Re: Digital cash issues...

[Dr. Cat <wixer!wixer.bga.com!cat@cactus.org>]

   Regarding the issue of what to do under Chaum's scheme when someone double-
spends a piece of digital cash & their identity is revealed...  While this
might be a problem for a cypherpunk style "kick society in the pants and get
this going early" implementation of digital banking, I don't think it's going
to be a serious hindrance in the long term.  While I'm sure all big retail
chains and the like will have terminals that can instantly verify a piece of
cash, if there are niches for an offline system, there's a very significant
economic infrastructure set up for collecting on bad debts.  Any credit card
company, phone company, or other corporation that does a lot of billing
already has staff dedicated solely to that function, with collection agencies
providing a second tier of functionality for the tougher cases.

           Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye / New traditions for the next century