End the War on Freedom

From this speech on receiving the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard University's Memorial Church: "Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God means believing, absolutely, in something, with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers." -- Joss Whedon

The Economist - neat new desalination technology uses much less energy than former methods. [grabbe]

Chow.com at YouTube - John Nese, the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA, talks about soda. He sells about 500 different kinds, sweetened with sugar cane sugar, whenever possible. You can order it via UPS ground at SodaPopStop.com. This guy's sheer joy is infectious. Don't miss it.

Bookase.com is a book price comparison service, based in Delhi, India. Enter a book title, select the one you want from the results, and it shows prices, including shipping, for a large number of online book sellers. Worked well for the couple of samples I tried, though there was a layout problem in the results page, causing the result table to be offset to the right. Includes coupon codes to use for discounts, when applicable. No ads, except a couple of popular books listed on the home page. Appears that they make money with affiliate fees.

I have been running TwinkiesForObama.com since November 6, 2008. In that time, there have been 1891 presses on the "I Sent One" button, hopefully representing something close to that number of actual Twinkies sent to Obama, and over 20 thousand visits to the site. The domain expires tomorrow. I'm going to let it go. No longer worth the money or time it takes me to keep it running. I'll keep it up at twinkiesforobama.nfshost.com, in case I decide to repurpose it for another similar effort in the future.

Christopher Booker at The Telegraph - Mr. Booker introduces his book, The Real Global Warming Disaster (Amazon), in which he tracks the history of the hoax of human-induced global warming. Not yet released in the US (that Amazon link), but you can order it from the UK via the "2 new from $19.77" link on the Amazon page, or directly form the publisher, Telegraph Books. Quote:Next Thursday marks the first anniversary of one of the most remarkable events ever to take place in the House of Commons. For six hours MPs debated what was far and away the most expensive piece of legislation ever put before Parliament. The Climate Change Bill laid down that, by 2050, the British people must cut their emissions of carbon dioxide by well over 80 per cent. Short of some unimaginable technological revolution, such a target could not possibly be achieved without shutting down almost the whole of our industrialised economy, changing our way of life out of recognition. Even the Government had to concede that the expense of doing this – which it now admits will cost us £18 billion a year for the next 40 years – would be twice the value of its supposed benefits. Yet, astonishingly, although dozens of MPs queued up to speak in favour of the Bill, only two dared to question the need for it. It passed by 463 votes to just three. One who voted against it was Peter Lilley who, just before the vote was taken, drew the Speaker’s attention to the fact that, outside the Palace of Westminster, snow was falling, the first October snow recorded in London for 74 years. As I observed at the time: “Who says that God hasn’t got a sense of humour?” ... Thanks to misreading the significance of a brief period of rising temperatures at the end of the 20th century, the Western world (but not India or China) is now contemplating measures that add up to the most expensive economic suicide note ever written.

Russell D. Longcore at The Libertarian Enterprise - why vice is not crime. Some things governments do routinely that are crimes. Quote:Punishing crime is meant to guarantee to every person the fullest liberty he can realize that is also consistent with the full liberty of others. Government should exist only to protect the liberty of the individual, and protect his life and property from force and fraud. An individual must be free in the "pursuit of happiness," even to practice vices that others detest. An individual must be free to use his own judgment, his own body and his own property without restriction so far as the use does not interfere with another individual's quiet enjoyment of his own person and property. Everyone wants to be protected against violations from other men. But no one wants to be "protected" from himself, since someone else is determining what "protection" is.

L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - when simple new inventions make big, complicated, old technology obsolete, it's just not fair. "Good," says Neil. Quote:For long years afterward, Henry VIII, who used archers to good effect, himself, had to put up with exactly the same whining: the French and other aristocrats complained bitterly about this invention, the Welsh longbow, that nullified a lifetime of training with animals and equipment in which they had invested fortunes, and which could now be defeated by mere farmers using couple of sticks and a piece of string. "It's just not fair!" Do what they would, the age of armored knights was over, and that was a very, very good thing. It set up the psychology under which our ancestors, equipped with another revolutionary weapon, the flintlock Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifle, cast off the rule of kings altogether. Most Americans today don't appreciate what was really revolutionary about that rifle: compared with firearms that had preceded it, it was so simple in design and cheap to manufacture, every family could own one. Politicians and bureaucrats still haven't gotten over it.

