On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 08:59:25PM -1000, James A. Donald wrote: > The major obstacle is that the government would want a strong binding > between sim cards and true names, which is no more practical than a > strong binding between physical keys and true names.
I've a hard time believing that this is the major obstacle. We all use credit cards all the time -- apparently that's as good a "strong binding between [credit] cards and true names" and as the government needs. (If not then throw in cameras at many intersections and along freeways, add in license plate OCR, and you can tie things together easily enough. Wasn't that a worry in another recent thread here?) More likely there are other problems. First, there's a business model problem. Every one wants in: the cell phone manufacturer, the software developer, the network operators, and the banks. With everyone wanting a cut of every transaction done through cell phones the result would likely be too expensive to compete with credit cards, even after accounting for the cost of credit card fraud. Credit card fraud and online security, in any case, are pretty low on the list of banking troubles these past few weeks, and not without reason! Second, there's going to be standard issues. Third the nfc technology has to be commoditized. Fourth there's cost of doing an initial rollout of the POS nfc terminals and building momentum for the product. Once momentum is there you're done. And there's risk too -- if you fail you lose your investment. ... > Trouble is, what happens if the user's email account is stolen? Touble is: what happens if the user's cell phone is stolen? Nico -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
