From: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:35:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Remailers and ecash
In-Reply-To: <d9ad723431a59140b039a71c9cecc923@anon.efga.org>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19970927140255.032fb794@mail.atl.bellsouth.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 03:18 AM 9/27/97 -0400, Anonymous (Monty Cantsin) wrote:
>Just out of a curiousity, why is it that no remailers accept ecash?
>
>The brutally simple way to do this would be to generate an ecash
>certificate, made out to cash, and tack it at the beginning of a
>message which is then encrypted for the remailer.

The answer to your question may be to first recast your questions and ask
why would someone want to attach ecash?  I assume you are trying to "pay"
for the email you send.  This goes against the general model of the
internet.  Unlike the phone company, the net peers freely with no
interconnection charges, so inter lata charges do not have to be tracked
and collected.  This allows for a flat rate pricing scheme.  For remailers,
this flat rate is generally zero dollars, i.e. free.

There are remailers of various types who offer services for a charge of
some sort.  This is generally a flat rate fee, either per month, or per
year.  There is likely no desire to price on a per item basis.  If there
were, I would think it would be in the millicent range of pricing.

If I were to set up a for pay remailing system, I would prefer to have a
per month, or per year fee.  This is more for the nym model of remailer.  I
assume you mean the Type-I such as you are using now.  It would be
interesting to setup as a test, but I don't see there would be any market
for it.

  -- Robert Costner                  Phone: (770) 512-8746
     Electronic Frontiers Georgia    mailto:pooh@efga.org  
     http://www.efga.org/            run PGP 5.0 for my public key