Wei Dai writes:
> Suppose you have a payment system that works like this:
>
> [check settlment procedure]
>
> [...]
>
> But to move away from terminology for a moment, if people really want
> instant settlement and don't care too much about privacy, is there any
> reason to expect that something like the above system won't be adopted
> (along with legal changes to allow for instant settlement) instead of a
> more privacy-friendly system like blinded ecash?
Well it could happen. Doubtless the first credit card systems had to
resolve and iron out a lot of legal issues.
It could be argued that this would be harder (more costly) to achieve
than using anonymity, because the notion of a non-overridable contract
is quite foreign to most existing legal systems.
I have little faith that any current major legal systems could ever
bring themselves to accept anything so sensible. Most legal systems
are far to fuzzy. Legal systems based on principle, and systems based
on principle and case law both are consistenly used to arrive at the
most ridiculous of interpretations. There is a systemic flaw in the
system because of lack of competition -- they can do consistently
ridiculous things, run up exorbitant bills, and their customers have
no ability to select a different competing arbitration service.
Cryptographic protocols are far more reliable, and far cheaper to
execute.
Adam
