On Sun, May 12, 2002 at 10:18:41AM -0400, Sandy Harris wrote:
| Morlock Elloi wrote:
|
| > Mental constructs like this one, complicated schemes that require knowledge of
| > modular aritmetic to understand, is why this will not happen.
| >
| > Whatever aspires to replace paper cash for purposes where paper cash is a must
| > (in real life, conferences don't count) has to be as simple to understand,
| > verify and manipulate as paper cash itself.
| >
| > Flipping bits in the gates or on the wire is not that - unless Joe the Hitman
| > or Gordon the Dealer or Jeff the Cleaner can well understand it and in addition
| > to that have implementor's balls within reach if something goes wrong.
|
| Why do you imagine that?
|
| Those guys don't understand the technologies behind paper money -- engraving,
| paper making, holography, ... -- or behind bank accounts and ATM machines,
| and they likely don't have credible threats against the mint or the banks.
|
| There is a chicken-and-egg problem. Joe, Gord and Jeff will happily use
| any system that is widespread enough to be credible, but how does some
| system get there? That probably requires that early adopters understand
| things and believe they have recourse against botching implementers.
It also requires that the early adopters can convince merchants and
banks to jump into a system from which they get none of the benefits
which motivate Alice and Bob and me to adopt ecash. I want ecash for
privacy; why do the merchant and bank want it?
That financial instruments are an N>2 party problem, unlike, say fax
machines or email, make it that much harder.
Adam
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume
