Thanks for the living hell, and question about OpenSSL

[Tim May]

On Friday, April 25, 2003, at 03:51  PM, Tim May wrote:
> Regarding "digital notes circulating in the wild without server 
> contact," you need to look at some of the articles here (Cypherpunks) 
> from around 1994-97 on "money changing."
>
> Cf. articles by Doug Barnes, Ian Goldberg, myself, and others. 
> Accessible via Google.
>
> Basically, there is no reason why intermediaries will not develop who 
> agree to take in digital money and issue new digital money, for a fee.
>
> The operation of making change is just this.
>

I should have also made clear that the digital notes do not circulate 
around and around, without server contact (redemption). For one thing, 
such circulation would a) expose the digital numbers to copying by 
intermediaries and b) defeat the idea of untraceability. And if the 
note were not redeemable, the "stuckee" would have no recourse unless 
the identity of the links were known (and measures could be taken, blah 
blah).

It is best to think of a digital note as a _relationship_ between a and 
b: aRb. An arrow. A transfer relationship. Alice sends to Bob a digital 
money token. What he does with it is another transaction (canonically, 
he sends it to a bank, and, if it is redeemed, he is satisfied. He may 
also be a bank, or the digital money token may be a form of money he 
recognizes, as with a remailer token, a stamp).

It is best not to think of there being any intermediate steps. That is, 
any two nodes linked by an arrow have no other nodes between them. The 
token does not get passed from hand to hand to hand, no matter how 
complex a series of transactions is. (To do so invites copying, which 
leads to the double spending problems so often discussed.)

(Digression: Even actual folding money works this way, basically. Alice 
transfers money to Bob who transfers it to Charles, and so on. Of 
course, with digital money the same token is not transmitted this way. 
Each stage effectively reissues the money (or Bob "redeems" the money 
at a bank, which is a special, terminal case).)

"Money" is a loaded term, conjuring up various and often-contradictory 
images of paper notes, bullion, coins, IOUs, personal checks, cashier's 
checks, warehouse receipts, bearer bonds, drugs, artwork, wire 
transfers, SWIFT transfers, etc.

The relationship R for money is something which needs to be discussed 
at more length: there may be forms of R for small value or coin-like 
uses, for medium value banknote-like uses, or even for high value 
bearer bond-like or bank-like uses. Just as there are many forms of 
non-digital money, for various uses and with various levels of security 
and authentication, so too must one expect various kinds of digital 
money. First class objects are critically important here, but not in a 
"one size fits all" sense. (Not sure if this is clear or not...as I 
said, much more needs to be said.)

One of the interesting properties of the relationship R is that it 
involves _belief_. This is really what money is all about. The fact 
that one's belief that a $20 banknote with the right Andrew Jackson 
portrait on it is "real money" is only an expression of one's belief 
that the odds of it not being accepted by some other party, or by the 
U.S. Treasury, is close to nil. In areas where banknotes are more 
commonly forged, and thus not accepted, such a belief would be naive.

And so on for various other forms of money. Even digital money. Which 
gets us into reputations and ping systems (with blinding, an issuer can 
decide to "burn" (renege on) particular users, which makes repudiation 
difficult and not something banks which wish to stay in business will 
lightly do).

Properties of these graphs (or, in certain interesting cases, lattices) 
are crucial to understanding digital money.



--Tim May
"The Constitution is a radical document...it is the job of the 
government to rein in people's rights." --President William J. Clinton