Quoting James A. Donald ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> --
> James A. Donald:
> > > When Chaumian money comes into wide use, I think that for
> > > most end users we will have to stash all unused tokens
> > > inside smartcards.
>
> Someone:
> > Here in Hong Kong, contactless "Octopus" smartcards (based on
> > the Sony FeliCa device) are well established for paying fares
> > on buses, ferries and subways, and also for small
> > transactions with vending machines, convenience stores and
> > supermarkets.
>
> Critical mass is no problem if a payment mechanism is backed by
> the big boys, but the big boys want a mechanism for
> transferring value where only a few giant corporations who are
> in bed with the state receive transaction payments, a system
> that divides the economy into a tiny number of actors, the big
> corporations, who alone take action, plan and produce, and huge
> number of passive consumer zombies.
>
> We would like a system which treats those making and receiving
> payments as peers, which makes critical mass a considerably
> more difficult problem.
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned cell-phones as a digital cash platform.
Perhaps this belabours the obvious, but I'll spell it out anyways:
o They are ubiquitous.
o Most of them have an IR port and many contain enough storage and
horsepower to keep and play small MP3 collections. Chaumian digital cash
code should fit easily. Hell, some companies are already making noises
about full-motion video. How long before the damn things have a digital
camera built in?
o Peer-to-peer transactions will obviously work via IR. Central clearing
mechanisms will work through the phone net. Thus they embody the basic
infrastructure for both worlds. The entire thing could be done over SMS,
of course, but IR for peer-to-peer, day-to-day transactions is best from a
privacy and usability standpoint.
o PC-based software is in use for the synchronisation of calendar data, etc.
Many people are already familiar with using their phones for these kinds
of purposes so what's one more application to the user?
The problem is that phone software is (to my knowledge) all closed-source and
running on proprietary hardware. What's the liklihood of manufacturers
opening up their phones for third-party code? A Java VM might do it, as might
something lean like an Inferno VM. More informed list members could probably
suggest other virtual machines which would suit our purposes.
This would, of course, bring about Black Net rather quickly. I confess that
I'm not all that enamoured with the idea, personally, but something like it is
already possible with various creative accounting practices so the only real
objection can be made by those few who require centralised clearing to
preserve their empires. Such intersts will lobby hard to make sure that the
only option we have is to route our payments through their systems (without
regard to platform).
Nonetheless, I'd say that leveraging the cellular phone network and hand-held
phones for digital cash systems cover both the usability issues and the
critical mass problems thouroughly.
All we need to know is who we have to convince in order to get an open,
standardised environment and API with math, communications, and crypto
libraries for our phones. (Actually, it would be really neat to have cell
phones wide-open to user supplied code, but that is probably asking too much.)
Regards,
Steve
