FC97: Anguilla, Anyone?

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

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July 19, 1996
Boston, Massachusetts


"What are you doing the last week of February, 1997?  How about going to
Anguilla?"

Those are the two lines which started an awful lot of interesting stuff...


It was the end of May, and I was winding up a contract for someone, and was
thinking about what to do next. I got to thinking about what a great year
it has been since about September or so, when 36 Boston-area financial
cryptography types, Peter Cassidy and I founded the Digital Commerce
Society of Boston.

Since then, the whole idea of actually selling stuff over the net, not just
displaying it there, has really caught on. I've written rants all over the
net, done guest editorials for InfoWorld and Wired, spoken at Apple and
Internet World, and done lots of other great stuff, all around the emerging
technology of digital commerce, and, in particular, financial cryptography
on public networks.

We've had speakers at DCSB ranging from Win Treese of Open Market and
Donald Eastlake of Cybercash, to Mark Bernkopf, a certified Beltway Bandit,
by way of the Fed's Open Market Operations and the Clinton White House, to
a well-known cypherpunk, Perry Metzger, giving a talk wryly titled
"Gold-Denominated Burmese Opium Futures?".  Julie Rackliffe, membership
manager of Boston's Computer Museum, has been an enormous help, organizing
the first of the Society's large activities, a networking party at the
Downtown Harvard Club's 38th-floor lounge, featuring a beautiful sunset,
and complementary cocktails and hors' deuvres, all sponsored by the Open
Software Foundation.


At the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in April, I met Ray
Hirschfeld, manager of CWI, and director of the CAFE digital cash project.
I also met Ian Goldberg, who made himself famous this winter by hacking a
great big hole in Netscape's SSL protocol, and then, a few months later,
doing the same thing to Digicash's ecash mint software, both of which are
now much safer to use as a result of his efforts.

That evening, in a digital-coin session that lasted until about 2 AM, about
10 of us die-hards, including Ian and Ray, talked about the emerging
technology of financial cryptography, and how it was going to be impossible
for anyone to ignore Real Soon Now. Other people, ;-), muttered about
"asking forgiveness, not permission" from the various government regulators
around the world, and just making stuff like anonymous digital cash a fait
accompli on the internet from a small island banking haven somewhere.


Thinking about all this reminded me of someone else, who actually *lived*
on a small island banking haven, Vince Cate, another cypherpunk who founded
Offshore Information Services, on the island of Anguilla in the eastern
Carribbean. When I was a kid, I used to live on nearby St. Thomas, and as a
result of our common interests in everything from kitesailing and
multihulls to technomadness, Vince and I found ourselves on lots of other
e-mail lists besides cypherpunks. This winter was especially nasty in
Boston, and I found myself pining for the tropics more than once,
particularly in February, when the weather was its worst...


And then, as they say here in Massachusetts, "Dawn broke on Marble-head."
It all came together: Why not have a financial cryptography conference, in
February, on Anguilla? Someplace where, given the internet access already
there, someday, someone could actually create the "First Anonymous Bank of
Cyberspace". (Well, maybe not this year. ;-)) This conference idea just
kept sounding better and better. I kept tweaking it as I thought about it.

I thought it should be a peer-reviewed conference, where people could not
only talk about the state of the art in cryptography as it is applied to
finance, but the states of the art in finance, law, and economics, as they
applied to strong cryptography on a public network.

I added a workshop the week before, where the technically clueful but
cryptographically unaware could get hands-on training in setting up SSL
servers, or Digicash mintware, or learn about digital bearer certificates
and other animals in the financial crypto bestiary.

I thought about exhibit space, where people could show their wares. About
having the bandwidth to support this... and that's when I e-mailed Vince
Cate with the idea, starting with the line, "Vince, what are you doing in
February?"

Vince *really* liked the idea. :-).

We kicked stuff around for a bit, and I then approached Ray Hirschfeld
(with the same two questions you see at the top of this letter), to see
whether he'd be interested in putting together a conference committee and
running the conference from the "content" side. After some thinking, he
came back with a "yes", and, after I got myself off the floor, ;-), I
e-mailed Ian Goldberg, who said *he'd* be interested, *if* he could get his
advisor at Berkeley to approve Ian's taking some time off in February,
which he thought probable. I e-mailed Julie Rackliffe, and she said she'd
be delighted to moonlight a bit and handle marketing for both workshop and
conference, and the management of the conference itself. Vince came back
later with what looks to be a conference site, complete with estimates for
T1 internet access (yes, Virginia, there are T1s in the Caribbean). The
site, like the rest of Anguilla, came through Hurricane Bertha with flying
colors.

Ray has even come up with a simple name for the conference, "Financial
Cryptography 1997", or FC97, with apologies to Mr. Kaczynski. :-).

Ian came back to say he was in.

So, it looks like we're ready for the next step, which is to raise money
from about 10 charter sponsors to cover what will be our sunk costs prior
to collecting revenue for exhibit space, workshop and conference revenue.


Here's what what we have in mind so far...

Ray has started to assemble the conference committee with some impressive
names on it so far -- including some who will surprise you -- which will
referee papers.  We're hoping for the conference as a whole to be more in
the way of a union of cryptography and finance than an intersection of the
two fields. The conference procedings will be published, particularly on
the web, but on paper as well.

