[ISN] Ron Rivest; Microcash on the Internet, Deep Crack = MicroMint?

From: cult hero (jerichoat_private)
Date: Tue May 11 1999 - 19:53:34 PDT

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    Forwarded From: Robert Hettinga <rahat_private>
    
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              The Digital Commerce Society of Boston
    
                            Presents
    
                      Dr. Ronald L. Rivest
                          Cryptographer
    
    
    
              Underwriting Microcash on the Internet:
                     Deep Crack = MicroMint?
    
    
    
                    Tuesday, June 1st, 1999
                           12 - 2 PM
               The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston
                  One Federal Street, Boston, MA
    
    
    MicroMint is a low security, high speed micropayment protocol based on
    k-way hash-function collisions.  Just like an industrial mint, a MicroMint
    underwriter's economies of scale allow the production of large quantities
    of 'coins' at very low cost per coin, while small-scale forgery attempts
    can only produce coins at a cost exceeding their value. Unlike digital
    signature methods, a large initial investment is required to generate the
    first MicroMint coin, but generating additional coins is exponentially
    cheaper the more you produce. A true 'off-line' protocol, MicroMint
    produces a simple bit-string whose validity can be easily checked.
    
    The time to market for a possible MicroMint machine has been accelerated
    recently with the discovery that a MicroMint prototype has inadvertently
    been built already. "Deep Crack" is a custom-built DES-cracking machine
    built by Cryptography Research, Inc., for the Electronic Frontier
    Foundation. "Deep Crack" was built to prove that DES, the Data Encryption
    Standard, can be broken cheaply enough to make it unusuable for most
    purposes, especially in finance.  At the 1999 International Conference on
    Financial Cryptography, MicroMint developers Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir --
    two of the three developers of RSA public key cryptography -- showed how,
    with a few modifications, "Deep Crack" could be used to generate MicroMint
    coins.
    
    There is now interest in building a much larger commercial version of
    MicroMint. Putting a MicroMint machine on the web and linking it to
    existing cash-settlement financial networks like the Automatic Teller or
    Automated Clearinghouse systems, and a few regulatory changes, would allow
    one to withdraw and deposit MicroMint-based microcash from the internet in
    the same way that one could withdraw and deposit cash from an ATM.
    MicroMint coins could be used to pay for many small-value products and
    services, like MP3 files, streaming audio and video, controlled-access
    web-page content, value-added email postage, internet access, telephony
    and, possibly, with the incorporation of TCP/IP into power lines,
    electricity itself, someday. The ability to settle such transactions
    instantaneously and for cash should significantly reduce the
    administrative, financial, legal, and even engineering cost of anything
    sold on the internet.
    
    
    Ronald L. Rivest is the Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering and
    Computer Science in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
    Science. He is an Associate Director of MIT's Laboratory for Computer
    Science, is a member of the lab's Theory of Computation Group and is a
    leader of its Cryptography and Information Security Group.
    
    Professor Rivest is an inventor of the RSA public-key cryptosystem, and a
    founder of RSA Data Security (now a subsidiary of Security Dynamics).  He
    has served a Director of the International Association for Cryptologic
    Research, the organizing body for the Eurocrypt and Crypto conferences, and
    as a founding Director of the International Financial Cryptography
    Association, the organizing body for the International Conference on
    Financial Cryptography
    
    Professor Rivest is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and
    of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is also a member of the
    National Academy of Engineering.
    
    
    This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held
    on Tuesday, June 1, 1999, from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of
    the Harvard Club of Boston, on One Federal Street. The price for
    lunch is $32.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, various A/V
    hardware, and the speakers' lunch.  The Harvard Club *does* have
    dress code: jackets and ties for men (and no sneakers or jeans), and
    "appropriate business attire" (whatever that means), for women.  Fair
    warning: since we purchase these luncheons in advance, we will be
    unable to refund the price of your lunch if the Club finds you in
    violation of the dress code.
    
    
    We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we
    *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of
    Boston", by Saturday, May 29th, or you won't be on the list for
    lunch.  Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston
    will have to be sent back.
    
    Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston,
    Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The
    Harvard Club of Boston", in the amount of $32.50. Please include your
    e-mail address so that we can send you a confirmation
    
    If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements
    (We've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for
    instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can
    work something out.
    
    Upcoming speakers for DCSB are:
    
    July  Tim Middelkoop   Software Agents and Digital Commerce
    
    We are actively searching for future speakers.  If you are in Boston
    on the first Tuesday of the month, and you are a principal in digital
    commerce, and would like to make a presentation to the Society,
    please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert
    Hettinga, <mailto: rahat_private>.
    
    
    For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston,
    send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto:
    majordomoat_private> . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail
    list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto:
    majordomoat_private> .
    
    We look forward to seeing you there!
    
    Cheers,
    Robert Hettinga
    Moderator,
    The Digital Commerce Society of Boston
    
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    -----------------
    Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rahat_private>
    Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
    44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
    "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
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