YouTube - If I lived in Canada, I'd probably recognize this guy, but I don't, and I don't. Funny, though. And frightening. [militant]

Stephan Kinsella at The Mises Economics Blog - short intro and reprint of a letter that a Professor Emeritus of Physics at UConn wrote to the EPA. Why the science is most assuredly NOT settled on CO2 and climate, and why there's no such thing as a "tipping point" to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Quote:It has been often said that the "science is settled" on the issue of CO2 and climate. Let me put this claim to rest with a simple one-letter proof that it is false. The letter is s, the one that changes model into models. If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements. Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with the research funds that have kept those models alive. We can take this further. Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.

I received today from C. Crane my first GeoBulb. It's a GeoBulb II in cool white. Standard Edison socket, 60 watt equivalent light, draws 7.5 watts, 30,000 hour life, $50 plus shipping. The bulb is quite heavy, relative to the incandescent bulb it replaced. It's cool to the touch when illuminated. Nice white light. It buzzes softly, but I only hear it if I put my ear within a few inches. Won't be able to fully judge it until the sun goes down, and when I discover if it really does last for three years, but so far I'm happy with it. GeoBulb Box Made in China Well-packaged With my old full spectrum incandescent bulb In my 35-year-old desk lamp

Ross McKitrick at Financial Post - I had been convinced that the earth really was warming, just that we humans didn't have much, if anything, to do with it. This article challenges the former. More evidence that the whole global warming fairy tale was a huge lie from start to finish. Those hockey stick graphs? Fabrications. Quote:I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent. The surface temperature data is a contaminated mess with a significant warm bias, and as I have detailed elsewhere the IPCC fabricated evidence in its 2007 report to cover up the problem. Climate models are in gross disagreement with observations, and the discrepancy is growing with each passing year. The often-hyped claim that the modern climate has departed from natural variability depended on flawed statistical methods and low-quality data. The IPCC review process, of which I was a member last time, is nothing at all like what the public has been told: Conflicts of interest are endemic, critical evidence is systematically ignored and there are no effective checks and balances against bias or distortion. ... Ross McKitrick is a professor of environmental economics at the University of Guelph, and coauthor of Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming.

Mike Vanderboegh - a patriot packs a crop-duster with an air-fuel bomb, and brings down hell-fire on the Brightfire mercenaries in Vanderboegh's novel of a near-future America. I remember enjoying this the first time I read it, many months ago. Didn't cheer out loud this time, since I knew what was going to happen, but I enjoyed re-reading it. Getting excited about the coming release of the book.

Paul Galvin at LewRockwell.com - when the census taker comes to your door next year, Mr. Galvin recommends that you hold the feds to their Constitutional authority. Tell her only your name and address. Quote:Readers will note that the Constitution simply authorizes an enumeration, a counting of heads. Not an enumeration by race, Hispanic ethnicity, personal relationships, or by the manner in which a person occupies his/her home ("tenure" in census-speak). Not an enumeration by one’s labor force status, by health insurance coverage, by disability status, by level of education. Not an enumeration of the number of bedrooms, kitchens, cars, distances/times traveled to work, school. Not an enumeration of the amount of income made, or by the answers to numerous other nosy questions found in the American Community Survey. Just a simple counting of the number of people. Madison’s extensive notes on the 1787 Convention contain not one word about the delegates spending any of their valuable time discussing the issues of race, Hispanic origins, personal relationships, or plumbing.

Fred Reed at LewRockwell.com - I doubt this is accurate, and I'm sure one of the colonels Reed pisses on could tear it to shreds, but it sure was entertaining. Quote:In re Afghanistan, why, you might ask, is the world’s hugest, expensivest, most begadgeted military unable to defeat a few thousand angry tribesmen armed with AKs and RPGs? Easy: Character. The men running the war are mentally the wrong ones to do it. Think about this for a moment. Suppose that your boss at the lab or law firm or newsroom demanded that, when he entered the room, you leapt spasmodically to your feet, stood rigidly erect with your feet at a forty-five degree angle like a congenitally deformed duck, and stared straight ahead until he gave you permission to relax. You would think, correctly, that he was crazy as a bedbug. If he then required reporters to stand in a square so he could inspect their belt buckles, you would either figure he was a gay blade or call for a struggle buggy and some big orderlies. This weird posturing is not normal, nor are those it appeals to.

