[42596] in Cypherpunks
Re: ecash remailer
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Futplex)
Tue Oct 31 15:58:26 1995
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks Mailing List)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 14:40:21 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks Mailing List)
In-Reply-To: <199510311703.JAA14785@jobe.shell.portal.com> from "Hal" at Oct 31, 95 09:03:04 am
From: futplex@pseudonym.com (Futplex)
Hal writes:
[suggesting a problem with Ed the Currency Cleaner]
> What about this, though: Alice did not mean to pay Bob, but rather
> Charlie, and Bob stole the coins. He launders them through Ed's
> service. Charlie never got the cash, and Alice complains to the bank
> that the coins were stolen. The bank says, fine, we can identify the
> perpetrator, let's see... it's Ed. Ed is now charged with theft and
> has an expensive and uncertain legal experience ahead of him.
Jumping in hastily:
It seems to me that Ed faces a larger problem if the above scenario turns
out to be a viable attack. Consider the following sequence: Alice and
Charlie decide to get some (payee-anonymous) currency laundromat in hot
water. Alice (payer-anonymously) washes some coins at the laundromat.
Con-man Charlie claims he didn't get paid for some fictional transaction with
Alice. Alice complains to the bank, and the rest proceeds as before. The
Alice-frames-Ed situation is functionally equivalent to the Bob-robs-Charlie
situation from the bank's perspective.
-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>
