Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote: I used a VISA debit card to buy a $25,000 Ford Explorer. You mentioned this for the fourth time this month. It would be refreshing if you could name some other merchandise next time, maybe some non-redneck items ? Not redneck. A redneck would buy a pickup truck, a gun rack, and about six extra rims, for lawn decoration. Half of my relatives are rednecks, so I know these things. An Explorer is more a soccer mom purchase. If you want to bust on Tim, try to aim a little more accurately. -- Steve FurlongComputer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel Vote Idiotarian --- it's easier than thinking
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Nope, Usually credit card transactions are free for the payer Bullshit, they charge interest on the loans and such. You should read your credit card bills closer. Not sure if the rules are different over there then - after all, you add on extra charges to the ticket price when you reach the paypoint :) in the UK, almost all credit cards charge *no* interest at all on payments made with it provided you clear your balance when the bill comes in, and most charge no annual fee for usage either. A handling charge is applied if you use a cashpoint to withdraw money, but that is sensible as there there isn't a vendor to gouge :) The CC contract insists on no surcharge (to the customers) for CC payments ??? I guess the vendor who pays the fees to use credit cards just pulls the money out of thin air...not hardly. *shrug* I am not responsible for for your problems there. In my experience (limited to the uk, admittedly) card usage is free, and vendors are under a contractual obligation (and I know this because I have signed such a contract) to the CC swipe box supplier (the merchant account provider) not to add a surcharge for use of the card to pay; this leads to some strange situations, where companies will accept CCs to purchase goods, but will *not* accept them to pay bills. Mind you, if you wave a bundle of cash and mutter discount for cash payment? to a lot of companies, you can get a discount. but then, this is true *anyhow* particularly for payments over 100ukp to anything but the biggest of the high street names - and even then, usually a store manager has the discretionary power to apply discounts (usually booked as shop soiled (ie ex-display model) or manager's special promotion)
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Ken Brown wrote: Er, I hit send prematurely, and I meant to go on to say that I have often used 1 or 200 UKP in folding money - it is easy to do with universal availability of ATMs. If anything I use more cash than I did 15 years ago because it is so simple to get hold of. And saves the bother of waiting while they go online to validate the credit card if the latest series of Buffy on video exceeds the floor limit at the shop. Yes, that is because Bob's comments were originally biased to the American market. There, in the US (I don't know about Canada), compared to Europe and most other countries, the usage of the credit card is much higher, and ATMs are less used. The reason for this is the structure of the banking industry. In most countries, there are 3-4 huge national banks that dominate. Consequently, they drive banking, and they have powerful ATM networks that are national in scope. Also, they drive card usage more, and thus they don't advance the cause of the credit card any more than it suits them. In contrast, the US is one of the few countries with little national banking. There are something like 10,000 banks there, and there no national banks. Consequently, the glue that holds the system together is the credit card majors (amongst other things like the fed), and they drive much of the utilisation patterns. The US therefore has weaker ATM networks (compared with other countries). Whilst a lot of that ground has been caught up, it is the case that the CC majors own the two big networks (as Bob says). I use a debit card, one that draws against my bank current account the way a cheque does (probably check to you). It's the same card that is used as a cheque card. Lots of purchases over $100. I've bought a miniature video camera with it, maybe 1500 dollars US. Debit cards I think are relatively new development in the US, as they bypass the CC companies' interests. They have been strong in the rest of the world for a longer time. For that reason, there is a whole host of charges as they go through the different institutions, including the CC networks, which you won't find so strong elsewhere. Still involves merchant charges of course. As far as they are concerned it is no different from a credit card. The cashier at the till probably doesn't even know the difference (after all it says Visa on it). (PS: I could be wrong about the details above, I haven't checked any of them, but I think I have the big picture down.) -- iang
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
--- begin forwarded text Status: U User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/10.0.0.1331 Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 10:21:01 +0200 Subject: Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys From: David G.W. Birch [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Bob Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED], Digital Bearer Settlement List [EMAIL PROTECTED] R. A. Hettinga e-said: What the hell does *live* mean? There are quite a few folks on this planet who 'sell' nothing. They grow their own food, they build their own house. Any many of them live well into their thirties. Regards, Dave Birch. -- == My own opinion (I think!) given solely in my capacity as an == interested member of the general public == mail(at)davebirches.org, http://www.davebirch.org/ --- end forwarded text -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
R. A. Hettinga wrote: The reason we have ready availability of credit in the first place is because consumer debt is the most profitable business in the United States. I really wonder what component of this market is actually payment driven. After all, to easily buy *anything* over, say, $100 right now, you have to borrow money, use a credit card, to do it. ? I use a debit card, one that draws against my bank current account the way a cheque does (probably check to you). It's the same card that is used as a cheque card. Lots of purchases over $100. I've bought a miniature video camera with it, maybe 1500 dollars US. Still involves merchant charges of course. As far as they are concerned it is no different from a credit card. The cashier at the till probably doesn't even know the difference (after all it says Visa on it).
