From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 18:54:57 +0800
To: Paul Rarey <Paul.Rarey@Clorox.com>
Subject: Re: Micropayments: myth?
Message-ID: <199606230719.AAA19709@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>>don't people get this? with microcurrency, you don't say to a 
>>seller, "bill me for this item". it would rarely work like that at
>>all. instead, it is, "here is my money, please give me the item". 
>
>What is the authentication process for the "money" your are "giving" in this 
>scenario?

Varies with the micropayment system.  Some proposals are to use Digicash,
either online or offline.  Others are to use simpler systems, such as S/Key 
variants or piles of tokens - you'd use some heavyweight payment system like
a credit card / ATM / digicash to buy 100 or 1000 microtokens, which you'd
use for the actual payments, and which would require less computation to
authenticate.

#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# http://www.idiom.com/~wcs
#				Dispel Authority!