On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:27:20 -0700, James A. Donald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Two problems:
Kinda... > 1. Instantaneous and complete transfer is irrevocable, thus > attractive to ten million phishing spammers, virus witers etc. Instantaneous and complete transfer of cash to a mugger, burglar, or other hoodlum is difficult to revoke, thus I watch my back when I go to a bank machine and limit my exposure by not transporting more anonymous value tokens than I need to > 2. Governments want everyone to keep records on everyone else, > and make those records available to the government, thus > discriminate against the more cashlike forms of internet money. Agreed. My habit of pulling a $20 out of the bank machine all the time looks... interesting. Really though, it's just a change-jar on speed: grab $20, spend $12 of it, throw the rest in my change jar. Repeat tomorrow. After a while the change jar looks pretty healthy... In a way it's self-laundered, mini-mixmastered money. There is no proof that this transaction here was the reason that drug dealer over there is X dollars richer and Y ounces lighter. > It is clear that the world needs a fully cashlike form of > internet money, that there is real demand for this, but the low > security of personal computers makes it insecure from thieves, > and the hostility of national governments make it insecure from > governments. Agreed. I would hope that users of "iCash" get fully educated on what that entails: that that blob of bits is just as much $20 as that green piece of paper or that big pile of quarters. And if someone gets it and spends it, you may as well have been mugged. People do eventually learn when it costs them something out of pocket. Now that they've learned that the white headphones mean "I'm a target with an iPod, mug me!" I see a lot of iPod users with boring old sony or koss headphones. Right now, insecurity doesn't cost the end-user enough. As soon as some virus comes along and wipes out some new york times columnist's savings, and he screams about it, then and only then will the slightest nonzero percentage of the sheeple pay attention for a bit. Hm... this is one of those liberty vs. security moments, isn't it? Risk of carrying value versus freedom to engage in private transactions acceptable to all the players. -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too?
