Excerpts from fv: 15-Dec-94 Re: properties of FV Andrew Lowenstern@il.us. (718*)

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This goes back to the two kinds of anonymity that you so usefully defined in your earlier message. These small transactions would have counterparty anonymity -- all that the seller knows is your first virtual id, which is essentially a user-chosen pseudonym -- but not issuer anonymity.

That would make this counterparty pseudonymity, not anonymity. The merchant, while not knowing the true identity of his clients, is still able to correlate the transactions of individual accounts (and must be able to under FV's policies). A malicious merchant, for instance, could recognize that a particular account is more interested in certain types of information and charge accordingly.

Good point. I stand corrected, at least as far as the terminology is concerned. However, as far as the particular malicious-merchant scenario is concerned, I must say I'd be skeptical about any merchant who didn't tell me the price up front, *before* he asked me for my account-id... -- Nathaniel