1994-12-02 - Re: Scalability of Ecash System / Article on Internet Cash available.

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From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 218033ead6eabb1a88c16a6e7e9a778df3ba45bc2649ae3bbd3959d5e0a79e72
Message ID: <199412021333.IAA14380@zork.tiac.net>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1994-12-02 13:34:29 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94 05:34:29 PST

Raw message

From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94 05:34:29 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Scalability of Ecash System / Article on Internet Cash available.
Message-ID: <199412021333.IAA14380@zork.tiac.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Filched from buyinfo, where they've been talking a lot about e$ lately...


>From: brands@cwi.nl
>Original-From: Stefan.Brands@cwi.nl
>Subject: Re: Scalability of Ecash System / Article on Internet Cash available.
>To: www-buyinfo@allegra.att.com
>Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 16:12:50 +0100 (MET)
>Cc: hfinney@shell.portal.com
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>X-UIDL: 786299434.063
>
>I noticed that the discussion is currently about the e-cash system of
>DigiCash. Some good issues have been raised in the discussion, and I
>would like to comment in detail about my own opinion in these matters.
>As it so happens, I recently wrote an article that addresses in detail
>each of the raised concerns, and for this reason it seemed easiest to
>simply make this article available by ftp. So I did. The paper is
>entitled "Electronic Cash on the Internet," and will appear in the
>Proceedings of the Internet Society 1995 Symposium on Network and
>Distributed System Security, San Diego, California, Februari 16-17,
>1995. To retrieve it: log in anonymously at ftp.cwi.nl, and go to the
>directory pub/brands.  There you will find the paper, in both dvi and
>PostScript format (and Unix-compressed formats). The paper contains
>several drawings; if you want to have the complete paper, including
>the pictures, then you *must* retrieve the PostScript version. I made
>a particular effort to explain the concepts behind the system (many of
>which are due to Chaum); see Section 3, it is about five pages with no
>math.
>
>  Short abstract of the paper: It is generally realized that the Internet
>  will not be able to offer full-fledged electronic marketplace
>  capabilities without a suitable electronic mechanism for processing
>  payments. The electronic payment mechanism that is presented offers a
>  variety of features that are believed to be particularly appealing in
>  this respect.
>
>  To participate, an Internet user must interface to his computer a
>  tamper-resistant device with an ordinary 8-bit microprocessor,
>  typically a PCMCIA card, and install some software. Internet service
>  providers do not need special hardware. Payments can be made
>  completely *off-line*, and are untraceable and unlinkable.
>  Multi-party security is guaranteed without parties having to trust
>  other parties.  Transaction processing speeds are such that even
>  modestly equipped computers will be able to meet the performance
>  levels required by demanding Internet payment applications.  One
>  particularly interesting such application is click-and-pay ability
>  when travelling World-Wide-Web links.
>
>The presented approach may seem to be less attractive than many other
>proposals, because it requires tamper-resistant hardware for the
>users. In the longer run, though, when the use of e.g. smart cards for
>electronic payments has become commonplace, the advantages in my
>opinion will significantly outweigh this objection. What will remain
>are the advantages: click-and-pay ability to make instantaneous
>off-line payments, the ability to cost-effectively serve tens of
>millions of participants, the ability to guarantee one's own privacy,
>multi-party security, support for different currencies, and
>portability of tamper-resistant devices to other payment platforms.
>
>
>Some brief comments on the current discussion:
>
>--- Michael E. Peirce (mepeirce@alf2.tcd.ie) wrote:
>   >I've been looking at the Ecash payment system and was wondering about
>   >the problem of scalability if it were to become popular.
>   >(For anyone who doesn't already know, Ecash is an electronic cash
>   >solution, details of which can be found at http://www.digicash.com )
>   >It seems to me that, while their bank (bank.digicash.com) will be able
>   >to handle the 10,000 odd users in the trial, how would it cope with the
>   >possibly thousands of transactions that might take place all over the
>   >Internet, every minute, if the system were to become popular?
>   >Every transaction requires that the merchant shop, connect to the bank
>   >to validate the customers coins, right?
>   >With a popular Ecash system, the bank would be swamped, or what if even
>   >the link to the bank went down for a few days?
>
>   Hal (hfinney@shell.portal.com) wrote:
>   >There has to be a single common database which all the banks share in
>   >order to detect double spending. Otherwise I could spend the same coin
>   >multiple times, going to a different bank each time. Granted, shared
>   >databases can work, but if a machine which holds part of the database goes
>   >down it will take special engineering to keep things consistent and
>   >available.
>   >There are two different senses in which we can speak of multiple banks.
>   >One is a setup where all the banks share the same type of cash, where
>   >they are logically a single bank but distributed to try to get increases
>   >in reliability. This has the database consistency and access problems I
