e$: NetBank

[Robert Hettinga]

There's an outfit called NetBank, which is selling e-cash-like *certificate
numbers*, through a dial-up BBS on a 900 line, in any denomination you
want, which you can e-mail to vendors to buy stuff with. In fact all the
interactions with the bank (deposits, breaking "bills" into smaller
denominations, etc.) are done with switch codes in e-mail.

It's extremely ungainly, and it looks userous too, to the extent that they
charge 20% (each way?) to cash you in and out.  I hoovered out all the
stuff in their infobot (netbank-info at agents.com), and I really haven't
plowed through it all yet. If you folks are interested I'll summarize it
for the group and/or redirect my dumpster-divings on the subject to you
individually in e-mail. Just let me know. 'Course you're welcome to play
with their infobot yourselves, I suppose ;-).

It looks like someone did some serious work on this, folks. That's just a
philosophy major from Missouri talking, of course.  I wonder who they are?
I heard some discussion about them here, but I can't seem to find the
thread in my e$ article stash....

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga



-----------------
Robert Hettinga  (rah at shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone
Shipwright Development Corporation     who eats too little and sees Heaven and
44 Farquhar Street                       someone who drinks too much and sees
Boston, MA 02331 USA                       snakes." -- Bertrand Russell
(617) 323-7923