confuse the authorities about it, connect it to the existing anonymity infrastructure, build secondary services which allow its origin to be completely masked, and so on.
participants (3)
-
Morlock Elloi -
Sampo Syreeni -
Sunder