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sat, May 11, 2002 at 08:23:39PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: | On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 09:20:32PM -0400, Steve Furlong wrote: | And most of the sheeple _like_ it. They'd rather be safe than free. For | every complaint I've heard about having to reassure the bank that the | card wasn't stolen, I've heard a couple dozen praises for the wonderful | safe system that takes care of its members. | | I'm a bit late here, but let me rise to the defense of profiling of this | sort. The reason we have interest rates on credit cards which are not | far higher than they are now and have ready availability of credit in the | first place (not to mention credit cards being accepted nearly everywhere) | is anti-fraud measures like automated profiling. In other words, it's | something that benefits the consumer by keeping costs down. | This analysis, of course, ignores that some of the push toward record | keeping on the part of businesses comes not just from market pressure, | but political pressure. USA PATRIOT expands dramatically police access | to credit card databases. And if Visa/MC/AMEX don't comply, perhaps | the tax code might be adjusted in a certain harmful way, or perhaps | they'll be accused of harboring terrorists, or perhaps the feds will | stop using their cards for purchases... You're also ignoring that the record keeping is dependant on government issued identifiers, which make cross correlation of records possible, and the failure of the government to protect those identifiers. Thats exactly the same underlying enabling technology that's led to identity theft. Adam -- It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -Hume
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sun, May 12, 2002 at 10:18:41AM -0400, Sandy Harris wrote: | Morlock Elloi wrote: | | Mental constructs like this one, complicated schemes that require knowledge of | modular aritmetic to understand, is why this will not happen. | | Whatever aspires to replace paper cash for purposes where paper cash is a must | (in real life, conferences don't count) has to be as simple to understand, | verify and manipulate as paper cash itself. | | Flipping bits in the gates or on the wire is not that - unless Joe the Hitman | or Gordon the Dealer or Jeff the Cleaner can well understand it and in addition | to that have implementor's balls within reach if something goes wrong. | | Why do you imagine that? | | Those guys don't understand the technologies behind paper money -- engraving, | paper making, holography, ... -- or behind bank accounts and ATM machines, | and they likely don't have credible threats against the mint or the banks. | | There is a chicken-and-egg problem. Joe, Gord and Jeff will happily use | any system that is widespread enough to be credible, but how does some | system get there? That probably requires that early adopters understand | things and believe they have recourse against botching implementers. It also requires that the early adopters can convince merchants and banks to jump into a system from which they get none of the benefits which motivate Alice and Bob and me to adopt ecash. I want ecash for privacy; why do the merchant and bank want it? That financial instruments are an N2 party problem, unlike, say fax machines or email, make it that much harder. Adam -- It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -Hume
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
At 1:01 PM +0100 on 5/13/02, Ken Brown wrote: I really wonder what component of this market is actually payment driven. After all, to easily buy *anything* over, say, $100 right now, you have to borrow money, use a credit card, to do it. ? I use a debit card, one that draws against my bank current account the way a cheque does (probably check to you). It's the same card that is used as a cheque card. Lots of purchases over $100. I've bought a miniature video camera with it, maybe 1500 dollars US. Still involves merchant charges of course. As far as they are concerned it is no different from a credit card. The cashier at the till probably doesn't even know the difference (after all it says Visa on it). Yes, you're right. I was paying no attention to the man behind the curtain and forgot about debit cards, which, for the most part, are the same as credit cards as far as the merchant is concerned. BTW, while Link, in the UK isn't, the two largest ATM networks in the US, Cirrus and PLUS, are owned by MasterCard and Visa, respectively, and, yes, merchants still pay transaction fees for the use of those, plus the added cost of debit card network access over what's necessary to do a plain credit card transaction. Banks also pay origination fees to the merchant's bank, just as they would to a third-party ATM cash withdrawal. The better thing about debit cards, however, is repudiation risk. That is, you wait up to 90 days for a credit card to clear and settle (customer may protest a bill, and it's the merchant's responsibility to prove himself innocent :-)), and debit cards have a shorter window for that to happen, and usually only by not having money in the target account. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sun, 12 May 2002, Ian Grigg wrote: The problem with paying for anything over $100 is having the money with you at that time. Most such purchases are not 'off the cuff'. They are planned. Most purchases are done at some random future time, Bullshit, most folks plan their future purchases, especially if it isn't something like rent or food. Things like new TV's are -not- 'random' purchases (whatever the hell that might mean). and without a credit payment, it would be necessary to take huge amounts of cash with you at all times. Bull. Most folks will get by with about $50/day for about 350-360 (birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, vacation, etc.) days of the year. A credit token allows you to bring the stored wealth with you; No it doesn't. A credit card in and of itself gives you access to somebody elses money. You have to pay them back with your own (preferably w/o a credit card - funny that, no?). but it's not the only way. Right, Certified Checks have been around for quite a while. credit and accrued wealth. You could flip out your palmtop, access your stored stocks in MicroHard, flip it in the market and pay with straight now cash. Well you've got the right idea, though it needs work. It also demonstrates the problems with Hettinga's 'digital bearer bonds'. What -will- replace credit cards and checks and other stuff is a better network and a protocol that will allow one person to -directly- transfer funds from their bank to the buyers bank -with- a proviso for rollback within a particular period. A form of escrow. What -will- make the system stable, trustworthy, and ubiquitous is the fact that there -are- parties other than buyer and seller involved (the major flaw with Hettinga's theory) to wnsure fair dispute resolution. -- The law is applied philosophy and a philosphical system is only as valid as its first principles. James Patrick Kelly - Wildlife [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.open-forge.org
