From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 17:39:16 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Press Release: Ecash to be Issued by Deutsche Bank
Message-ID: <v03006604adb4762ce69e@[199.0.65.105]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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--- begin forwarded text


Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 00:25:44 +0200
From: press@digicash.com
To: ecash@digicash.com
Subject: Press Release: Ecash to be Issued by Deutsche Bank
Sender: owner-ecash@digicash.com
Precedence: bulk

Please find attached today's press release on our cooperation with
Deutsche Bank. If you need any further information, please contact
us at: press@digicash.com

Kindest regards,

Paul Dinnissen
DigiCash BV

--------------------------- PRESS RELEASE ---------------------------

Release date:
Tuesday, May 7, 1996
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

          ==============================================
          DigiCash's Ecash to be Issued by Deutsche Bank
          ==============================================

    DigiCash and Deutsche Bank are to launch a joint pilot project to
test the use of electronic cash on the Internet. This will enable
Deutsche Bank's clients to pay for information (ranging from magazine
articles to stock quotes), services (from database searches to help
desk support) and tangible goods (from mail order to pizzas) using
any personal computer with access to the Internet. This new service
will provide merchants and even private individuals with the
solutions needed for doing business on the Internet.

    The project's technology is based on the ecash system, which won
DigiCash the European Commission's 1995 Information Technology
European Award (ITEA'95) for innovative technology. Ecash has been
tested for several years and was used last autumn to issue the first
ecash dollars in the USA.

    Apart from a PC, users do not need any special hardware or cards.
They simply connect to Deutsche Bank's Internet site and download
digital ecash coins onto their PC's hard disk, thereby debiting their
accounts. These coins can later be used as needed to pay on the
Internet withby a single mouse-click.

    "In launching this pilot project, Deutsche Bank aims to test the
possibilities of innovative payment forms and procedures and to
expand their range of Internet services" says Dr. Wolfgang Johannsen,
Head of Deutsche Bank's Department for Technological Development.

    "Ecash is a digital form of cash that works on the Internet where
paper cash can't" according to Dr. David Chaum, founder and CEO of
DigiCash. "Like cash, it offers consumers true privacy in what they
buy. Yet, users can always recover their money if their computer
crashes, and also prove who received their electronic cash in
payment, making it unsuitable for criminal use. Thus ecash brings an
improved form of cash to cyberspace, where it can be expected to
catalyze an enormous growth in electronic commerce."

    DigiCash and Deutsche Bank see this launch as a major step
towards the adoption of true electronic cash on the Internet.

Contact DigiCash Amsterdam:       Contact Deutsche Bank:
Mr. Paul Dinnissen                Mr. Schumacher / Mr. Thoma
Tel: +31 20 665 2611              Tel: +49 69 910 33406 / 33405
Fax: +31 20 665 1126              Fax: +49 69 910 33422 / 38689
email: press@digicash.com
http://www.digicash.com/          http://www.deutsche-bank.de/

          (DigiCash and ecash are registered trademarks
            and should always be referred to as such)

                               * * *

                       DigiCash Backgrounder
                       =====================

History and Mission
-------------------

    Since beginning operation in April 1990, DigiCash's mission and
primary activity has been: to develop and license payment technology
products--chip card, software only, and hybrid--that both show the
true capability of technology to protect the interests of all
participants and are competitive in the market.

Founder
-------

    Dr. David Chaum, managing director of DigiCash, received his
Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at
Berkeley, then taught at New York University Graduate School of
Business Administration and at the University of California, and
headed the Cryptography Group at CWI, the Dutch nationally funded
center for research in mathematics and computer science, before
taking his current position. He has published over 45 original
technical articles on cryptography and also founded the International
Association for Cryptologic Research.

DigiCash Products
-----------------

    Blue: smart card technology for EMV & prepaid with dynamic public
key. Conforms to joint Europay, MasterCard, Visa specifications;
multiple applications, including loyalty and closed systems; superior
data integrity in case of malicious/accidental interference or
interruption; requires only the smallest and most proven chips, e.g.
SC-24 or ST601; mask technology licensing.

