14 Aug 2002
Yesterday I subscribed to Bob Hettinga’s Digital Bearer Settlements list. Today I have 120+ emails from that list all from Bob, almost all articles from papers. I think Bob might have taken a speed reading course. He uses the list like I use a blog, but instead of links he posts the interesting content in full.
It makes for some interesting reading, but unfortunately not much about real, working DBS systems out there. Perhaps because there are none.
On another sad note: Bob’s baby, the Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation, which he founded in 1999 to underwrite DBSettlements isn’t in good shape:
[…] Hope all the winch grinding will keep me from fretting about how to dig IBUC out of a very big, and imminent, hole. Sigh… […]
Yuck.
A collection of articles by Bob The Geodesic Economy (300k PDF file) is soon to be required reading for carring on a cohereant conversationt with me (no really, go read an article a day, this is really good stuff).
#cypherpunk
14 Aug 2002
Oh, Lord….
I probably saw this somewhere months ago but my concious mind denied it could exist: Am I A Cyberpunk or NOT.
Unfortunatly there’s only four pictures. :(
14 Aug 2002
I’ve started a Wiki on Digital Bearer Settlements. There are a lot of sites out there with links to papers, but I wish to write analysis and synthesis of the info out there. I only have the barest amount of stuff on there thus far, but if you felt so inclined add some stuff.
I’m working a cryptomonkey.net logo in Gimp. Think cartoon monkey outline on top of a hex dump of the Declaration of Independence. No, I didn’t read too much cyberpunk while growing up.
Of course what I really want is Ryan to reply to my email about OpenDBS, preferably with a link to some source code.
Oh yeah, I haven’t mention here what I found out from him at H2K2 because I didn’t want to steal any thunder from his talk at Defcon (which I’m looking for an mp3 of). Kevin Burton made some notes of the talk, but I’m not sure how much of these details he gave out.
There is code (that’s a good start). It’s in python (yeah!). It makes use of the Cryptix crypto lib, from which we can extrapolate that the code is in Jython, not the C based Python we know and love. Ryan initially wants to have the whole system (client wallet and all) hosted on Sealand accessable via a web interface while he works out the client-server protocol (this I wish to change his mind on. I’m not total sure what he means by that, the diffrent digital bearer systems take care of what numbers you send, and why not use XML-RPC/SOAP/XML-REST for the packaging of those numbers?). He has code for Chaum and Wagner type digital cash, and wishes to add Brands as well.
14 Aug 2002
Zooko moved from Halfax, NS to Toronto a week ago. He hasn’t gotten back on the net yet, but he was supposed to get DSL today. Unfortunately Canadian DSL providers are just as bad as US providers and thus, no zooko.
When he gets back we will push out a new Mnet release. If he doesn’t show by Saturday I’ll do the Mnet release. I really want to tear in the Unstable branch and fix what I can.
14 Aug 2002
Wow… weeks fly by and no posting from me. Recently I’ve been in meetings for 7 hours of the day and having really great profound thoughts. If I had a Wifi’ed laptop at these meetings they’d all be here, but by the time I get home (1 hour commute) I too tired to think anymore.
2 more days of meetings and I’ll be working at home for my other client for a while.