Re: properties of FV

[Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@nsb.fv.com>]

Excerpts from fv: 14-Dec-94 properties of FV eric@remailer.net (3093)

> There are two forms of anonymity: counterparty anonymity and issuer
> anonymity.  FV claims the first but not the second.  "Far from
> anonymous" may be a little confusing, but it's certainly far from
> completely anonymous.

Thanks for introducing the useful terminology.  You're right, FV
provides counterparty anonymity but not issuer anonymity.  A useful
clarification.

>    Wrong again.  We explicitly permit seller-based accumulation, [...]

> Net clearing of this form requires the creation of an entire billing
> system for small value which then settles through FV.  The very nature
> of such a net billing system requires linkability of transaction to
> transaction, or in other words generates identity.  So FV is
> unsuitable for small value anonymous transactions.

No, it doesn't require an entire billing system, because it lives
entirely on the seller's machine and does nothing except the pre-billing
accumulation for a single seller.  It requires a simple database and a
nightly cron job.  The next time I have a day or two free I will
probably build such a thing and add it to the free FV software; I don't
expect it will be more than a day or two's work, if that.

>    We expect to make our money on
>    information products, not on the commerce engine.

> At 29 cents plus 4% per settlement transaction, I find this comment
> disingenuous in the extreme, even after paying Visa for settlement.

Well, at 29+4% it would indeed be disingenious.  However, that's not
what we're charging -- I'd encourage you to actually read our materials.
 We're charging 29 cents plus 2%, and this includes all the charges to
the credit card networks, the banks, and our financial transaction
processors.  We are NOT operating on a big margin here.

> So if you're planning on removing the cumbersomeness of your current
> protocol with software, why is it that you don't have an option to
> turn on crypto, whose cumbersomeness can also be mitigated with
> software?

As I said in an earlier post this morning, this *is* an option we will
probably support eventually, although I don't think it is as easy to
make crypto easy-to-use as it is to make checkboxes easy-to-use, at
least not without deeply compromising the security of the crypto system.
 Mostly, however,, we just think that it's a longer-term problem,
because we see the widespread deployment of crypto as being a
longer-term phenomenon.  -- Nathaniel