Re: A 'Funky A.T.M.' Lets You Pay for Purchases Made Online
On 2003-07-23, Sunder uttered:
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?
I only objected to the notion that all digicash needs to be anonymous in order to be desirable. I didn't say this particular system amounts to desirable weak digicash. To that end it would likely make far more sense in the short term e.g. to marry Visa Electronic to PayPal. In the long term multiple cooperating PayPal-like entities could then be used to build mixnets, making the digicash strongly anonymous. As for Morlock Elloi's objection, what you have on your bank account *is* money, and debit cards simply a technological quirk which allows us to access it. Furthermore, any medium of indirect exchange is by definition money and at least Merriam-Webster defines cash as "ready money". So we might define cash as the most liquid form a money available. After that we can claim that in the presence of ubiquitous debit capability and a steadily growing aversion towards those using paper money, the latter is not in fact cash at all, but a less liquid cash (bits on a mainframe) substitute used when we're willing to pay a premium (in convenience and depreciation) for anonymity. -- 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
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 11:16 AM, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
On 2003-07-23, Sunder uttered:
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?
I only objected to the notion that all digicash needs to be anonymous in order to be desirable. I didn't say this particular system amounts to desirable weak digicash. To that end it would likely make far more sense in the short term e.g. to marry Visa Electronic to PayPal. In the long term multiple cooperating PayPal-like entities could then be used to build mixnets, making the digicash strongly anonymous.
This continuing confusion, by many people, about what "digicash" is shows the problem with using nonspecific terms. In fact, "digicash" strongly suggests David Chaum's "Digicash," not some name for all forms of credit cards, ATMs, debit cards, PayPal, wire transfer, Mondex, and a scad of other systems that may use bits and electronic signals. Conventionally, on this list and in the press about "digital cash," digital cash means something which has the untraceable and/or anonymous features of "cash" while being transferred digitally. It is NOT a Visa system or a PayPal account or a wire instruction to the Cayman Islands. I choose not to call "untraceable/anonymous digital cash" by any of the marketing-oriented catchwords like "Digicash," "BearerBucks," "E-coins," "MeterMoney," whatever. So, I strongly agree with your point that not all electronic forms of money need to be anonymous (untraceable) in order to be useful. HOWEVER, our interest is in the untraceable/anonymous. There are no doubt active groups discussing PayPal, VISA, MasterCard, DiscoverCard, etc. But they have nothing to do with Cypherpunks. We should also fight the use of sloppy language in the press when mundane electronic funds transfer systems are called "digital cash." --Tim May
On 2003-07-24, Tim May uttered:
HOWEVER, our interest is in the untraceable/anonymous.
Duh! -- 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
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 03:17 PM, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
On 2003-07-24, Tim May uttered:
HOWEVER, our interest is in the untraceable/anonymous.
Duh!
You were gibbering about how "digicash" includes PayPal, ATMs, Visa, and other forms of transfers which are only "digital" in that computers are used. You need to think carefully about what blinding is all about. Calling Visa and PayPal "digicash" shows fundamental ignorance. Nitwit. But very typical of the "new generation of rilly, rilly dumb cypherpunks." --Tim May
Tim May (2003-07-24 19:50Z) wrote:
We should also fight the use of sloppy language in the press when mundane electronic funds transfer systems are called "digital cash."
Is there anything to fight? The only instance of "digital cash" on google news (there's one reference to "digital cash registers", which I'm not counting) is an article about proffr's "x needs killing" comments. The article doesn't abuse the term "digital cash", though it does abuse the term "listserv". The term doesn't appear in print often enough to matter, IMO. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22digital+cash%22&btnG=Search+News http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1497971,00.html -- Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. --Rumsfeld, 2003-04-11
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 05:11 PM, Justin wrote:
Tim May (2003-07-24 19:50Z) wrote:
We should also fight the use of sloppy language in the press when mundane electronic funds transfer systems are called "digital cash."
Is there anything to fight?
The only instance of "digital cash" on google news (there's one reference to "digital cash registers", which I'm not counting) is an article about proffr's "x needs killing" comments. The article doesn't abuse the term "digital cash", though it does abuse the term "listserv".
The term doesn't appear in print often enough to matter, IMO.
PLONK. Way too many fools on Cypherpunks these last several months. Maybe it's time to kill it. --Tim May
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Tim May wrote:
PLONK.
Way too many fools on Cypherpunks these last several months. Maybe it's time to kill it.
Excellent idea! Since nobody on the list agrees with you any more, you can eliminate a ton of noise from all the spammers across the globe. My in box will not regret it. :-) Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
At 18:57 2003-07-24 -0700, Tim May wrote:
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 05:11 PM, Justin wrote:
Tim May (2003-07-24 19:50Z) wrote:
We should also fight the use of sloppy language in the press when mundane electronic funds transfer systems are called "digital cash."