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sun, 12 May 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Huge numbers of people use modular arithmetic to secure their credit card numbers, their transactions with overseas banks in tax havens, their transfers of e-gold. They do not to understand modular arithmetic. They just understand that third parties cannot listen in, and that the site they communicate with cannot be spoofed. Again, bull. Jeesh, you should go into the manure business. You'd be rich in no time. These poeple do -not- use modular arithmetic. The machines and the software they run does. They put a card in (maybe) and enter a number or two and then wallah, it happens like (Clarkian) magic. Further, if they believe these systems are foolproof then they're mistaken. They are -hard- to crack, not impossible. -- The law is applied philosophy and a philosphical system is only as valid as its first principles. James Patrick Kelly - Wildlife [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.open-forge.org
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sun, 12 May 2002, R. A. Hettinga wrote: Think about what you just said, there. Don't you realize that 1:M *always* starts 1:1? It's the same kind of evil-bourgeois-businessman hierarchical command-economy argument that aristocrats and peasants throw around. It's amazing how this kind of non-market mentality pervades even the most supposedly anarchist circles. More to the point, you don't *live* unless you're selling something, What the hell does *live* mean? There are quite a few folks on this planet who 'sell' nothing. They grow their own food, they build their own house. They do favors for their neighbors in return for favors. It's not even commerce in the barter sense of the word. I've got a friend who just came back from Africa (she got Cerebral Malaria and they cut short her tour) and from what she says 'money' is pretty useless there. No stores, no electricity, no telephones, no air conditioning. No medical (it was a three hour drive by Jeep to get her to a airstrip where they could get her to a hotel - all paid with US tax dollars - not one African whatever they use). Everybody on the planet doesn't live in Ctl. LA. And Americans wonder why the rest of the world would like to flush most of us down the toiletself-absorbed hubris. -- The law is applied philosophy and a philosphical system is only as valid as its first principles. James Patrick Kelly - Wildlife [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.open-forge.org
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sat, 11 May 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another interesting application is controlled traceability -- Andy wants to be able to prove he paid Betty, but he does not want third parties to be able to prove he paid Betty. Who is Andy going to 'prove' it to then, other than Betty? And Betty already knows (assuming no accident or such). Nobody that's who, because Andy doesn't want 3rd parties involved. 'Proof' is -only- useful if there is a 3rd party involved who has some authority or 'actionable ability' to enforce what -should- have happened; otherwise there is no reason to 'prove' anything. Pointless exercise that. -- The law is applied philosophy and a philosphical system is only as valid as its first principles. James Patrick Kelly - Wildlife [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.open-forge.org
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 6:55 PM -0700 on 5/11/02, Morlock Elloi wrote: Also let's not forget that person A givin person B cash is zero-cost untraceable transaction. Oh, but it's not. Try to carry around a good merchant's daily receipts in cash every day, see how much you end up paying for guys in armored cars instead. Credit cards are the cheapest way to get paid anything over, say, $1000 a day, and you probably couldn't be in business these days unless you're grossing $10k a day. That's why transaction costs are so important. They not only reduce merchant cost, but they also reduce firm *size*. That's Coase's theorem, the fundamental theorem of microeconomics. If we really could reduce risk-adjusted transaction cost by, say, three orders of magnitude or more over a credit card by using anonymous instantaneously-settling internet transactions, then, frankly, we would eventually reduce firm size to the device level. *That* would be cool... Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 7.5 iQA/AwUBPN3/8MPxH8jf3ohaEQLEOACgpykd302Usxcqpnt/rkqM6g8T5oEAn0Ey kADSPWXv9cTzqjZRY7ah7akQ =PevE -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Another interesting application is controlled traceability -- Andy wants to be able to prove he paid Betty, but he does not want third parties to be able to prove he paid Betty. Mental constructs like this one, complicated schemes that require knowledge of modular aritmetic to understand, is why this will not happen. Whatever aspires to replace paper cash for purposes where paper cash is a must (in real life, conferences don't count) has to be as simple to understand, verify and manipulate as paper cash itself. Flipping bits in the gates or on the wire is not that - unless Joe the Hitman or Gordon the Dealer or Jeff the Cleaner can well understand it and in addition to that have implementor's balls within reach if something goes wrong. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 6:03 PM -0700 on 5/11/02, Eric Cordian wrote: The reason we have ready availability of credit in the first place is because consumer debt is the most profitable business in the United States. I really wonder what component of this market is actually payment driven. After all, to easily buy *anything* over, say, $100 right now, you have to borrow money, use a credit card, to do it. If it were actually cheaper -- and safer -- to use some form of internet financial cryptography protocol like blind signatures, I wonder how much of that consumer debt market would go away. Not all of it, obviously, but I do wonder about how much of that number is purely consumer debt and not just payment finance, for lack of a better term Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 7.5 iQA/AwUBPN4DHsPxH8jf3ohaEQIgHQCg8Q2q2aq9wv3Fp7U2RuDUUyA5tL0An1UE g5B8hYmEnr1yy2Qg8R31s8Lu =mXMI -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 8:47 PM -0700 on 5/11/02, Morlock Elloi wrote: Flipping bits in the gates or on the wire is not that - unless Joe the Hitman or Gordon the Dealer or Jeff the Cleaner can well understand it and in addition to that have implementor's balls within reach if something goes wrong. People don't actually have to understand it as long as they get paid, of course. People who are getting paid want to get paid as cheaply as possible, ceterus parabus, and so any payment mechanism's customers are *not* the people paying for things, it's the people getting paid them. Finally, in the case of a bearer cash product it is the *underwriter* whose balls are in a vice, and nobody else, and that's as simple prospect to arrange, as long as there's money to be made putting them there. