From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 23:33:01 +0800
To: Petro <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Cypherpunks defeat?
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980927223248.03463a7c@mail.atl.bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <199809290428.VAA27584@proxy3.ba.best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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    --
At 04:06 PM 9/28/98 -0500, Petro wrote:
> The problem isn't issueing the tokens, it's the wallets.
> Token generation would be relatively straight forward, it's
> the user end.

On the contrary, it is the server end that is hard.

Token generation is trivial.  Paying for tokens and getting
paid for them is not trivial.

The problem is that we do not want to force everyone in the
universe to be the clients of a single giant issuer.  That
would bring us right back to the old problem of the
tyrannical and oppressive central bank.

Visualize the following situation.  I buy tokens from Bob,
who may be my local ISP.   I spend them on a server on a site
in Sri Lanka.  The owner of the server cashes them with
Evonne.  My money, aggregated with a multitude of other
peoples money in a multitude of other peoples transactions
flows by some complex and indirect route to through several
different people, and eventually to Evonne, and finally to
the owner of the server in Sri Lanka.

This is the problem that IBM software, for all its faults,
does address, and it is a hard problem. 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
     6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
     RP+4+If1PSzkOerZiquLbdw7GFRzWkLNjIpl59ZX
     4XzwciXVO1P+jKBeMQjD7fwhYVJqnuMtiNYJ/PnL2
-----------------------------------------------------
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 omnipotent state.


http://www.jim.com/jamesd/      James A. Donald