by George Potter [from here] 1. Mary Ellen sets the table with her usual care and eye for detail: the crystal sugar jar, filled fresh with Domino dots. The two piece creamer set her daughter gave her for Christmas, sterling silver, one for half and half, the other for skim milk. A similar, smaller silver decanter, this one filled with just melted dark Bavarian baking chocolate, in case her guest has a taste for mocha. Her guest, she says to herself, and smiles. The tablecloth is her best, of course; the durable white linen inherited from her mother and lovingly cared for. It's not something she whips out for any old company. The fact that the last few years have seen sparse company is beside the point. The white linen whispers special from every thread, every carefully maintained fiber. She wants her guest to know how much she appreciates his visits. "My guest," she says out loud. She giggles, surprising herself, then blushes. As usual, she feels like a schoolgirl. She glances at the clock over the stove. Ten minutes till noon. He always arrives at noon sharp. Time to see to the coffee. Mary Ellen is, to put it mildly, a coffee snob. Automatic drip technology is banned from her home, as she is a partisan of percolation. The pot she uses is another heirloom, this one from her grandmother. It's an all-in-one set from the early 1900's, kept beautiful and shining, cleaned after every use. It is designed to be placed on direct heat, and she's always careful not to set the gas flame too high. Fire smudges on her pot would be ghastly. She buys her beans from a little store downtown, pricey but worth it. Her favored brew is a blend of Arabica and Jamaican Blue Mountain: it's mellow but with a surprising strength and a deeply earthy bouquet. She grinds a portion, fills and caps the inner chamber, and carefully pours in the proper amount of ice cold spring water. She lights the stove, adjusts the flame and sits the pot on the heat to work its magic. She takes her place at the table and waits. In some ways, this is the best part of these visits: the lovely anticipation. The delicious knowledge of company coming, of considering pleasant topics of conversation, of waiting to hear the laughter and see the smile of her very welcome guest. And all the while the cheery rattling gurgle of coffee being brewed, filling the air with that wonderful aroma. A blessed moment. As the minutes sweep by she thinks of her husband Mike, who passed on a decade ago, taken too young from stress and bad genetics. Only fifty six when he died. She thinks he would have liked her young guest, that they would have gotten along famously. Mike had been such a curious man, and such a lover of conversation. He could talk about far way lands and times for hours and hours. And her guest could tell such stories! The second hand finishes its sweep and the noon hour arrives. With it comes her guest, fading into reality from nothingness. It takes less than three seconds, to go from an empty chair to her friend and coffee date Eric. Eric is a young man, and handsome. He is about twenty, with large dark eyes and short blonde hair. He is tall and thin, but muscular. His face is somewhat delicate, but not feminine. His smile is lovely. He wears a strange outfit. It looks something like a jumpsuit uniform, though the material is like nothing she has ever seen. He is from, he says, a little over a million years in her future. He is, he says, the last man on earth. And he is here to save the human race. "Good afternoon!" she says, as she always says. 2. The first time Eric visited, it scared Mary Ellen half to death. She turned around and was faced with a strange young man in her kitchen. She'd actually yelled. The poor boy was more frightened than her after that. It was a testament to his charm and persuasiveness that, in less than ten minutes, she'd been so relieved and calmed that she could do her duty as a host with an invited guest and offer him coffee. Eric took to her brew like an addict born. He praised it. Such things were only myths and legends where he came from, she learned. That first day was so surreal, and -- even now -- she was amused at how quickly she had accepted his story. Perhaps it was simple loneliness that caused her to be so accepting, but she was of the mind that it didn't matter. As the last man on Earth, the last human being, Eric too lived a life of loneliness. He had only the massive and indescribably powerful computer network for conversation. It was this computer that cracked the secret of time travel, and was -- even now -- running the vast simulations that would pinpoint the exact moment in the past where intervention would save the species. Save them from the catastrophe known as 'The Big Crash' "It's somewhere close to the here and now," he assured her, enjoying his third cup. "We've established that. That's why I never leave your house. Until we know the