>   >described above, which modern-day bank systems don't have to the same
>   >extent.
>
>   I fully agree with these comments. Btw, it is correct that the e-cash
>   system of DigiCash is an *on-line* *coin* system. It is interesting to
>   take a look at their faq, at
>    http://www.digicash.com/ecashinfo/ecash-faq.html, item
>   "Does ecash really have to be online?". There is sais: "Actually, no. [...]
>   We'll add some more functionality in that area as soon as the on-line
>   system is completely operational." Furthermore, in item "If I copy my
>   money, can I spend it twice," it sais: "In an off-line
>   situation (future) ..." From these comments of DigiCash, it seems that
>   they very well realize the problems associated with on-line verification
>   when the system is used on a large scale, and that they hope to implement
>   an off-line system in the future. However, a problem with this might be
>   the following, as noted by Jim McCoy (mccoy@io.com):
>   >[first part]
>   >A digital money system can do that, but the current version of Chaum's
>   >system does not.  The disadvantage of a system that does this
>   >self-identification of double-spenders is that it front-loads the cost of
>   >the identification protocol into everyone's withdrawls and purchases; they
>   >must use a cut-and-choose system during withdrawl to make sure that the
>   >coins presented for blinding are in the proper format and must perform an
>   >additional protocol negotiation during purchases.
>   >[...] The overhead involved in the necessary machinations to make sure
>   >that a malicious cheater did not send in bogus coins that mis-identified
>   >him increases the transaction cost of such a system significantly.  It also
>   >increases the transaction cost of purchases by requiring the merchant and
>   >purchaser to perform an additional transaction to reveal halves of the
>   >identity bits after each purchase.
>   >[second part]
>   >It is an interesting version of the
>   >digital coin protocols, but one that is unlikely to be used in the
>   >immediate future due to the increased costs it places upon the system.  It
>   >is likely that such a system will first appear in smartcard digital cash
>   >systems where dedicated hardware can cut down on the increased costs.
>
>   The first part is correct, the overhead caused by the cut-and-choose
>   withdrawal protocols seems unacceptable. Another problem, which
>   certainly should not be forgotten, is that is can hardly be said to be
>   sufficient if only traceability of double-spenders after the fact is
>   offered. It is clearly desirable that there is prior restraint of
>   double-spending, and ideally the traceability ater the fact should still
>   be present (as a second line of defense). Now, doing off-line cash with
>   prior restraint of double-spending, *and* privacy of payments, seems to
>   result in extremely inefficient systems when one uses the cut-and-choose
>   technique of Chaum/Fiat/Naor (just try it, and you'll see what I mean...).
>   Probably these are the main reasons why DigiCash has not implemented an
>   off-line system. (Yet a third problem is that it is really cumbersome
>   to use a coin system if each coin is several kilo-bytes...)
>
>   This is not to say that efficient privacy-protecting off-line cash systems
>   with prior restraint of double-spending do not exist. The system that I
>   present in my paper mentioned above meets all these criteria. The
>   reason for this is that I do *not* use a cut-and-choose withdrawal protocol.
>   As those of you who have tried to design off-line systems will
>   know, the design in fact consists of two protocols, one for paying and one
>   for withdrawal; designing the withdrawal protocol is by far the
>   hardest task (which is still an understatement...). The
>   technique that I use for my withdrawal protocols is a new one, called
>   restrictive blinding, and the only one known thus far that can provide
>   efficient withdrawal protocols. Curiously enough, most of the withdrawal
>   protocols that result from this technique are *not* ordinary blind
>   signature protocols as defined in
>   literature (because only the signature is blinded---the message is not!).
>   The withdrawal protocol in my Internet paper is a blind signature protocol,
>   but for instance the withdrawal protocol that I used in my technical
>   report (reference 5 in the paper) is not.
>
>-- Hal (hfinney@shell.portal.com) wrote:
>   >I wish I could. I have applied several times for the beta test at
>   >digicash, starting almost three months ago. Finally I got a reply at the
>   >beginning of November saying that I would be hearing from them in a few
>   >days. Since then, nothing. I wonder if people are actually being
>   >allowed to join the beta trial as are implied by all of these web pages?
>   >I would like to see a more honest explanation of the chances of being
>   >able to experience ecash than the simple "click here to try it out" you see
>   >everywhere.
>
>   I had exactly the same experience; I sent in the registration several
>   months ago. I'm still waiting for my account, which was announced to me at
>   the beginning of this month.
>
>
>Stefan Brands,
>------------------------------------------------------
>CWI, Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
>Tel: +31 20 5924103, e-mail: brands@cwi.nl
>
>
>
>
>
>

-----------------
Robert Hettinga  (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone
Shipwright Development Corporation     who eats too little and sees Heaven and
44 Farquhar Street                       someone who drinks too much and sees
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