From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 05:56:33 +0800
To: Tim May <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Blind signatures dead in the water.  What now?
Message-ID: <199802102142.NAA10762@proxy3.ba.best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



    --
At 09:25 AM 2/9/98 -0800, Tim May wrote:
> Sadly, the ideas of David Chaum are more needed than ever,
> but his stuff is essentially nowhere to be seen. (To
> reflect Lucky's comments back to him,
> :-), spare us any citations of how Mark Twain Bank will let
> :some people
> open a cumbersome Digicash account.)

Why are blind signatures dead in the water?

One obvious reason is that people attempting to do business
with  David Chaum seem to get rather irritable.

Still, despite that, Digicash actually exists, but no one
uses it.

One reason is that the network to convert Digicash into
other forms of value is rather limited, whereas the credit
card network is fast and spans the world.

Another is that people do not wish to hold large amounts of
Digicash] for long periods, (security, no interest) and
converting money back and forth between interest bearing
forms and Digicash attracts  rather high charges. (Or used to
attract rather high charges when last I looked.)

So where do we go from here?

One obvious solution is nymous money-- money that is not
anonymous, but is not required to be connected to one's
government approved and  registered name either.  This is
arguably better than the half-anonymous  money that has in
fact been implemented by Digicash.

What nymous money projects are happening, and how are they
going? 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
     6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
     LYaOPLZKNwSNWeffnb7uS95ByY1zFrrw5ORiNblo
     4jCWkLjLNXwKCdAtmb4IoOno/9n7A5bv6OhoyZ2Ki
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of 
the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, 
not from the arbitrary power of the state.

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/