12.7.1. Uses for digital cash?
- Privacy protection
- Preventing tracking of movements, contacts, preferences
+ Illegal markets
- gambling
- bribes, payoffs
- assassinations and other contract crimes
- fencing, purchases of goods
+ Tax avoidance
- income hiding
- offshore funds transfers
- illegal markets
- Online services, games, etc.
+ Agoric markets, such as for allocation of computer
resources
- where programs, agents "pay" for services used, make
"bids" for future services, collect "rent," etc.
+ Road tolls, parking fees, where unlinkablity is desired.
This press release excerpt should give the flavor of
intended uses for road tolls:
- "The product was developed by DigiCash TM Corporation's
wholly owned Dutch subsidiary, DigiCash TM BV. It is
related to the firm's earlier released product for road
pricing, which has been licensed to Amtech TM
Corporation, of Dallas, Texas, worldwide leader in
automatic road toll collection. This system allows
privacy protected payments for road use at full highway
speed from a smart card reader affixed to the inside of a
vehicle. Also related is the approach of the EU supported
CAFE project, of which Dr. Chaum is Chairman, which uses
tamper-resistant chips inserted into electronic wallets."
[DIGICASH PRESS RELEASE, "World's first electronic cash
payment over computer networks," 1994-05-27]
12.7.2. "What are some motivations for anonymous digital cash?"
+ Payments that are unlinkable to identity, especially for
things like highway tolls, bridge tolls, etc.
- where linkablity would imply position tracking
- (Why not use coins? This idea is for "smart card"-type
payment systems, involving wireless communication.
Singapore planned (and perhaps has implemented) such a
system, except there were no privacy considerations.)
+ Pay for things while using pseudonyms
- no point in having a pseudonym if the payment system
reveals one's identity
+ Tax avoidance
- this is the one the digicash proponents don't like to
talk about too loudly, but it's obviously a time-honored
concern of all taxpayers
+ Because there is no compelling reason why money should be
linked to personal identity
- a general point, subsuming others
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind