At 5:04 AM 6/3/96 +0000, Greg Miller wrote:

On Sun, 2 Jun 1996 17:42:49 -0500 (CDT), you wrote:

...

What would happen with all ecash that's been issued? Of course criminals would be able to forge large amounts of authentic-looking ecash, so banks should not be honoring requests to convert e-cash into real cash.

As I understand it, ecash shouldn't be withdrawn until shortly before it is spent. If the RSA algorithm is broken, then then banks could refuse the withdrawal (and depositing) of money as ecash. The remainder of the money in each users' account would have to be withdrawn through conventional methods.

Of course all the outstanding (between withdrawl and deposit) ecash could be a problem.

Banks running Digicash might be able to credit you account for cash on your disk using the same mechanisms they use to recover your ecash after a hard disk crash. You shouldn't need too much electronic identification since the only result is to move money to yourself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA