From: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Thu, 19 May 94 17:19:43 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Mosaic to support digital money in September
Message-ID: <199405200019.RAA27821@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Eric Hughes writes
> 
> It seems that you have information that is not in the press release
> you include, which talks (as far as I can tell) about catalog
> purchases with credit cards.
 
Only what is in the news and stuff.
 
In the cover story of May 11 Computer currents, page 40
Box, Malone and Davidow say that the money enabled Mosaic
will be available in the fall (press release says September
- I do not believe either of them) and that what we would
call a server program (accounting and ordering package)
will cost around 10 000 dollars.  Obviously their model is
the TV shopping channer, whereas the model we want to see
implemented is the middle eastern bazaar, with giving and
receiving money equally convenient for both parties.
 
My comments were my interpretation of the press release.
 
My interpretation may be misleading or inaccurate.  The press
release is probably misleading and inaccurate.
 
If someone would get the real info from EIT, I would be
interested to hear it.  In particular, now that PGP is US
legal, are they going to support PGP in mosaic?  (They
were not going to at the time of the press release)
 
> 
>    Enterprise Integration Technologies and friends will
>    enable digital money transactions in Mosaic in September
> 
> Is this announced?
 
Read the press release
 
   "EIT will make Secure NCSA Mosaic software available at no
    charge to CommerceNet members in September and NCSA will
    incorporate these securefeatures in future NCSA Mosaic
    releases.   Enterprise Integration Technologies Corp., of
    Palo Alto, (EIT), is an R&D and consulting organization,
    developing software and services that help companies do
    business on the Internet. EIT is also project manager of
    CommerceNet. 
   "
 
>    The transaction model has a crippled mode for people
>    outside the US and Canada
> 
> Crippled?
 
Read the press release
 
   "Cryptosystem and signature system interoperation is
    particularly useful between U.S. residents and non-U.S.
    residents, where the non-U.S. residents may have to use
    weaker 40-bit keys in conjunction with RSA's RC2 and RC4
    variable keysize ciphers. EIT intends to publish
    Secure-HTTP as an Internet standard, and work with others
    in the WWW community to create a standard that will
    encourage using the Web for a wide variety of commercial
    transactions.
   "
 
The biggest crippling is that they do not mention
supporting PGP.
 
If Mosaic supports PEM, then PEM will win.  But PEM is
useless.  An evil NSA plot?  Naw, they have not got the
brains.  More likely coorporate stupidity.
 
 
> 
>    They intend that you will be able to write contracts and
>    internet checks on participating banks.  
> 
> Will the recipient of the check be required to be at a participating
> bank? 
 
I have no idea, but that would seem to be the only way that it
could work, but since I screwed up big in my comments on magic
money, other folk may well be more imaginative than I am.
 
> And you can already write contracts with existing digital
> signatures.  A contract is just an agreement between two parties;
> intermediation is not required.
 
Quite so.  But your typical businessman will not use PGP
because it is user hostile, whereas Mosaic is not.   The
objective is to bring encryptation to the massess.
 
Obviously I would vastly prefer to see PGP integrated into
mosaic, I have considered doing this myself, but it is a
substantial job with legal hazards, and I am bone lazy and
vulnerable to court judgments
 
>    For this reason I think decentralized account based
>    digital money is the best hope.
> 
> Account based money is identity based money, even if the identity is a
> pseudo-identity.  The whole point of cryptocash protocols is to
> separate the link between two account by mediating the transaction
> with some instrument.
 
Quite so, as I have been reminded.  But regrettably it
seems likely that identity based money represents less of a
jump from the existing system, therefore is likely be
considerably more acceptable to the great unwashed masses. 
Crypto cash - money based on digital tokens - is rather
subtle for the masses.  Even I screw up.  How do you expect
the chairman of the board to comprehend it?
 
To successfully push crypto cash, we would need to make it
a lot more convenient.  Hint.  PGP is *not* convenient.
 
A utility that would make crypto cash acceptable, would
probably have to simulate account based money, and would
need a relational database built into it.
 
Microsoft visual basic, professional edition, allows one
to make products that employ and create a relational
database, and give those products away.  The database built
into the freely redistributable Visual Basic run time
modules supports SQL.
 
-- 
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