exact moment, and what exactly to do, there's no point in me endangering the mission and perhaps mucking up the timeline further." He helped himself to a warm-up. "That and your wonderful company and excellent coffee, of course," he assured her with a grin. So they talked, became friends. He told her stories of the far future and she told him stories of the near past. But mostly they talked about themselves. She spoke of her daughter's workaholic ways. How she was married to her job and the idea of grandchildren seemed less likely every day. She shared with him the bittersweet memories of her husband. He opened up about what it felt like to be engineered for a purpose, and how he'd never understood loneliness until he met her. Secretly, Mary Ellen dreaded the day when the computer finished its work and Eric's goal was in reach. If he managed to alter the past and re-arrange the future, if he was given an entire society to interact with, why would he waste his time with her? But she pushed such thoughts aside. She had never been a person to allow the end of a thing to spoil her enjoyment of it while it was happening. That, she knew, was a recipe for misery. So, like a good cup of fine coffee, she savored it while she could, sip by delicious sip. 3. As soon as he doesn't respond to her greeting, Mary Ellen knows that something is wrong. Something horrible. A glance at his eyes seals the deal. He looks despondent. He has been weeping. She goes immediately into damage control mode. "My dear, what on Earth is wrong?" He stares at her for a moment, tears threatening. Finally he speaks, his voice wavering. "It's over," he says. The words have a funereal sound. "It's all over." For a moment her heart goes cold, and she thinks he means their visits. But that's obviously not it, since here he is. A deeper concern strikes her. "The computer?" He nods, controlling himself with visible effort. "It finished the simulation this morning. There's nothing we can do. Nothing I can do." "I don't understand," she says, mainly to keep him talking. She pours him a cup and adds his usual two lumps of sugar and dash of half-and-half. "Neither do I, really," he admits. "The nature of time is still a mystery. But the computer is certain. There is no specific change that will alter my present in any way. The human species is dead, and will remain so." His voice comes close to breaking. "The Big Crash cannot be undone." "Oh, my dear," she says, compassion flooding her. "How awful." He takes a single sip of coffee, almost from habit. "The work of a lifetime. Made pointless in an instant." "Not pointless," Mary Ellen says. "You had to try." "Try and fail," he mutters. "What am I supposed to do now?" He stares at her with pleading eyes. "Why should I even bother any more?" Mary Ellen realizes something, with the sudden flash that accompanied all her true insights: despite the eons between her and this young man he was exactly that, a young man. Why, he could be a grandson to her! What did technology or knowledge matter when faced with troubles that only experience could guide you through? Half a million years of forward time meant less than forty three years of moment-by-moment experience. Despite his loneliness and drive, despite his vast intelligence and the information at his command, he had never experienced loss. He'd never felt it. He didn't know how to live through the pain. Well, she did. She'd lost her parents and her only sister. She'd lost her husband. She'd lost friends and neighbors over the years. She wasn't used to it, of course -- you never became used to it. But she knew how to deal with it. How to keep on while the heart was hurting. How to let it ache without breaking. And she could help him. She could help her friend. "Eric, my dear," she begins, quietly. "You simply cannot let this haunt you." He looks at her sharply. His expression wonders if she has gone mad. "It will get you nowhere," she continues, pressing on. Her voice is steady and firm. "It will only lead to misery." He is too taken aback for words at first. After a moment of struggle, he finds them. "Haunt me? Do you understand what I'm talking about? The last chance for the human race is gone. I have failed. Our species is extinct and shall remain extinct." She nods. "Oh, I understand perfectly. I simply see no reason for you to beat yourself up over that fact. Nature is nature. What cannot be undone is done. Common sense." She smiles at him, a wise but cheerful smile. His mouth is hanging open. He stutters, trying to argue. Mary Ellen pushes ahead, unwilling to lose her momentum, her higher ground as she sees it. "Everything dies, my dear. Everything. That's a fact of life and -- as you yourself and your wonderful computer have proven -- it cannot be changed." Disbelief edges toward actual anger in his eyes. "A tragedy of this nature cannot be simply accepted as if..." She cuts him