[371] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
SunWorld on Mondex/lack of anonymity
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rich Graves)
Mon Mar 17 18:48:46 1997
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 13:16:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
To: cryptography@c2.net
>From Electronic Frontiers Canada, www.efc.ca.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 97 14:08:12 EST
From: David Jones <djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA>
To: efc-talk@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA
Subject: you, your cell phone, your smart card, will be tracked
[...]
2. The "Mondex" electronic payment system that is often misleadingly
described as "electronic cash" is currently being tested in Guelph, Ont.
To me, and many people using Mondex "smart cards", it is
misleading to call the Mondex system "cash" because that word
implicitly suggests that the system is anonymous, and not auditted.
Indeed, Mondex public relations takes great pains to avoid
admitting that Mondex is in fact a fully auditted electronic payment
system in which the amount, time, date, location, and participants
in every single transaction is "auditable". The difficulty Mondex
finds itself in is, on the one hand, wanting to convince the public
to adopt the system, and on the other hand, wanting the government
and corporate investors to have confidence in the security and
reliability of the system.
So while Mondex is reluctant to tell customers that the system is
not anonymous (in fact, they were sued for false advertising just
over a year ago when they actually claimed it was anonymous),
they are at other times pretty open and frank, ... as in
the latest edition of SunWorld, where Mondex President and CEO
admits the system is "fully auditable".
"Will you soon be using smart cards for electronic payments?"
SunWorld
http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/sunworld.12mar97.html