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 7.5 iQA/AwUBPN4D1cPxH8jf3ohaEQLShwCgpBpcK6bmokg3nGtfllIKRm54+lUAn1F0 4GfbI2/YSoe0dxXzfBKEOP+8 =9lMG -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-- On 11 May 2002 at 18:55, Morlock Elloi wrote: Also let's not forget that person A givin person B cash is zero-cost untraceable transaction. Sometimes, for example internet pornography, it is hard for Andy to give Betty cash. Another interesting application is controlled traceability -- Andy wants to be able to prove he paid Betty, but he does not want third parties to be able to prove he paid Betty. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG SRZe+Gjd44SoTKRjrkJlG1JbX1KRwSNcRHl3Tl1G 4MRVZHLC35JgxbK730FzSApTyrAgMEfN6YrKBfzf5
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 8:31 PM -0700 on 5/11/02, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another interesting application is controlled traceability -- Andy wants to be able to prove he paid Betty, but he does not want third parties to be able to prove he paid Betty. One of the weird things that occurred to us when we were plinking around at CREST was the fact that you could pay stamp duty on a stock trade in cash and prove that the trade happened, but not *who* executed it. You just keep streaming cash at the FSA, and, in theory (riiight...) everything's okay. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 7.5 iQA/AwUBPN4DX8PxH8jf3ohaEQKTUgCg67lxO2FhLuicfNW+4FB9y7pRk5AAn3Gu swa4NzBWch1d34tSWp9mHBpn =A2i4 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
People don't actually have to understand it as long as they get paid, of course. People who are getting paid want to get paid as cheaply as possible, ceterus parabus, and so any payment mechanism's At which point do you fail to understand that people who *need* anon, untraceable transactions and use paper cash these days (not checks, not money orders, not wire transfers) would not touch a networked computer-like thingie with a 10' pole ? The value-bearing vehicle has to be 100% comprenhensible and verifiable by the end user in these cases, not by some faraway programer and a web of hype, I mean trust. Or the end user does not need cash in the first place. This is the prime reason why digital cash didn't happen - users don't really care to replace *one* middlemen (government with a printing press and shitloads of armed men protecting the reputation of cash) with another *few*. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Sun, 12 May 2002, R. A. Hettinga wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 8:31 PM -0700 on 5/11/02, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another interesting application is controlled traceability -- Andy wants to be able to prove he paid Betty, but he does not want third parties to be able to prove he paid Betty. One of the weird things that occurred to us when we were plinking around at CREST was the fact that you could pay stamp duty on a stock trade in cash and prove that the trade happened, but not *who* executed it. You just keep streaming cash at the FSA, and, in theory (riiight...) everything's okay. Interesting but not equitable examples. In the first Andy and Betty know each other, and there are no 3rd parties involved. In the second Andy doesn't know Betty, or how many parties are involved. -- The law is applied philosophy and a philosphical system is only as valid as its first principles. James Patrick Kelly - Wildlife [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.open-forge.org
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
R. A. Hettinga wrote: At 6:03 PM -0700 on 5/11/02, Eric Cordian wrote: The reason we have ready availability of credit in the first place is because consumer debt is the most profitable business in the United States. What are the margins on consumer debt? Isn't it all securitized, thus efficient? I really wonder what component of this market is actually payment driven. After all, to easily buy *anything* over, say, $100 right now, you have to borrow money, use a credit card, to do it. Well, all of it, if you are talking about costs of doing the payment. The problem with paying for anything over $100 is having the money with you at that time. Most purchases are done at some random future time, and without a credit payment, it would be necessary to take huge amounts of cash with you at all times. This results in costs: forgone interest on ones wealth, risk of seizure, and the mere cost of having to wear clothing with big pockets. A credit token allows you to bring the stored wealth with you; but it's not the only way. If there was pervasive FC, then you would have choice between credit and accrued wealth. You could flip out your palmtop, access your stored stocks in MicroHard, flip it in the market and pay with straight now cash. Or you could chose credit. But one could imagine that if you can access your real wealth straight away then a lot of rational people with palmtops with financial modelling on them would calculate the effective price of the two choices (credid v. now-cash flipped from stored wealth t+3) quickly enough to show you that paying with cash was optimal in far more circumstances. If it were actually cheaper -- and safer -- to use some form of internet financial cryptography protocol like blind signatures, I wonder how much of that consumer debt market would go away. Not all of it, obviously, but I do wonder about how much of that number is purely consumer debt and not just payment finance, for lack of a better term Rational individuals pay with cash when they can. They stop paying with cash when they run out, as the cost of cash rises rapidly with volume. CC vendors exploit this by offering free credit for a month, thus making one perceive that there is no benefit to using credit, and then, it wins hands down over cash. Providing access to stored wealth in t+3 would redress the balance and provide for a more optimal solution. OTOH, rational companies pay with debt when they can. So it's not as if the world will lose the credit industry just because FC provides us with now-cash. And, I suspect people acting as corporate actors would treat their credit requirements as delivering cash and adding to their total credit equation, as the spectrum between credit and wealth becomes efficient. That is, they might pay with credit, but the credit is provided in cash, and then passed on to the merchant, so the credit provider is unlinked from the purchase. PS: t+3 means trade settlement in 3 seconds. -- iang
