expiring bearer documents

[R. A. Hettinga]

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At 9:48 PM -0800 3/25/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>At 09:20 PM 3/25/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>>Fine. Make it cheaper. Moore's Law creates geodesic networks, so
>>let's have geodesic internet bearer transactions.
>
>Yesss!  Its only taken a month or so of plonklessness, and we've
>got the geodesics back!

Speak for yourself. :-).

>This recently occurred to me.  There is a type of bearer document
>which is exactly like cash (anonymous, finder's keepers/spenders)
>*except*
>that it expires.  Its called a concert ticket.  The liquidators are
>called
>ticket agencies.  I suppose if I were more cultured this would
>have occurred to me sooner.  Apologies if obvious.

They're also called checks payable to cash. Even Travellers' Checks.
:-).

You just redeem them and "deposit", without reissuing like you would
normally do on every transaction.

Remember the *asset* is held in bearer *form*. There are no accounts
required to execute/clear/settle the transaction. However a
*certificate* representing ownership of that asset is
redeemed/reissued on every transaction to prevent double spending and
guarantee that the asset is now in the control of the
certificate-holder.

For instance, if someone does a transaction offline, stuff like
Chaum's m-of-n where m=n=2 thing is supposed to un-blind a signature
in the case of double spending, but the underwriter can't be expected
to be liable anything. He just says, "here's the signature that
double spent. The 'train-locker' is empty. Thank you for playing. You
might consider doing your transactions on-line from now on."

BTW, I forwarded a link to something from Nick Szabo about tickets
(but not necessarily access control) within the last week or so. I
didn't read it closely, but you may find it interesting.

Cheers,
RAH

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-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'