From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2001 - 23:48:08 MDT
Hi! It's been a while since I posted here.
I'm starting to do research on an article I'm writing about David
Chaum's e-cash protocol, especially as it impacts the feasibility of
extremely small micropayments.
It's been years since I've been involved in this field, however, and
folks like the Cypherpunks don't seem to have updated their WWW pages
in a VERY long time, so I'm not sure where I'd look to find out what
the state of the art is.
Last I'd heard, the feasibility of using a system derived from his
blind signature protocol was limited, because Chaum had a patent on
his algorithm which wouldn't expire until, IIRC, 2007 or so. Though
I'm aware than various people have extended his idea, but AFAIK it
would be illegal of me to sit down and write an open source Chaumian
bank based on his blind signature protocol.
Is this actually the case?
In my article, I want to argue that it Chaum's algorithm COULD be the
final blow to bring micropayments to everyone if it were distributed
as a Free (as in speech) open-source program, but that past and
current micropayment systems have failed because the organizations who
have tried to push for them (including Chaum's DigiCash, now eCash
Technologies,) have done so with a closed source system, with an eye
towards taking a cut out of every e-transaction. Under an open-source
Chaumian bank, on the other hand, anybody could be their own bank,
rendering middleman business strategies like this impossible.
I also want to argue against Clay Shirky and others who claim that
micropayments are a bad idea because they are bad for consumers. They
DO benefit distributors at the expense of consumers, but they
disadvantage consumers only a little, and benefit distributors quite a
lot. The whole P2P idea is that the consumers ARE distributors (and
even, more democratically, producers!) so, in a P2P environment,
micropayments are a good idea.
I've heard of Mojo Nation, but I'm also aware that they currently do
not provide a means for trading Mojo for money, or vice versa.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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