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 1:31 AM -0700 on 5/12/02, Morlock Elloi wrote: People don't actually have to understand it as long as they get paid, of course. People who are getting paid want to get paid as cheaply as possible, ceterus parabus, and so any payment mechanism's At which point do you fail to understand that people who *need* anon, untraceable transactions and use paper cash these days (not checks, not money orders, not wire transfers) would not touch a networked computer-like thingie with a 10' pole ? Their loss, I suppose. I frankly don't give a tinker's damn about what a bunch of erst-feudal atavists want. Sooner or later, if it's cheap enough to use, *everyone* will use a given technology, or go live in a cave by choice -- until their kids want a better life. You might want to be a natural man, but I sure don't, and, frankly, neither do most people who are born natural. The value-bearing vehicle has to be 100% comprenhensible and verifiable by the end user in these cases, not by some faraway programer and a web of hype, I mean trust. Or the end user does not need cash in the first place. I think we've just agreed here and you don't know it. That's a shame, really. I said that if people get what they want, cheap transactions, they don't care how it works. I bet, for instance, you have no idea how to use intaglio printing (and fractional reserve finance, for that matter) to make a banknote, and could care less. You have no idea how to mine gold, if you want to go farther back than that. You just care that people want to get paid in gold, so you convert whatever you have too much of into gold and use the gold to buy things. This is the prime reason why digital cash didn't happen - users don't really care to replace *one* middlemen (government with a printing press and shitloads of armed men protecting the reputation of cash) with another *few*. Actually, we're talking about a micro-intermediated market with *lots* of intermediaries, just a single intermediary in every transaction. We're talking about Moore's Law and strong cryptography driving profit and loss down to the device level, right? When you talk like you've been doing, you really do sound about as neo-scholastic as some PoMo french philosopher, you know. Think about what you're saying, here, instead of trying to storm the Bastille in some frothing fit of almost luddite egalitarianism. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 7.5 iQA/AwUBPN6ovsPxH8jf3ohaEQKK6gCg3PKVlgkSdHF5U/GGZHphn0qlVOEAnAxN SHtGjj2BUJAlmY+mZagn4kDi =Avrp -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 1:19 AM -0700 on 5/12/02, Morlock Elloi wrote: Oh, but it's not. Try to carry around a good merchant's daily receipts in cash every day, see how much you end up paying for guys in armored cars instead. Wrong analogy. I don't care about 1:M (merchants), they are visible and therefore do not need cash in the first place. The issue here is 1:1. Think about what you just said, there. Don't you realize that 1:M *always* starts 1:1? It's the same kind of evil-bourgeois-businessman hierarchical command-economy argument that aristocrats and peasants throw around. It's amazing how this kind of non-market mentality pervades even the most supposedly anarchist circles. More to the point, you don't *live* unless you're selling something, and the more you sell, the better you live. Thus, the seller's transaction cost, 1:1, or 1:M, or whatever, is all that matters. All Ms start out as 1s, in other words. That was Coase's point, by the way. Transaction cost is everything. You control the lowest transaction cost, and you dictate what happens. If anonymous payments are cheaper, for the seller of a given good or service, and there's reason to believe this, we'll have anonymous payments, sooner or later. If we really could reduce risk-adjusted transaction cost by, say, three orders of magnitude or more over a credit card by using Multitudes of mail servers are having dejavu ... Doesn't make it any less true. I do admit to being a bit blue in the face for repeating myself to various invincible idiots all the time, though. :-). Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 7.5 iQA/AwUBPN6kFcPxH8jf3ohaEQLbawCgkKRNhW1VwwqwUDZTff2Q4epSNvAAn3R8 KfdL2fr4vmj6NbOVMgSzYNSP =Tnwc -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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'
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Their loss, I suppose. I frankly don't give a tinker's damn about what a bunch of erst-feudal atavists want. Sooner or later, if it's cheap enough to use, *everyone* will use a given technology, or go live in a cave by choice -- until their kids want a better life. You You're just being (understandably) selectively dumb (and I won't even enter into your dellusions about Unavoidable Trend of Life Becoming Zillion of Transactions and Everyone Being a Street Micro-Peddler or Reurning to Caves thingie - that needs to be handled in synergy with medications.) There are many different costs. As importance of the transaction rises so the adequate security perimeter shrinks. You want your value carrier insulated from other's eyes and influences. Paper cash is next to impossible to be invalidated at will, and gold is impossible to invalidate (yes, I've seen Dr. No). It is self-contained (at least temporary for paper cash). Many people today that have reserves keep them as cash under various juristictions (harder and harder), as real estate in various juristictions and as precious stuff - gold and similar, which is generally immune to juristiction. Maybe we need to separate two issues here - (1) currency for the sheeple, always at mercy of the big guys, but should be made low-transaction-cost as much as possible, and (b) cash. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Jim Choate [EMAIL PROTECTED] gave us the benefit of the following opinion: It makes no sense to talk about 'cheapness of payment' from the recipients view. It costs them nothing to get paid (outside of whatever service or labor was involved in the exchange). You have your cognates reversed (ie payer v payee). Nope, Usually credit card transactions are free for the payer (provided they pay their bill at the end of the month) while a percentage of that money is lost if you are the payee to the credit card company (if it were a flat fee for the service, it could be a business expense; as it is, it is a cost of handling the payment). The CC contract insists on no surcharge (to the customers) for CC payments for the very good reason that most businesses would want to pass that handling fee onto the customer, and the CC company's business model wouldnt' survive that happening.
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 09:20:32PM -0400, Steve Furlong wrote: And most of the sheeple _like_ it. They'd rather be safe than free. For every complaint I've heard about having to reassure the bank that the card wasn't stolen, I've heard a couple dozen praises for the wonderful safe system that takes care of its members. I'm a bit late here, but let me rise to the defense of profiling of this sort. The reason we have interest rates on credit cards which are not far higher than they are now and have ready availability of credit in the first place (not to mention credit cards being accepted nearly everywhere) is anti-fraud measures like automated profiling. In other words, it's something that benefits the consumer by keeping costs down. Yes, it can go too far and be intrusive. This would seem to be a place where the market could respond if people care sufficiently; perhaps my credit union-issued card would not flag purchases unless they were over $5,000 or so. Or perhaps someone who cares enough to avoid the hassles would pay in cash or check. This analysis, of course, ignores that some of the push toward record keeping on the part of businesses comes not just from market pressure, but political pressure. USA PATRIOT expands dramatically police access to credit card databases. And if Visa/MC/AMEX don't comply, perhaps the tax code might be adjusted in a certain harmful way, or perhaps they'll be accused of harboring terrorists, or perhaps the feds will stop using their cards for purchases... -Declan
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Daniel J. Boone wrote: Don't forget, they arrested the guy who bought a truckload of candy at Costco just before Halloween If you're talking about the New Jersey man, he was (a) not Arabic (b) not a terrorist and (c) a candy wholesaler. He just wanted to turn a profit by making little kiddies fat. I suppose the backers of the current fatty food tax would like to let him rot, but the FBI didn't see a case. I never did hear if they let him out or if he is still rotting in preventive detention Cavity preventive dentition, perhaps. -- Steve FurlongComputer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
Tim May wrote: On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 12:55 PM, Michael Motyka wrote: His credit card usage sometimes flips the stolen card bit But you make a good point, that the net to snare bad guys is snaring vastly more ordinary people. And most of the sheeple _like_ it. They'd rather be safe than free. For every complaint I've heard about having to reassure the bank that the card wasn't stolen, I've heard a couple dozen praises for the wonderful safe system that takes care of its members. -- Steve FurlongComputer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 02:29 PM, Daniel J. Boone wrote: From: Michael Motyka [EMAIL PROTECTED] I remember that in the weeks post 9-11 Safeway or one of the other grocery store chains offered to profile customers. What are they going to do? Question everyone who buys olive oil, chick peas, garlic and sesame paste? Don't forget, they arrested the guy who bought a truckload of candy at Costco just before Halloween I never did hear if they let him out or if he is still rotting in preventive detention The First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments were suspended for security reasons, so why not the Sixth? --Tim May
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
As a simple illustration of the inability to separate the Good Guys from the Bad Guys I use my experiences with my Visa card company. I use the damn thing to buy gas a few times a week and every so often I'll use it for a big ticket item like a PC or a Spa for example. At which time I generally have to spend 20 minutes on the phone with the numbnutz at the credit company explaining that despite the fact that their SW tells them I behave like a credit card thief ( testing the card at the relatively low-risk gas pump then buying a laptop ) I really am the customer, the card is in my posession and I really do want to use it. I usually get a warning about my language at which point I am allowed the priveledge of speaking with some sort of manager. Maybe I am a bad guy since I curse and almost never carry a credit card balance. Very unpatriotic. I remember that in the weeks post 9-11 Safeway or one of the other grocery store chains offered to profile customers. What are they going to do? Question everyone who buys olive oil, chick peas, garlic and sesame paste? The whole surveillance thing is bound to proceed at breakneck speed and bound also to be a useless waste of effort. The next terrorist event will probably be something quite unexpected and not easily detected. Oh well, it makes a good discussion topic and a good freak show ( on the TV news I mean, not here, no freaks here ). Mike
Bad guys vs. Good guys
Note: I wrote the following item to Dave Molnar, as part of our off-line conversation. I ended up summing-up a bunch of points I wanted to put out to the list, and Dave has given me permission to include his remarks. A few places refer to you...this is why. On Monday, April 29, 2002, at 09:06 AM, David A Molnar wrote: On Mon, 29 Apr 2002, Tim May wrote: to Help the Cause. I pointed out to him the Big Brotherish trends and how his data mining software would be more likely to be used to track dissidents than it would be to stop an Arab from hijacking a plane. Yes, this was what disturbed me a bit at the workshop. Privacy issues were discussed, but most of the time it seemed like lip service. No one brought up the issue of oversight, control, and explanation of the new methods we'd all develop. Not to mention that the problems we were supposed to solve started out vague and stayed pretty vague. [Note: this is a discussion about data mining, the subject of a couple of recent workshops and conferences, post 911. I was referring to a friend of mine who runs a very successful data mining operation, in the hedge fund business, and how he wants to apply his expertise to help the anti-terrorism battle.] The deep error which has been with us for a long time is the assumption that we can create legal systems or surveillance systems which go after bad guys but not good guys. That is, that we can separate bad guys like Mohammed Atta from good guys, all in advance of actual criminal or terrorist acts. Your later point about how the creators of these data mining systems want protections which prevent systems from going too