Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash

At  9:25 PM 8/22/94 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:


>Anonymity is what gives digital cash it's raison
>d'etre, it's technological advantages over conventional schemes.

I'll try to to come at this from another tack. Cryptography gives
anonymity. Anononymity reduces the overhead. The reduced overhead should
make digital cash more economically efficient than on-line systems like
NetBank, or credit-cards or much of anything else, at the moment. The
economic efficiency is what may make digitial cash economical as a way to
provide liquidity for internet commerce.  The major selling point is *not*
privacy.  The major selling point is economic efficiency.

>If anonymity, untraceability, and other "Chaumian" notions are only
>seen as peripheral side effects, then we already _have_ "digital cash"
>in the encrypted credit card systems some folks are already offering.

They are peripheral side effects. They also are the very things that make
digital cash a more efficient medium of exchange.  They are not necessary
and sufficient conditions for the adoption of digital cash for the very
same reasons you outlined above.  Privacy is like flight. It's cool. It's
literally marvelous. But flight also gives you speed, and speed is what
sells flight as a usable technology to most people. Is that a better
explaination?

>Without the technological approach to untraceability and anonymity,
>all we have is the usual "trust". Granted, credit card numbers ought
>not to be sent over unsecured channels, but fixing that is easy (with
>end-to-end encryption). Trust-based systems are not the foundation for
>a free society most of us are seeking.

Printing is a faster way to transcribe information than copying a book by
hand. A secondary benefit of printing is that improves information flow
through a culture. A consequence is increased education, which gives you an
enlightment ethic and eventually Jeffersonian democacy.

I think we're looking at the elephant from opposite ends here, Tim. You
seem to be holding the trunk, I believe...

>"Digidollar" was one of the many names coined by folks on this list,
>along with Cypherbucks, Digimarks, etc.

Ah. How grateful I am not to be burdened with its parentage...

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

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Robert Hettinga  (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone
Shipwright Development Corporation     who eats too little and sees Heaven and
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(617) 323-7923

Bob sez:
> At  9:25 PM 8/22/94 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:

> >Anonymity is what gives digital cash it's raison
> >d'etre, it's technological advantages over conventional schemes.

Well I don't buy the idea that people will shell out cash for this (i.e.
I think the only way we'll wind up with annonymous digicash is if the
people who put together the best system insist on anonymity) but I can't
claim to have data to refute this.

> I'll try to to come at this from another tack. Cryptography gives
> anonymity. Anononymity reduces the overhead. The reduced overhead should
> make digital cash more economically efficient than on-line systems like
> NetBank, or credit-cards or much of anything else, at the moment. The
> economic efficiency is what may make digitial cash economical as a way to
> provide liquidity for internet commerce.  The major selling point is *not*
> privacy.  The major selling point is economic efficiency.

Well we agree that the selling point is economic efficiency. But "anonymity
reduces overhead" ?

All that you save is the space required for the recording of names. Since
whichever digicash system wins will almost certainly include software
automating double entry accounting, I have real trouble buying this.
How much overhead do you really save? Is it enough to offset the costs
of implementing the double spender identification system? I don't think
it is. [Although it seems to me that the costs of both are absolutely
trivial and not worth considering when speaking of the overhead in a
digicash system. Far more important are the investment of capital and the
pragmatics of the exchange mechanism]
 
> >If anonymity, untraceability, and other "Chaumian" notions are only
> >seen as peripheral side effects, then we already _have_ "digital cash"
> >in the encrypted credit card systems some folks are already offering.
> 
> They are peripheral side effects. They also are the very things that make
> digital cash a more efficient medium of exchange.

How? There are alot of reasons why I think anonymity is important, but I fail
to see any significant economic advantage that anonymity confers to a person
who otherwise couldn't care less about it.

Jason W. Solinsky