    CAFE: smart card and card-accepting electronic wallet project.
Consortium of 12 other members founded and chaired by Dr. Chaum of
DigiCash; simulation, mask and first readers developed by DigiCash;
technology trial at the EC headquarters building in participation
with related open special interest group and partially funded by the
EC.

    DyniCash: highway-speed road-toll collection system using smart
cards. Chip card inserts into battery-powered dashboard unit;
reflective backscatter microwave technology by industry leader
Amtech; prepaid mode has user privacy; open and/or closed pricing
schemes; tested extensively in Japan; non-exclusive licensing of the
payment technology.

    Ecash: software only electronic cash system for internet/email.
Users download software that can make and receive payments; protects
users' money like travellers checks and privacy like coins; now
operational after testing by over twenty thousand users world-wide;
Macintosh, MS-Windows and X-Windows; any WWW browser; currently Mark
Twain Bank currently issues ecash in US dollars and Mearita/EUnet
issues digital Finnish marks; Posten has announced their license and
intention to issue Swedish Kroner.

    Facility Card: complete facility management smart-card/reader
system. Cash replacement, access control, and time/attendance system;
now in schools, hospitals, industry, offices, recreation; interfaces
to vending, point-of-sale, access control, copiers, phones, gaming;
downloadable & upgradeable readers work on-line and/or off-line; sold
through VAR's; over 100k cards in use in the Netherlands; Mars
Electronics International will launch it globally in 1996.


                          Ecash Backgrounder
                          ==================

How does ecash work?
--------------------

    Using ecash is likeas easy as using a virtual ATM (Automatic
Teller Machine). When you connect over the Internet and authenticate
your ownership of the account, you can withdraw money electronically.
Instead of giving you bank notes, you are given digital coins which
your software can store on your PC's hard disk.

    When you want to make a payment, you simply confirm the amount,
payee and description of goods, with a mouse click you tell your
ecash software to transfer coins of the correct value from your PC
direct to the payee.  Merchants, (ranging from casual participants in
the global Internet bazaar to mega-retailers) can then deposit the
digital coins into their ecash accounts.

    Behind the user interface, your computer actually creates
'serial' numbers for the electronic coins based on a random `seed'.
Then it hides them in special encryption `envelopes', sends them to
the electronic bank for `signature' and, when they are returned,
removes the `envelopes' (retaining the bank's validating digital
signature on the `serial' numbers). This way, when the bank
(eventually) receives your coins, it cannot recognize them as coming
from any particular withdrawal or account, because all coins are
hidden from the bank during the withdrawal process. Therefore the
bank cannot know when or where you shop, who you pay or what you buy.

    The `serial' number' of each signed coin is unique, so that the
bank can be sure that it never accepts the same coin twice. If you
wish to identify the recipient of any of your payments, you may
reveal the unique coin number and use your ecash software to prove
that you created it and get the bank to confirm who deposited it.
Your software can also re-create the `serial' numbers and `envelopes'
from the `seed' that you wrote down when installing your account,
thereby allowing all your coins to be re-created if your PC fails.


How safe is ecash?
------------------

    Security is fundamental to electronic cash. The cryptographic
coding that protects every 5 cent ecash payment is the same as that
routinely relied upon for authenticating requests to move huge sums
between banks and even for national security. But in principle ecash
goes beyond such communications security to achieve true multiparty
security: no one (buyer, seller, bank) can cheat anyone else, no
matter how they might modify their own software. Even if two parties
collude, they cannot cheat the third.

    Replacing paper and coins with ecash would make life much harder
for criminals. Because the payer's computer chooses the `serial'
numbers of the coins (as mentioned above), he or she can later
irrefutably identify blackmarketeers, extortionists, and acceptors of
bribes--were they to accept ecash. Paper notes, briefcases full of
which can be passed from hand to hand without leaving any record,
allow money laundering and tax evasion today. With ecash, however,
all the amounts each person receives are known to their bank.
Significant criminal activity could thus be thwarted by completely
replacing paper money; moreover, the privacy whichof ecash offers
would be essential to widespread acceptance of any electronic payment
system.

------------------------- END PRESS RELEASE -------------------------

--- end forwarded text



-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"If they could 'just pass a few more laws',
  we would all be criminals."    --Vinnie Moscaritolo
The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/