Re: newsweek oct 30 Levy digital cash article

[Steve Bryan <sbryan@maroon.tc.umn.edu> (Steve Bryan)]

>>also, my question about whether one loses the downloaded Chaumian bucks
>if one's hard drive crashes was answered in the affirmative by Levy.
>
>But as I said, if the drive is backed up you don't lose it. It's my 
>understanding this is the case with the current Digicash/Twain bucks.  
>But not necessarily with all implementations.
>
>This "lose your money" with digital cash really does seem to get to 
>people. I always point out that when you take $ out of an ATM machine, 
>you don't expect to get it back if you lose it.  For those forms of 
>e-money that are irretrevable when lost users are warned not to download 
>huge amounts. 
>
>Question: will people's worries about losing their e-money lead them to 
>accept a higher degree of tracibility as a tradeoff?  

I have a question about Digicash that I haven't seen addressed. I've participated in the beta test but have to admit I didn't use it with great frequency. I only downloaded $10 at a time. What surprised me was that one time I was informed that the money I had downloaded had expired. I was able to go back and pick up more but am perplexed with what happenned in that case. Does digicash actually age and disappear if not used soon enough?


-Steve Bryan