far, from extracting too much information, from compiling too many dossier entries...this is just one of many examples. (Others being: restrictions on cash and crypto and many other things, surveillance cameras, etc.) The talk of safeguards misses the important error. The error is that any system usable by John Q. Public to protect his privacy is usable by Mohammed Atta to protect HIS privacy, absent some way to classify John Q. Public and Mohammed Atta into two different classes. Such a system was not in place on Sept 10th, and it is unlikely to ever be in place. (The upcoming film Minority Report is just the latest treatment of this theme: can criminals be classified in advance of their crimes? Phrenologists used to measure head shape, now we have personality inventory tests in grade school, trying to separate out the future psychopaths and thought criminals from the rest of the herd.) Given that such a classifier (in topos terms, a subobject classifier) does not exist at present, the only solution is then to ban all forms of cash, for example. Or place surveillance cameras in all public places. Or to set up comprehensive national dossier systems. And the safeguards in data mining will of course be either subverted or ignored, as any safeguard which protects John Q. Public wll, perforce, protect future Columbine killers, future Charles Mansons, and future Mohammed Attas. The radical view many of us espouse is actually the one envisaged by the Founders: protection from government is more important than catching a few criminals in advance of their crimes. (Probably a more elegant, universal way of phrasing this...) Yes, some people who use digital cash will be bad guys. Yes, some people who use remailers will be child porn sellers. Yes, etc. [Note: the following is more speculative, meant as a comment to Dave, a math major. When I outline my full proposal on how category theory and topos theory apply to our kind of issues, I'll lay out the arguments in much more detail.] The topos connection is very real, in terms of outlook shift. If someone says Is Person X a criminal or not a criminal?, this is not meaningful in terms of future actions. It is only meaningful in terms of a *constructive* proof: has this person already *committed* a crime? If a crime can be demonstrated and the right causal links established, the person has been proved to have committed a crime. This is of course the intuitionist (in Brouwer's sense) position (which I am now realizing I support, and that others should support, and that it in fact matches reality in many important ways). ---Digression on Intuitionism--- Intuitionism is defined at length in online sources, e.g., Mathworld. It has nothing to do with mysticism or irrationality. Rather, it's an alternative to conventional 20th century logic. In the intuitionist view, infinity is not used and the law of the excluded middle is not used. This has implications for the Axiom of Choice and its equivalent forms. Radical when Brouwer first proposed it nearly a century ago, but used extensively in the 1960s. Closely related to time-varying sets, where set membership is a function of time, naturally enough. (John is now a member of the set of civilians, but tomorrow he becomes a member of the set of
Re: Bad guys vs. Good guys
On 29 Apr 2002 at 12:29, Tim May wrote: The deep error which has been with us for a long time is the assumption that we can create legal systems or surveillance systems which go after bad guys but not good guys. That is, that we can separate bad guys like Mohammed Atta from good guys, all in advance of actual criminal or terrorist acts. ... What people want to know is Will Person X commit a crime in the future? (And hence we should deny him access to strong crypto _now_, for example, which is the whole point of attempting to surveil, restrict, and use data mining to ferret out bad trends.) Even the strongest believer in the law of the excluded middle would not argue that the Will Person X commit a crime in the future? has a Yes or No answer at the _present_ time. (Well, actually, I suppose some folks _would_. They would say I personally don't know if he will, but in 50 years he either will have committed a crime or he will not have committed a crime.) I think, though, that it wouldn't be too hard to find a bunch of people that agree that Person X is a hell of a lot more likely to commit a crime than Person Y. The point of this data mining, I gather, is not to actually predict individual crimes (which is probably impossible even in principle and definitely impossible in practice) but rather to devide the populace into sheeple who only need occasional monitioring to ensure that they continue to fit the sheeple profile and potential future criminals who would be subject to more extensive monitoring. The problem with selling a system like this to the public is how to convince them that the system won't be branding as future criminals people who have not committed a crime and quite likely never will based on such things as what restaurants they eat at or what books they read, when in fact that is precisely what the system is designed to do. Can we Identify the Bad Guys? Getting back to law enforcement attempting to predict the future, the lack of any meaningful way to predict who will be a future Mohammed Atta or Charles Manson, and who thus should be restricted in his civil liberties, is the important point. Could any amount of data mining have identified Mohammed Atta and his two dozen or so co-conspirators? Sure, *now* we know that an indicator is Unemployed Arab taking flying lessons, but we surely did not know this prior to 9/11. Finding correlations (took flying lessons, showed interest in chemical engineering, partied at a strip club) is not hard. But not very useful. I think the LEOs and sheeple would be willing to accept the general rule that anyone who has lots of money to spend yet has no declared legitimate source of income is probably some kind of criminal. With a sufficiently broad definition of criminal. the reasoning is actually pretty good. To the law enforcement world, this means _everyone_ must be tracked and surveilled, dossiers compiled. No doubt. All of the talk about safeguards in the data mining is just talk. Any safeguard sufficient to give John Q. Public protection will give Mohammed Atta protection...because operationally they are identical persons: there is no subobject classifier which can distinguish them! By saying Mohammed Atta is indistinguishable from other