Is there anything to fight?
The only instance of "digital cash" on google news (there's one reference to "digital cash registers", which I'm not counting) is an article about proffr's "x needs killing" comments. The article doesn't abuse the term "digital cash", though it does abuse the term "listserv".
The term doesn't appear in print often enough to matter, IMO.
PLONK.
Way too many fools on Cypherpunks these last several months. Maybe it's time to kill it.
I think its been dead for some time now. Most of those on the list are The motto "cypherpunks should have written code" is emblazoned across the tombstone. As some of you know there have been a number of aborted attempts, few serious, to build a digital cash (Chaumian sense) code base from which to catalyze useful commercial ventures. During the go-go '90s all the talented coders on this list were off chasing the bubble rainbow and had no time for such pipe dreams. Now that many are un- or under-employed there still doesn't seem to be any activity by those active on this list in this critical infrastructure area. All the recent work that is being done (e.g., Orlin Grabbe's ALTA/DMT http://orlingrabbe.com/redirect.htm, Patrick McCuller's Lucrative http://lucrative.thirdhost.com, YodelBank http://yodelbank.com/, InvisibelNet http://invisiblenet.net) has been undertaken by real cypherpunks, a few monitor this list but rarely if ever post. I can only conclude that with the exceptions of the early CPs, who helped build the first remailers and such, most list members now are losers and sycophants. Time to move over for the next crop of motivated libertarian cypherpunks. The cypherpunks are dead, long live the cypherpunks! steve "We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others that write what men do, not what they ought to do." -Francis Bacon
Oh, like Uday and Qusay, you can't kill this immortal fucker, nobody got the guts to plow a TOW in it. Instead, thousands of gutless have hari-kiried by exiting the battle for well.com nutlick where the dead live in perfect, silent synchrony, so that is a no-brain, no-work option. Sit still, children, repeat this. Hell, start a DOA mail list to bitch about how stupid people are outside of old folks cess-suck. Read yourself sitting on a one-holer. Nothing wrong with cypherpunks that couldn't be cured, as ever, by more fresh young meat totally ignorant and not giving a shit about how it used to be, only hot to throw slop at what's puked by the wizened, the reputable, the stuffed with here's how it's meant to be. Now that revulsion against whoever has truth by tail is a dim memory of what cpunks was meant to be, was now and again, not a place for boozy glory days telling a sanitized tale of what never happened. Pontificators are usually hooted off the list, save for a few protected species taxidermied for darts. The old days, don't believe them, cypherpunks was and is toxic to serious makeovers and shutdowns and lock-outs, and, never forget that PLONKS are cries of shut the fuck up and listen to me. Pluck the PLONKS, if you don't get them you aint earning your stay. PLONKERS little-man your wee-wees. Hiccups a fogey one hand hanging on the bar rail, the other rooting the floor vomit for a chawtabaccy cud ricochet from the spit bucket. ]=;& Uday
On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, John Young wrote:
The old days, don't believe them, cypherpunks was and is toxic to serious makeovers and shutdowns and lock-outs, and, never forget that PLONKS are cries of shut the fuck up and listen to me. Pluck the PLONKS, if you don't get them you aint earning your stay. PLONKERS little-man your wee-wees.
Hiccups a fogey one hand hanging on the bar rail, the other rooting the floor vomit for a chawtabaccy cud ricochet from the spit bucket.
Right on dude! Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
At 12:41 2003-07-25 -0700, you wrote:
Oh, like Uday and Qusay, you can't kill this immortal fucker, nobody got the guts to plow a TOW in it. Instead, thousands of gutless have hari-kiried by exiting the battle for well.com nutlick where the dead live in perfect, silent synchrony, so that is a no-brain, no-work option. Sit still, children, repeat this.
Translation please :-) I don't understand or speak Consciousness Stream 1.0 steve "The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable." --H. L. Mencken
On Friday 25 July 2003 11:40, Steve Schear wrote:
... Now that many are un- or under-employed there still doesn't seem to be any activity by those active on this list in this critical infrastructure area.
Speaking only for myself, I'm making a lot less than I was a couple of years ago. In the wake of the dot-bomb, I'm working a lot more hours just to keep my bills paid. I no longer have much time or creativity left for non-paying tasks. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel "If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!" -- Rep. Henry Waxman
On Friday, July 25, 2003, at 02:36 PM, Steve Furlong wrote:
On Friday 25 July 2003 11:40, Steve Schear wrote:
... Now that many are un- or under-employed there still doesn't seem to be any activity by those active on this list in this critical infrastructure area.
Speaking only for myself, I'm making a lot less than I was a couple of years ago. In the wake of the dot-bomb, I'm working a lot more hours just to keep my bills paid. I no longer have much time or creativity left for non-paying tasks.
