[5781] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Ecash without a mint, or - making anonymous payments practical
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (amir.herzberg@il.ibm.com)
Mon Sep 27 11:45:13 1999
From: amir.herzberg@il.ibm.com
To: micropay@ai.mit.edu
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
Message-ID: <C12567F9.00281ED8.00@d12mta02.de.ibm.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 10:12:29 +0300
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Steve takes an issue with me for my belief that anonymous payments will involve
overhead that may make them less popular than non-anonymous payments. He says,
> There is no reason to expect anonymous system will be more expensive than
> the current book-entry variety, in fact quite the contrary.
Of course, it doesn't make any sense that adding any requirement, esp. a
non-trivial one such as anonymity, will result in a less expensive system. In
particular anonymity does not remove the technical requirements of book-keeping
to prevent duplication.
But, I don't see the point in arguing about this. Let us implement the best
systems - with and without anonymity - and then compare.
Again: I'm _not_ against anonymity, on the contrary (even done a bit of research
in this area). However my main goal is to facilitate commerce in digital goods
and services. I think this is a difficult goal as it is without adding the
anonymity requirement. I feel better knowing that this will not prevent
anonymity solutions, since the hybrid approach allows them to be an extension of
the basic payment scheme.
One small final comment: physical cash is not really anonymous (bills have
serial numbers, and certainly coins may contain secret marks. Why?
Best Regards,
Amir Herzberg
Manager, E-Business and Security Technologies
IBM Research - Haifa Lab (Tel Aviv Office)
http://www.hrl.il.ibm.com
New e-mail: amir@il.ibm.com
New Lotus notes mail: amir herzberg/haifa/ibm@IBMIL
