[5785] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Ecash without a mint, or - making anonymous payments practical
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (bram)
Mon Sep 27 19:00:28 1999
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 14:47:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: bram <bram@gawth.com>
To: amir.herzberg@il.ibm.com
Cc: micropay@ai.mit.edu, cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <C12567F9.00281ED8.00@d12mta02.de.ibm.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.9909271446050.25952-100000@ultra.gawth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon, 27 Sep 1999 amir.herzberg@il.ibm.com wrote:
> One small final comment: physical cash is not really anonymous (bills have
> serial numbers, and certainly coins may contain secret marks. Why?
I believe at least part of the reason is to make heists difficult - Places
which have loads of nice new bills almost always have them with sequential
serial numbers. There have been many cases of a huge heist getting pulled
off successfully and then the robbers were unable to dispose of the cash
they got because it was too easy to trace.
-Bram
