Article on Digital Cash in "Worth"

I don't recall seeing mention of this, so here goes.

The October 1995 issue of "Worth" magazine has a fairly long article about
digital cash in several forms, and about David Chaum's Digicash in
particular. It has a more detailed description of his Amsterdam operation,
and his history, than I recall seeing anywhere else.

While I'm on the subject of Chaum and Digicash, several recent posts here
have commented about my dislike of Digicash's current approach, or about my
criticisms of the current approach. Given the recent "piling on" aimed at
Netscape (for various reasons I think are obvious--see Note), I don't want
to be perceived as one of Digicash's leading critics.

The fact is, I'm not in the business of trying to deploy any kind of
digital cash, so I don't follow too closely the ins and outs of what
various "digital money" systems are currently offering. I have some
long-range interests in the societal implications of truly anonymous
digital cash, and argue the issues frequently, but I avoid worrying
overmuch about Mondex vs. First Virtual vs. QuickenCash vs. whatever.

Note: About half of all posts to the CP list for the past several weeks
have somehow involved Netscape. The attacks on Netscape have been
impressive, but many of the posts have a "me too" flavor, sort of the way
my smaller cat takes every opportunity to nip at my larger cat when the
larger cat is in distress. The phrase "kicking them when they're down"
comes to mind. Not that the issues aren't real, just that a lot of folks
want to be the "next Goldberg and Wagners," or that they want to add their
two cents about how Netscape is blowing it.

I stay out of this, but I certainly don't want to see Digicash given the
same treatment. Their current product may not be all that some of us desire
(in terms of anonymity, for example), but it sure does beat the
alternatives in essential ways.

I don't want to see Netscape so trashed that people turn to lesser-tested
alternatives without good reason (Microsoft Network being one example), and
I don't want to see Digicash so trashed that people turn to some product
like Mondex.

--Tim May

Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

In article <acade6614d0210045f23@[205.199.118.202]>,
Timothy C. May <tcmay@got.net> wrote:
>Not that the issues aren't real, just that a lot of folks
>want to be the "next Goldberg and Wagners," or that they want to add their
>two cents about how Netscape is blowing it.

What about us "current" Goldbergs and Wagners? :-)
>
>I stay out of this, but I certainly don't want to see Digicash given the
>same treatment. Their current product may not be all that some of us desire
>(in terms of anonymity, for example), but it sure does beat the
>alternatives in essential ways.
>
>I don't want to see Netscape so trashed that people turn to lesser-tested
>alternatives without good reason (Microsoft Network being one example), and
>I don't want to see Digicash so trashed that people turn to some product
>like Mondex.

We should be keeping in mind that the goal here is to end up, in one way
or another, with a _secure_ way of transacting on the net.  To that end,
it may be necessary to demonstrate that some current products don't
provide that way.  We certainly don't want people to be scared away
from using one insecure product, only to use another, especially
if the latter is less secure than the former.

At least Netscape published their protocols, if not their implementation.
Digicash, AFAIK, hasn't even done that much.  There is absolutely zero
reason for me to believe that their client is safe.
<SARCASM>For all I know, it could be an essential part of the protocol
to send a dump of my harddrive to Digicash every time I deposit money
into my account.</SARCASM>

I do intend to attempt a reverse-engineer of the ecash protocol,
assuming no one points me to an online copy (no, a paper copy obtained
via a NDA doesn't count).  Donations of a Sparc client binary
and/or access to a real ecash account will be gratefully accepted.

If the reverse-engineer ends up showing a protocol misfeature or
(more likely) a bad implementation (such as a buffer overflow),
I'm not going to keep quiet about it.  Netscape reacted quite
commendably to the finding of bugs in their software (quick admission
of the problem, and timely bugfix).  Hopefully, Digicash will
be as good about it.

Everything would be _so_ much easier to check, though, if these
people would stop this "security through obscurity" garbage and
publish their protocols, if not their source.

   - Ian "Mr. Worf, activate targetting scanners."

> 
> We should be keeping in mind that the goal here is to end up, in one way
> or another, with a _secure_ way of transacting on the net.  To that end,
> it may be necessary to demonstrate that some current products don't
> provide that way.  We certainly don't want people to be scared away
> from using one insecure product, only to use another, especially
> if the latter is less secure than the former.


	This is the goal, but one must make sure that one's work does
not work -against- one's goal. My original draft for the hack digicash
web page was rather inflammatory "hasn't netscape taught us anything?"
but upon consultation I decided to change it to be less inflammatory
and mention that digicash, in principle, is the best electronic
payment system on the net, and that we need to make sure it is the
best payment system -in practice-.

-- 
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