My analysis of the situation is that the peak creative years for CP ideas were 1992-95, and virtually no one on the list was being paid a cent for their efforts here or elsewhere. Some were students, some were libertarians with pent-up ideas about creating actual free societies or economies, some were engineers or programmers working for companies on unrelated projects, some were unemployed. The dot com era was actually a desert era...lots of nattering about raising VC money, buying other companies, creating grandiose plans to become rivals to Microsoft, and so on. Very few really good ideas in the 1996-00 era. And then came the crash. We haven't had much of an infusion of young blood--I believe this is closely related to Boomers and Heinlein, Rand, etc. and the differing interests of the young people of today and their anti-globalist, ring through nose politics--and those who got wiped out in the dot com frenzy have not gone back to blue sky thinking. A lot of them seem to be doing "uninteresting" (from a mathematical or first principles point of view) Unix security jobs. --Tim May
On Friday 25 July 2003 11:40, Steve Schear wrote:
... Now that many are un- or under-employed there still doesn't seem to be any activity by those active on this list in this critical infrastructure area.
In some sense, we have enough code. Code exists that can be deployed. It may have to go thru the same evolutionary stages the P2P software is going thru (Napster to Kazza to ???) as security problems become serious, but it is deployed now. What we don't have is: * Patent licenses * Easy to use code * Users Techies can work on the ease of use issue, but patent licenses take time and/or money, and users take marketing and sales. Cheers - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | "A Jobless Recovery is | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | like a Breadless Sand- | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@pwpconsult.com | wich." -- Steve Schear | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
At 15:52 2003-07-25 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote:
On Friday 25 July 2003 11:40, Steve Schear wrote:
... Now that many are un- or under-employed there still doesn't seem to be any activity by those active on this list in this critical infrastructure area.
In some sense, we have enough code. Code exists that can be deployed. It may have to go thru the same evolutionary stages the P2P software is going thru (Napster to Kazza to ???) as security problems become serious, but it is deployed now.
What we don't have is:
* Patent licenses
Not necessary. Remember, blinding is implemented solely at the client end. I'm sure once a useable, open source, non-blinded client is available there will be parties available to add the 50 lines or so of blinding code. Alternatively, since the blinding patent is not recognized in many well-connected Net countries the code could legally be released from one of them, so that the user selects blinding based on jurisdiction and interest.
* Easy to use code
By any reasonable measure we DOI OT have a useable, even by techies, for a blinded digital cash system. The closest thing I'm aware of is Lucrative but it still hasn't reached the alpha demo phase for client and server SW. Contributions by competent list members are keenly invited to "finish" the infrastructure code if not help deploy a real test mint and financial institution.
* Users
Techies can work on the ease of use issue, but patent licenses take time and/or money, and users take marketing and sales.
EBay spent almost nothing in its first years. None of the Digital Gold Currencies have spent much at all for these purposes, yet they have 100,000s of active accounts and around $30 million in gold bars backing their monies. Only word of mouth, the best advertising, is required for a really needed product/service with a workable business model. I think many techies have been flimflammed by the VCs and CEO-types who couldn't bootstrap a venture if their lives depended on it. steve "Il dulce far niente" The sweetness of doing nothing My unemployment motto
On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 08:40:33AM -0700, Steve Schear wrote:
time for such pipe dreams. Now that many are un- or under-employed there still doesn't seem to be any activity by those active on this list in this critical infrastructure area. All the recent work that is being done (e.g., Orlin Grabbe's ALTA/DMT http://orlingrabbe.com/redirect.htm, Patrick McCuller's Lucrative http://lucrative.thirdhost.com, YodelBank http://yodelbank.com/, InvisibelNet http://invisiblenet.net) has been undertaken by real cypherpunks, a few monitor this list but rarely if ever
That's a useful roundup, thanks. I think the cypherpunk goal of anonymity is still alive and well -- it's just that the folks involved in efforts like Freenet don't necessary consider themselves cypherpunks or subscribe to this list. Defcon featured a good number of anon projects; most dealing with publishing/web browsing/email than anon digital cash, unfortunately (though the interest is there). -Declan
On Thursday 24 July 2003 15:50, Tim May wrote:
In fact, "digicash" strongly suggests David Chaum's "Digicash,"
That assumes the reader or listener has heard of Digicash, or of Chaum. Not an assumption I'd be comfortable making.
I choose not to call "untraceable/anonymous digital cash" by any of the marketing-oriented catchwords like "Digicash," "BearerBucks," "E-coins," "MeterMoney," whatever.