The conference itself will run from Monday, February 24, through Friday,
February 28, 1997, from the hours of 8:30AM to 12:30PM. The afternoons will
be taken up with various sponsored activities, one each afternoon,
including lunch, and each evening, including dinner. We're figuring that
the total number of conference hours in this conference will be the same as
most other technical conferences, but they'll be stretched out over the
whole week.

We did this for several reasons. The first is, we're in Anguilla, and
people *will* bug out in the afternoons whether we want them to or not, so
we might as well bug out together, and the second is *also* that we're in
Anguilla, and people can't go anywhere else after going to all the trouble
of getting there anyway, so we might as well stretch the conference out
over the whole week. :-). Finally, like Cannes, people will be going to
this conference for much more than the technical sessions. We're leaving
lots of time for informal discussions and networking, and, of course, for
seeing the exhibits and products of our sponsors and exhibitors.

We're currently hoping for a target price for a conference ticket of (all
prices in US dollars) $1,000, a nice round number, which should include
breakfast. Lunch and dinner will be paid for by the afternoon activity
sponsor and the evening activity sponsor, respectively. We're hoping to
arrange conference discounts on airfare to Anguilla and lodging.

The workshop, run by Ian Goldberg, and to be held the week before (February
17/24), will run during the same hours, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM, but, given the
educational nature of the workshop, the afternoons and evening will be open
for lab time to experiment with new technologies and to learn more on one's
own or in the company of one of the instructors. We want a 5-to-1
student-instructor ratio, and we're planning to hire instructors, all known
to the net community, who, along with their stipend, will receive a
complementary conference ticket and room and board for three weeks (one
week pre-workshop preparation, and one week each for the workshop and
conference). We plan to charge $5,000 for each workshop participant. We
want to have a T1 to the net, a workstation for each participant and
several different kinds of servers to work with.

There will be exhibit space for companies who just want to exhibit and not
be a conference sponsor. These companies will also get 2 conference tickets
per booth. There will also be booths reserved for charter sponsors at
discount prices.


So, right now, we're looking for 10 charter sponsors.  These companies will
have their names on all conference communications, including e-mail,
banners, and collateral literature. In addition, their names will be on
either an afternoon or evening activity, including dinner or lunch, where
applicable. They also get 5 conference tickets, and that discount on booth
space.

As I said before, the sponsorship money will be used to cover sunk costs:
advance fees, deposits and the like, plus an operating reserve. Money
various people are going to want up-front, before proceeding with any work.
A full accounting of money spent will be available to the sponsors, since
we consider them our most important stakeholders in this first-ever
Financial Cryptography conference and workshop.

Of course, as we determine costs for specific things, there will also be an
opportunity for sponsors in-kind, but right now, we're looking for actual
money. :-).

Upon collection of revenue from the conference, workshops, and exhibits,
paying off the costs incurred to date, the sponsorship money will then be
used to pay for the specific activity they want to sponsor. Any money left
over, of course, is ours, :-), but sponsors *will* get their money's worth.
We promise.

Ray and the conference committee are getting reimbursement for their
expenses, but in the "chinese wall" tradition of these kinds of
conferences, they are not being paid anything for their time. Ian, as
workshop leader, is getting paid a good fee for his time (*much* better
than t-shirts and bugs bounties), plus a share of the workshop's profits,
if any, and the workshop instructors will get a good stipend. Vince, Julie
and I are going to get paid for our efforts (well, we hope :-)) but,
believe me, nobody's going to get rich doing this conference, by any
stretch. We'll all be very happy if we can make it happen, everyone is
happy when it's over, and we get paid reasonably for the time we spent on
it.

The sponsors' choice of activity blocks, afternoon or evening, or for any
day of the week, will be on a first come, first served basis. The first 10
sponsors to get us a check gets those slots. If we don't get enough
sponsors by our self-imposed deadline of September 15th, then all checks
will be returned and we'll cancel the conference, or at least examine other
options.

Sponsors' checks should be payable, in U.S. Dollars, to "Financial
Cryptography, 1997". After we get requisite number of sponsors, the checks
will be deposited in an Anguillan bank, and the partnership running the
conference and workshop will operate under Anguillan law.

For the time being, I'm the net.contact for particulars, if you know anyone
who's interested in helping us sponsor this event. Julie Rackliffe will
handle most of the actual contact with the sponsors after we're through
this first "expression of interest" phase.

Once Ray gets his conference committee assembled and they've finished
writing one, look for a Call for Papers in all the usual lists and
newsgroups. Once Ian has assembled his team of instructors, look for
information on the workshop and its contents from him in the same kinds of
places.

I'll announce when we have the requisite sponsorship as soon as we get the
sponsor list filled. Some time after that announcement, Vince Cate will be
putting together a website on Anguilla which will not only offer
information about the conference, but also a way to register, and hopefully
pay for :-), your conference tickets. With a stiff tailwind, we might be
able to arrange travel and hotel reservations too, or at least point you to
web-savvy travel people who can help you.


So, if you, or any one you know, is interested in being a sponsor for this
event, please let me know. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by our
sponsorship pricing. We think it's well within the signing authority of
most of the senior people who read this, and should fit quite reasonably
into the promotion budget of any firm who wants to compete in the financial
cryptography business, or any business it affects, as these kinds of
markets begin to take off.

Well, that's it. Here's hoping you'll join us in Anguilla. Then you, too,
will know what *you're* doing the last week in February!



Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
FC97



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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"'Bart Bucks' are not legal tender."
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The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/