Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Xanadu--some initial reactions

Author:Dennis Peterson
Posted:8/26/1999; 3:05:21 PM
Topic:Xanadu--some initial reactions
Msg #:10028 (In response to 10020)
Prev/Next:10027 / 10029

True. Ron Rivest has a really interesting scheme called Micromint, which makes electronic coins with a secure hash algorithm. No public-key encryption, so it's very fast. But it's secure enough that it's not worthwhile to cheat on a small scale. (Cheat on a large scale, you'll probably be caught.) There's no real anonymity, but we probably won't get that until the Digicash patents run out.

At a minimum, I think we'll be using these sorts of schemes to pay for the actual costs of storage and delivery. At that level, there's little incentive to cheat.




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