[5780] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Ecash without a mint, or - making anonymous payments
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Schear)
Sun Sep 26 20:26:11 1999
Message-Id: <4.1.19990926161218.0453e680@popserver.com21.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:16:59 -0700
To: micropay@ai.mit.edu, micropayments@elab.co.uk, cryptography@c2.net,
micropay@il.ibm.com
From: Steve Schear <schear@lvcm.com>
In-Reply-To: <C12567F8.003A9099.00@d12mta02.de.ibm.com>
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At 01:36 PM 9/26/99 +0300, amir.herzberg@il.ibm.com wrote:
>There are two reasons. First, as you say below, there is simply the reality of
>there being multiple systems. Second, and more essential, there are some
>important advantages e.g. in efficiency to non-anonymous payment mechanisms.
>BTW, non-anonymous here does not necessarily mean `identity-based`, but
rather,
>payment mechanism which do not offer complete, secure anonymity. The
problem is
>of course that if such non-anonymous payment mechanisms are common, it may
I wonder, if anonymous systems should get the lion's share of attention so
that the shoe is on the other foot, how will you see this situation?
>become difficult to convince merchants to support also an anonymous payment
>mechanism (with relatively few customers - assuming most customers will not be
>willing to `pay` for the anonymity).
There is no reason to expect anonymous system will be more expensive than
the current book-entry variety, in fact quite the contrary.
Furthermore customers choosing the
>anonymous mechanism may attract attention to themselves (I guess the use of
>`anonymous` for e-mail is a good example!).
No more than cash.
--Steve
