DocumentCode :
1443189
Title :
Traceable e-cash
Author :
Gemmell, Peter S.
Author_Institution :
Sandia Nat. Labs., Albuquerque, NM, USA
Volume :
34
Issue :
2
fYear :
1997
fDate :
2/1/1997 12:00:00 AM
Firstpage :
35
Lastpage :
37
Abstract :
The widespread success and acceptability of electronic cash systems ultimately will involve striking a balance between anonymity and traceability. Traceable e-cash would make it harder to commit many crimes but would also threaten users´ privacy. Completely untraceable digital cash would pose new difficulties for law enforcement agencies. Although physical cash has certain properties of an anonymous medium, its anonymous use is significantly constrained by the following considerations: bulk-large amounts of money take up a certain amount of space, but this sort of bulk sometimes helps authorities track money; transactional delays-the process of transferring, verifying, and counting bills takes at least a few seconds and for larger quantities, the times required are even less trivial; palpability-physical cash cannot be transferred over a computer network, and transferring it securely to a remote payee takes time and resources that may render the process somewhat visible; traceability-if law enforcement authorities know the serial numbers of bills being tracked, financial institutions may be able to help identify the next person who deposits them
Keywords :
computer crime; data privacy; financial data processing; government policies; anonymity; crimes; electronic cash systems; law enforcement agencies; physical cash; remote payee; serial numbers; traceability; traceable e-cash; transactional delays; untraceable digital cash; user privacy; Cameras; Computer networks; Counterfeiting; Delay; Government; Law enforcement; Printing;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Spectrum, IEEE
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
0018-9235
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/6.570827
Filename :
570827
Link To Document :
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