[118023] in Cypherpunks
Re: e-gold: post confusion!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Fri Sep 17 19:08:46 1999
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Message-Id: <v0421015ab408743c4251@[204.167.101.56]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 18:42:17 -0400
To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs@philodox.com>,
cypherpunks@cyberpass.net, cryptography@c2.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 17:13:49 -0400 (AST)
From: Ian Grigg <iang@systemics.com>
To: hh@cyberpass.net, jpm@interestingsoftware.com
Subject: Re: e-gold: post confusion!
Cc: e-gold-list@free-market.net
Reply-To: iang@systemics.com
Sender: owner-e-gold-list@free-market.net
> I think a lot of people want blinded transfers. I want an on-line
> currency that has the same identity properties as cash; ie, there's no
> way to trace who has owned any particular piece of cash, and both buy
> and seller can be anonymous.
In practice, this is not the case. If you are looking
at any particular transaction, you *can* determine who
bought and who sold. In general, you just look at the
receipt, and it has it there in black and white.
What cash gives you - the paper form - is the property of
bearer. This is distinct to any privacy claim, but often
confounded by observers.
Bearer means that previous holders have no claim on the value.
That's a very strong claim, that makes cash very easy to deal
with, because there's no overhang. This property doesn't exist
with, for example, cheques, or account money, or the prime example
of credit cards, with their 2 year chargeback :( The bank
has the ability to do whatever with your account, including
backing out transactions (at my bank, wierdly, anyone can do
a transaction into anyones account, and the owner can back it
out again).
Now, as a side effect of bearer, there is this enhanced privacy
thing. If you don't care who had it before, you don't bother
to write it down, so it might be more private that way (ignoring
the question of receipts, that is). And it is this property that
blinding enforces - because there is untraceability, a previous
holder finds it difficult to carry a claim forward to the new
holder, because she (alice) can't prove that he (bob) received
the value. (And as long as this is enforced in contract, then
you get the bearer property.)
So the question becomes - do you want all claims to be silenced,
or do you want privacy? The "bearer" property is better implemented
by e-gold than it ever was by MTB, because an account holder could
always grumble at the bank about another user and get an adjustment.
MTB never said they would operate the accounts with any particular
property, and one assumes that their bankish ganglia would twitch
in the normal banking direction. In contrast, e-gold has, from
memory of the contract, strong completion on transactions *.
Of course, in the context of the original post, one needs to
examine DigiGold in this light. I'll leave that to another post :)
> If physical cash, printed by Allen Greenspan, is acceptable to
> regulators, then there's no reason why its digital equivalent
> shouldn't also be acceptable.
Now you're being logical, that'll never work! You might be
able to convince Alan Greenspan (a close friend of Allen),
but remember there are 20 or so other agencies lining up to
talk to you...
iang
* yep, I'm watching for a response to that claim :)
--- end forwarded text
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