I tend to use "electronic money" when discussing coin- or account-based systems, anonymous or not, with the unwashed masses. It conveys the meaning well enough to serve as an opening wedge to a better description, and it's general enough that it shouldn't offend the sensibilities of those few people who do understand the subject in depth. And it hasn't been gobbled up by any company, so far as I know. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel "If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!" -- Rep. Henry Waxman
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 07:12 PM, Steve Furlong wrote:
On Thursday 24 July 2003 15:50, Tim May wrote:
In fact, "digicash" strongly suggests David Chaum's "Digicash,"
That assumes the reader or listener has heard of Digicash, or of Chaum. Not an assumption I'd be comfortable making.
Agreed, making the assumption that readers here have heard of Chaum or understand the basic idea of blinded transactions (or dining cryptographers, or oblivious transfer, or any of the other building blocks) is no longer warranted. I expect many of the persyns of peircing now spewing on the list are, like, thinking "that's, like, _so_ nineties." As for thinking very general readers or listeners, those not even on the list, are capable of understanding Chaum or Digicash, that's a fool's errand. The average nontechnical person knows nothing about how crypto works, and attempting to explain a DC-Net or a blinded transfer is no more useful to them than just telling them the currency is based on "magic beans." The point is not that laymen need to understand Digicash, but that calling things like ATM cards and Visa cards "digicash" does a disservice to the important ideas of why Chaum's and Brands' and similar systems worked. Hey, maybe it's actually the case that some of the people here who are referring to electronic debit cards as "digicash" just don't have a clue about what blinding is and why it makes for truly untraceable tokens.
I tend to use "electronic money" when discussing coin- or account-based systems, anonymous or not, with the unwashed masses. It conveys the meaning well enough to serve as an opening wedge to a better description, and it's general enough that it shouldn't offend the sensibilities of those few people who do understand the subject in depth. And it hasn't been gobbled up by any company, so far as I know.
I stopped any efforts to explain the true importance of electronic/digital money/cash a long time ago. A waste of time. Not too surprising, as getting even the basic idea requires some passing familiarity with things like how RSA works. When I read Chaum's 1985 CACM paper I already knew about RSA and "hard" directions for problems (trapdoor functions), and yet I still had to read and reread the paper and draw little pictures for myself. Thinking someone can absorb the gist via a purely verbal description is just not plausible. I have seen David Chaum attempt to do this with an audience of computer professionals....my impression from the later questions from the audience is that his explanation simply didn't get them over the "hump" to the stage of realizing the key concept. No more so than popularizations of relativity actually ever got the masses to understand relativity. There is much that could be said about whether this difficulty is why we don't have untraceable, Chaum-style forms of money (I don't think this is the reason). Regardless, wishing won't make it so, and so wishing that people would "grok" the importance of blinding without having spent at least a few hours brushing up on RSA and exponentiation and all that and then following an explanation very, very closely....well, wishing won't make it so. So it's best to ignore the "unwashed masses" and their inability to understand untraceable money. More troubling is that so many _here_ don't seem to "get it." --Tim May
On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, Tim May wrote:
There is much that could be said about whether this difficulty is why we don't have untraceable, Chaum-style forms of money (I don't think this is the reason). Regardless, wishing won't make it so, and so wishing that people would "grok" the importance of blinding without having spent at least a few hours brushing up on RSA and exponentiation and all that and then following an explanation very, very closely....well, wishing won't make it so.
So it's best to ignore the "unwashed masses" and their inability to understand untraceable money.
As far as it goes, I'm willing to bet that many of the unwashed masses who hold a mortgage don't actually understand how it was calculated, much like there are many insurance policy holders who don't understand actuarial statistics. (As far as it goes, except in the broad terms of understanding statistics, I fall in to the latter category. I once tried to read up on how insurance risks are calculated, and simply couldn't get through the text, without more reason to. A friend who works in reinsurance still laughs at me over this.) Same story in securities and mutual funds. Or, for that matter, SMTP. As a further example, a very intelligent person, very successful in chosen pursuits, asked me how secure the new Visa cards with online passwords were. The ones that are being advertised all over TV. It took a fair amount of explaining to get across that they don't protect the user of the card, they protect the merchant and the bank. Once the "lightbulb came on", she was annoyed at having been taken in by an ad, and completely forgot to care whether or not the protocol is 'secure'. I'm not sure that understanding matters for broad adoption of a financial instrument. The sales pitch does matter.
More troubling is that so many _here_ don't seem to "get it."
True, but this list has always been made up of mostly nitwits.
--Tim May
-j -- Jamie Lawrence jal@jal.org Be aloof, there's been a sudden population explosion of lerts.
participants (10)
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Bill Frantz -
Declan McCullagh -
Jamie Lawrence -
John Young -
Justin -
Mike Rosing -
Sampo Syreeni -
Steve Furlong -
Steve Schear -
Tim May