John and all,
John C Klensin wrote:
> --On Tuesday, December 07, 1999 01:38 -0800 "William X. Walsh"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > On 07-Dec-99 Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>
> >> The fee for cashing an US check in a Norwegian bank is around
> >> USD 8. I've got no reason to believe the fee in the other
> >> direction is smaller.
> >
> > You clearly have no experience dealing with commerce from many
> > other countries. And your expense at cashing it isn't the
> > expense I was discussing. It was the expense in some
> > countries to even GET a check in US dollars. Some countries
> > have banking laws that make it difficult and/or expensive to
> > send currency to foreign countries. Perhaps if you don't have
> > much experience in this are, you should refrain from making
> > comment.
>
> My, my...
>
> I'm not sure who you are criticizing, William (Harald or Mark),
> but I've got a lot of experience moving foreign checks and money
> transfers in and out of US banks (and I tried, once, to deal
> with an international wire transfer --in theory, easier than a
> check, but probably less useful from an identification
> standpoint-- to an account at a check-capable savings and loan--
> after a nightmare that lasted many weeks, I opened an account at
> a _bank_ with its own international correspondent network)
John, S&L's are notoriously bad at handling or dealing with
Wire Transfers. Had you checked with the FED Treasury they
could have told you this or would have. I too have had this
experience with S&L's myself, and learned a very long time
ago to avoid these type of transactions with them.
>
>
> For those who don't know the details...
>
> * Harald's fee estimate, except for some large commercial
> accounts at commercial banks, is quite low for deposits of
> foreign-issued checks deposited into US banks. One generally
> can't cash those checks at all (except by creating a liability
> against one's existing account), and whether or not they are
> denominated in US dollars makes little difference (but might
> increase the fees slightly if they are not)
The latter statement here is not entirely correct. I cash foreign
issued checks every week without any liability against my account.
This is really based upon the bank and it's relationship with the
draft originator of the check, and the FED's clearing process of
those checks. Sometimes it can take up to ten days for those
checks to clear, and other times it only takes 24 hours.
>
>
> * In most countries, issuing a personal check denominated in a
> foreign currency requires an account maintained in that
> currency. That is impossible/illegal in many places and merely
> difficult and expensive in others.
Most Banks? Hummm? Maybe so, I know none of the banks
I do business with have such a requirement.
>
>
> * If I needed to send Harald money denominated in his currency,
> I would go to my bank, pay them in US dollars (including an
> excessive fee for small amounts of money), and have them send
> out such a check or a wire transfer. Harald would receive
> either a bank check or a 'my bank to his bank and account'
> transfer, which would get the money to him, but would do almost
> nothing for identification purposes.
The account number and the transit number on the check you wrote
is the identification John. Get with the program here! >;)
> The situation in most
> countries that don't restrict these things is similar:
> international transfers in recipient currencies are
> bank-to-remote-account, not local-account-to-local-account.
> The US is different from many places because we have a lot of
> semi-banks floating around: if I dealt with one of them,
> Harald's bank would receive an instrument from an institution
> whose name I might have never heard: again, he gets the money,
> but the authentication value would be zero.
Again this is dependent on the bank in question, and not generally
the case.
>
>
> * Wire transfers are also bank-to-remote-account. In most
> countries where they can be arranged, I can walk into a bank
> with (anonymous) cash and have one sent. The bank will attach a
> sender name to the thing, but it is a comment, not
> authentication information in most originating countries,
> especially for small transfers (e.g., for transfers into the US,
> the reporting and documentation rules change when the amount
> involved exceeds USD 10000).
Essentially this is true, but not in all cases.
>
>
> * And, as William points out, in some countries, sending money
> out, or even converting money into "hard currencies" (or just
> external ones) internally is a huge hassle and may be
> effectively impossible for private parties and small amounts.
Again this is dependent on the bank(s) in question. I do
bank to bank transfers nearly three times a week on average
and have only occasionally had a problem. Usually that problem
was rectified with a phone call.
>
>
> So this is an extremely interesting idea for US-based
> participants, but is otherwise naive.
I am afraid your conclusion is not supported entirely by
your premise's here John.
>
>
> To draw this back to the more general "what do we trust"
> question, the example is symptomatic. Webs of trust works if
> the linkages can be established among people who actually know
> each other.
Not entirely true either John. I do business with people I have never
met and have done so for years.
> The "small world" research (popularly known by the
> "six degrees of separation" results) is helpful here, but the
> need for not only "knowing" someone but for knowing people with
> a good understanding of, and skill at, key management, makes
> things considerably more complex.
Yes to a degree you are indeed right here. But a certain level
of trust is essential for smooth business to business or corp to
corp transactions to take place.
> If the linkages don't exist
> and one has to validate the existence of someone one doesn't
> know, the only mechanisms that do work are extremely
> hierarchical and typically involve governments or entitles that
> are government-certified at a fairly high level. The latter is
> really the same as the former, since one relies on the
> government to do the certification.
Government certification is useful in only SOME instances, but
not all. I would be very leery of some governments in the middle east,
the west cost of africa, and in the Balkans for instance.
>
>
> If we want to (or need to) go down that path, it would
> constitute a reasonable question to pose to the GAC: if we have
> succeeded in proving that the DNSO (or ICANN) won't work without
> being able to authoritatively and uniquely identify individuals,
> then we almost certainly need governmental advice about how to
> do that.
Again this depends on WHAT Governments to which you may
be referring to.
> The problem, of course, is that the traditional
> governmental answers are incompatible with the preferences about
> privacy that many of us hold. They also tend to lead in the
> direction of strictly-hierarchical X.509 certificates, which
> make many of uncomfortable for other reasons.
>
> Hard problem to solve well. I wish I had easy solutions, but I
> don't. and I suspect that easy solutions don't exist.
ONe solution that is being discussed and in use in many instances
and has been for awhile was just written about again a couple of days
ago. The link I have is as follows:
http://www.cnnfn.com/news/technology/newsbytes/140340.html
> That tuns the question into whether there is a less precise and more
>
> sloppy system with which we can live. And, there, I'd suggest
> that web of trust models might work adequately, especially if we
> start with the understanding that a few errors of both inclusion
> and exclusion are almost inevitable.
I can agree to and extent. It depends on what the criterion of
the definitions of those "Webs of Trust"" are....
>
>
> john
Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman INEGroup (Over 95k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact Number: 972-447-1894
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