Re: Attention Shoppers: Internet Is Open (NYT, 12Aug94)

["L. Todd Masco" <cactus@bb.com>]

hart@chaos.bsu.edu (Jim Hart):
>All in all a good article.  I have a couple problems with it,
>which may be due more to the people interviewed than to the
>reporter:

The biggest problem I have (obviously) with it is that the premise
 is wrong: NetMarket was *not* the first company to take a credit-
 card order via automatic encryption software.  

Over a month before the sale they site, Bibliobytes made its first
 sale with an automatic encryption program: the only real difference
 is that NetMarket used hhtp, where bibliobytes used e-mail -- so
 their interface is much prettier (and that we used RIPEM where 
 they used PGP).  Well before us, people were taking orders via PGP --
 the thing about our client was that the user didn't have to know
 anything about encryption programs.

We've contacted the author of the article and he claims that he'll
 be retracting the claim... we'll see.  The Voice already snickered at
 the NYT's fuck-up in this week's edition.

My other company (and the one I have the larger interest in), HKS,
 is about to announce a point of sale system (called ICE, for 
 Internet Creditcard Encryptor -- don't blame me, I didn't name
 it) that'll be a drop-in solution for companies, end to end from
 customer to delivery for soft products and delivery lists for hard
 products.

The problem here, and the one that's of interest to Cypherpunks, is
 how to change this system, using credit cards and all the loss of
 privacy they entail, into one using anonymous digital cash.  HKS
 certainly has a commitment (though in word only at this point, since
 it's vaporware) to support digital cash, but as I've noted before
 it a very difficult bootstrap problem.

There has to be some reason people would use digital cash over credit
 cards and frankly, I don't see it happening in the near future except
 by some large power (like banks) decided to support it.

The american people keep claiming in polls that they want better privacy
 protection, but the fact is that most aren't willing to do anything
 about it: it's just a preference, not a solid imperative.  Until
 something Really Bad happens to many people as a result of privacy
 loss, I really don't think much will be done that requires real
 work and inconvenience from people, like moving to something other
 than credit cards for long-distance transactions... and that's a
 tragedy.
--
L. Todd Masco  | "Large prime numbers imply arrest."  - Meaningless
cactus@bb.com  |   grammatically correct sentence.   Right.