It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again
"You could probably waste an entire day on the preceding links alone. But why take chances? We also give you Paul Snively..." — John Wiseman, lemonodor
The Economist. Smart Money. This is a mini mind-bomb. What if money had intelligence? What if it could remember all its previous transactions. What if it could be programmed and had a limited API? Granted, this may be a little scary and is certainly counter to the anonymity the cybercash renegades out in SeaLand prize, but it has its appeals... This is interesting and brings up the question: should the smarts be decentralized or centralized? Certainly, centralized systems have problems. It would invite abuse by the gov't. Decentralized systems are more interesting but require more computing power on the bill itself. Very interesting stuff to think about although entirely unworkable. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
Not at all unworkable, and it has to be distributed ("decentralized") to be either worthwhile or secure. The notion is properly called "Smart Contracts," and an excellent launching off point for learning about them can be found at <http://www.erights.org/smart-contracts>. I'd love to see more people gain an understanding of this material.
Incidentally, the solution to the privacy/reputation trade-off is not anonymity, but pseudonymity. See <http://www.openprivacy.org>.
6:32:03 PM
This is a mini mind-bomb. What if money had intelligence? What if it could remember all its previous transactions. What if it could be programmed and had a limited API? Granted, this may be a little scary and is certainly counter to the anonymity the cybercash renegades out in 
