ZixIt (ZIXI) Suing VISA

["R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>]

Woops.

Just another reason for anonymous remailers and Crowds, I guess.

And, of course, a clear example of the cobbler's children having no shoes,
if Paul Guthrie's actually responsible for the more egregious accusations
by ZixIt, in what, at the moment, can be described, charitably, as a rather
oil-snake hunt. Whatever non-charitable interpretation there is, is, of
course, now up for actual legal consideration.

I say "cobbler's children" here because, like the rest of us, Paul was
actually *at* the FC87 conference where Crowds, Janus, et. al., were
discussed in a peer-reviewed forum -- particularly in financial
application, though of a rather different sort :-) -- for the first time.

FC97 was also the same conference, where, of course, Ian Goldberg,
once-and-future-ZKS-CTO himself was when, I believe like the rest of us,
*he* heard about those technologies for the first time, though I don't know
that's actually the case, or, even, if Austin Hill, CEO of ZKS, was there
as well. Adam Shostack was there, for that matter, while we're counting
begats here. :-)

Anyway, I say all the above about ZKS because, besides all kinds of other
fun things, it will be indeed interesting how the SEC's going to react to
the use of Freedom itself in the fora cited in the lawsuit, in some future
case with identical circumstances. Maybe stock-chat pages will forbid
Freedom posts, for instance. Won't *that* be an interesting turn of events.


By way of translation of the following, ZIXI's just the stock symbol for
ZixIt <http://www.zixit.com/>, which is not apparent from my heads-up from
"Somebody", below.

If you're *that* interested, ZixIt's press release is here
<http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=zixi&script=410&layo
ut=7&item_id=66893>, with apologies for any inflicted line-breaks in
transit, complete with the offending invective (these guys don't read
cypherpunks, I guess :-)).

All the actual gory details, in stock-analyst-readable PDF, :-), are here:

<http://www.zixit.com/visa/>

I'm sure we'll hear more about this as time goes on, especially now that
I've shot my mouth off so much about it on these lists...

Cheers,
RAH

--- begin forwarded text


From: Somebody
To: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject: ZIXI Suing VISA
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2000 11:47:45 -0500

Bob,

	I can't post this for obvious reasons you will soon discover, but ZIXI is
suing Visa for posts made by Paul Guthrie (DCSB poster <among other places
--RAH>) on the Yahoo ZIXI board.

	Go to the ZIXI website <http://www.zixi.com> for their view on the
lawsuit. Then go to the Yahoo and Silicon Investor ZIXI boards. It really
is the most bizare set of posts I have ever read. I can give you more info
via repudiable
medium - <Phone number elided>.

<Oh, that's okay, Somebody. I think I've heard enough. Thanks for the
pointer anyway -- RAH>


--- end forwarded text


-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'