[116636] in Cypherpunks
RE: The Chaum coding project
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Petro)
Mon Aug 16 21:33:16 1999
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Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 18:11:01 -0700
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Petro <petro@suba.com>
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Reply-To: Petro <petro@suba.com>
>At 2:16 PM -0700 on 8/16/99, Petro wrote:
>
>
>> Patents don't last forever, and getting the code ready before
>>hand would make it a lot quicker to deploy when the patent does
>>expire.
>
>Um, granted. :-).
>
>> Most of the issues, most of the "tough stuff" for e-cash is (I
>>would think) at the client end, where you can't even trust that the
>>machine is minimally secured or stable. Clients need to be tested in
>>those environments for a while before big money would get involved.
>
>Actually, from actually talking to them, "big money" won't get
>involved for purely economic reasons.
We might have slightly different definitions of "big money".
I don't get to talk to bankers or VC types much--I'm thinking more
along the lines of places like Playboy & Amazon.com.
Say some group managed to produce a working Chaumian Ecash
system including secure wallets, and some sort of ACS.
Then say they figured out a way to enforce the online credit
card problem-- repudiation/chargebacks. This is a big problem, not
only with the p0rn industry, but with places like releasenow.com and
other online businesses.
Say they built in the "X.bla.bla" certificates, or required
some sort of legally-binding-and-secure digital signature that the
Credit Card Company accepted (this is actually the tough part. You
figure this out, and you've got it. One of the things the customer
LIKES about credit cards is that they can cheat).
Then you sign up a couple Porn Sites, or start up a separate
company and run the sites yourself.
Once you've shown it works, once you beat the credit card
chargeback problem you don't charge the marks to _sell_ their tokens,
you charge the businesses your CC fee percentage + x%.
You get sued by David Chaum for violating his patents. You
loose almost everything, but the idea is out there. It works, you've
demonstrated it, and now there is a _non-crypto_ public that will
demand it.
Other segments of the information delivery industry will take
notice--especially if it is anywhere near as much cheaper as you
claim.
>You can't make money by making money unless you can turn money you
>make into other money. Or whatever :-).
So at first it's not money, it's Titty tokens, Sex Scrip,
Nookie Nickels (see, three competing brands right there for ya)
whatever.
>
>Since banks are the only place with money in them these days :-),
>and banks are complete creatures of the criminal, much less
>contract, law, you not only need the patent holders' permission to
>mint Chaumian money, you need the permission of the state to do so,
>and, to do that, you need to grow, or at least hypothecate, a
>market-chicken or two before you can count your unhatched eggs, as
>Mr. Young might put it.
So you aren't a bank, you don't hold accounts, you don't make
loans, you don't do anything except sell really strange strings of
letters and numbers.
Then with you have something to buy the state with.
>
>The only way to get there from here is prove the technology's worth
>something, and then buy your way through the obstacles; all of
>which, at this juncture, and as far as we can tell, are almost
>entirely legal, be they contract or criminal.
How are you going to prove it's worth w/out deploying it?
What "big money" company is going to want to hassle with all the
implementation details and the legal hassles?
The little guys are willing to be the proving grounds if they
think they can make big money--big having very different values you
understand.
>
>Writing code and damning the torpedoes is fine for practice, and I
>encourage it as much as possible, especially in the world of
>interface design, and especially for people whose day jobs are
>either extremely under control or nonexistent, but, again, in order
>to actually make money you have to make the money you make into
>other money. Or something. ;-).
It's not just the writing we need right now, it's the deploying.
>First you need fungibility (which we already have, by definition --
>anonymity is the ultimate fungibility), and then convertibility
>(which we need a bank for), and, then, and only then, do you have
>money.
Why do you need a bank other than as a repository for your
credit card receipts? The "mint" is selling a product, kind of like a
prepaid phone card, kind of like a prepaid "debit card", except there
is no card, and no account.
Yeah, they'll make something up, but as long as it _works_,
but it isn't counterfeiting, because it ain't greenbacks, it isn't
usery because you aren't loaning anything, and it isn't anything more
than selling tokens redeemable at porn site or bookseller near you.
Then let it scale.
--
"To sum up: The entire structure of antitrust statutes in this
country is a jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance. It is a
product: (a) of a gross misinterpretation of history, and (b) of
rather naïve, and certainly unrealistic, economic theories." Alan
Greenspan, "Anti-trust"
http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/antitrust.html