Arab men who generally fit the same criteria...assuming we don't know in *advance* that Unemployed Arab taking flying lessons is an important subobject classifier. I think the kind of abuses that they're trying to safeguard against are things like an IRS agent triggering an audit on a neighbor in retalliation for playing the stereo too loud. As opposed to auditing someone because playing music too loud is part of the tax evader profile, which would be completely proper. I hope the distinction is clear. Indeed, the major changes in ground truth (what is actually seen on the ground, as in a battle) have come from technology. It was the invention and sale of the Xerox machine and VCR that altered legal ideas about copyright and fair use, not a bunch of lawyers pontificating. In both cases, the ground truth had already shifted, in a kind of knowledgequake, and the Supremes had only two choices: accept the new reality by arguing about fair use and time-shifting, or declare such machines contraband and authorize the use of storm troopers to collect the millions of copiers and VCRs aleady sold. They chose the first option. It might be amusing to speculate as to what the result would have been had they attempted to choose the second option. Or maybe not. Precisely! This is why the talk fo how the Cypherpunks list (and similar lists) should not be political is so wrong-headed: without a political compass, where would we head? I think this comes from different meanings of the word political. To most people, this means lobbying legislators or fighting court cases, maybe even carrying big signs at
Bad guys vs. Good guys
Note: I wrote the following item to Dave Molnar, as part of our off-line conversation. I ended up summing-up a bunch of points I wanted to put out to the list, and Dave has given me permission to include his remarks. A few places refer to you...this is why. On Monday, April 29, 2002, at 09:06 AM, David A Molnar wrote: On Mon, 29 Apr 2002, Tim May wrote: to Help the Cause. I pointed out to him the Big Brotherish trends and how his data mining software would be more likely to be used to track dissidents than it would be to stop an Arab from hijacking a plane. Yes, this was what disturbed me a bit at the workshop. Privacy issues were discussed, but most of the time it seemed like lip service. No one brought up the issue of oversight, control, and explanation of the new methods we'd all develop. Not to mention that the problems we were supposed to solve started out vague and stayed pretty vague. [Note: this is a discussion about data mining, the subject of a couple of recent workshops and conferences, post 911. I was referring to a friend of mine who runs a very successful data mining operation, in the hedge fund business, and how he wants to apply his expertise to help the anti-terrorism battle.] The deep error which has been with us for a long time is the assumption that we can create legal systems or surveillance systems which go after bad guys but not good guys. That is, that we can separate bad guys like Mohammed Atta from good guys, all in advance of actual criminal or terrorist acts. Your later point about how the creators of these data mining systems want protections which prevent systems from going too far, from extracting too much information, from compiling too many dossier entries...this is just one of many examples. (Others being: restrictions on cash and crypto and many other things, surveillance cameras, etc.) The talk of safeguards misses the important error. The error is that any system usable by John Q. Public to protect his privacy is usable by Mohammed Atta to protect HIS privacy, absent some way to classify John Q. Public and Mohammed Atta into two different classes. Such a system was not in place on Sept 10th, and it is unlikely to ever be in place. (The upcoming film Minority Report is just the latest treatment of this theme: can criminals be classified in advance of their crimes? Phrenologists used to measure head shape, now we have personality inventory tests in grade school, trying to separate out the future psychopaths and thought criminals from the rest of the herd.) Given that such a classifier (in topos terms, a subobject classifier) does not exist at present, the only solution is then to ban all forms of cash, for example. Or place surveillance cameras in all public places. Or to set up comprehensive national dossier systems. And the safeguards in data mining will of course be either subverted or ignored, as any safeguard which protects John Q. Public wll, perforce, protect future Columbine killers, future Charles Mansons, and future Mohammed Attas. The radical view many of us espouse is actually the one envisaged by the Founders: protection from government is more important than catching a few criminals in advance of their crimes. (Probably a more elegant, universal way of phrasing this...) Yes, some people who use digital cash will be bad guys. Yes, some people who use remailers will be child porn sellers. Yes, etc. [Note: the following is more speculative, meant as a comment to Dave, a math major. When I outline my full proposal on how category theory and topos theory apply to our kind of issues, I'll lay out the arguments in much more detail.] The topos connection is very real, in terms of outlook shift. If someone says Is Person X a criminal or not a criminal?, this is not meaningful in terms of future actions. It is only meaningful in terms of a *constructive* proof: has this person already *committed* a crime? If a crime can be demonstrated and the right causal links established, the person has been proved to have committed a crime. This is of course the intuitionist (in Brouwer's sense) position (which I am now realizing I support, and that others should support, and that it in fact matches reality in many important ways). ---Digression on Intuitionism--- Intuitionism is defined at length in online sources, e.g., Mathworld. It has nothing to do with mysticism or irrationality. Rather, it's an alternative to conventional 20th century logic. In the intuitionist view, infinity is not used and the law of the excluded middle is not used. This has implications for the Axiom of Choice and its equivalent forms. Radical when Brouwer first proposed it nearly a century ago, but used extensively in the 1960s. Closely related to time-varying sets, where set membership is a function of time, naturally enough. (John is now a member of the set of civilians, but tomorrow he becomes a member of the set