off, knowing it's bad manners, knowing it may well increase his anger. She has to finish. "The only tragedy in death is if the life before the end was wasted. Was the human race cut short in its prime? Was the time it spend marvelling at the world and the universe in vain?" Eric is stunned to silence. He slumps back in the chair. "A million years from now you told me. A million years." She sips her coffee. "Seems like a nice long run." "My purpose," he says, weakly. She sniffs. "Your purpose is something only you can decide. It cannot be dictated or engineered into you." She sits her cup down, leans forward, and makes her final point. "So. Will you waste your own life, wallowing in self pity and depression? You have so many years ahead of you. Will you cry them away? That would be a tragedy." Eric closes his eyes, defeated. He sighs. Then he disappears, with a quiet sound and no fanfare. Without a farewell. "Oh dear," Mary Ellen says. She didn't want that to happen. She decides not to worry on it. Her advice was solid, she should take it herself. With nothing else to do, she clears the table and waits for tomorrow. 4. The next day dawns the same as any other, and Mary Ellen treats it as such. There is a bit of nervousness, an anxiety, as she goes through the routine of preparing coffee and setting the table, but she shoves such feelings deep into the back of her mind, remembering her own words from the day before. What is done is done. The coffee is brewing, the kitchen filling with that blessed aroma, when Eric appears, right on time. He smiles at her, not exactly cheerful, but without the heartbreak. "Good afternoon, dear!" she says, as she always says. His smile widens. He looks a little sheepish. "I thought about what you said," he tells her. She nods, busy pouring. He thanks her and takes a long drink, as deep as the heat will allow. He makes a quiet sound of pleasure. "You're right," he admits. There will be no I-told-you-so. Mary Ellen simply smiles happily and nods again. "And I made a decision," he continues, after another drink that nearly empties his cup. "A rather drastic one, in fact. I decided..." He is interrupted by a sudden flash and a flat crack. Mary Ellen jumps a little, but manages to keep from spilling her coffee on the white linen. On the table between them, two slim cases have appeared. Eric deftly unlocks and opens one. He spins it around to show her. She goes wide eyed. Even to her amateur eye it's quite obviously a fortune in perfectly shaped gold bars. "You've mentioned a spare room," he says, actually blushing. "Could you use a somewhat chatty tenant and some extra cash?" There is nothing to say. She laughs, overjoyed. She holds out her hand and he grips it. They smile foolishly at each other. A weight has lifted from her heart, a deep and abiding loneliness. And something else, something only now dawning in her mind: the idea of this handsome young man and her workaholic daughter, meeting. Eric could be so charming, so persuasive. Perhaps the dream of grandchildren was not so far fetched any longer? She would see. He is pondering too. An even deeper loneliness has left him, and something exciting has taken its place. No longer is he tied to a mandated course of action. No longer is fate a certainty to him. That's a terrifying prospect in many ways. But in others.....it speaks of nothing but adventure. Of hope. One bright spark of civilization, of warmth and friendship is better than nothing in the face of eternal blackness. This he has decided. It will be a mere moment, an infinitesimal point in a cold eternity. But could he really claim it is pointless? That it does not matter? He smiles and straightens up. Mary Ellen is cheered to see it. She breathes a sigh of relief and goes for the pot again. "Another cup, dear?" The coffee smells so wonderful. He pushes his cup and saucer forward. "Oh, yes. Please." She pours. He thanks her. And in this simple ritual they refute nihilism. They refuse despair. He adds cream and blackness is lightened. Sugar melts in the heat and banishes bitterness. He lifts the cup with calm hands and sips, tasting a model of the closed loop that was human history: finite, best enjoyed while fresh, and eventually finished. It is delicious.

Charlie Sorrel at Wired - the larger of Apple's two new iMac computers is only 3" smaller diagonally than their 30" monitor, but costs $100 less, with a computer thrown in for free. This will probably be my next desktop machine, though my three-year-old 20" iMac is still working well. Specs

Donald J. Boudreaux at The Wall Street Journal - why banning so-called "insider trading" is bad for the economy. Those trades reveal financial information that might otherwise remain secret, allowing the market to adjust earlier to financial problems with a company. [gsc]

Robin Barooah at The Quantified Self - Mr. Barooah has, as I have, gone through cold turkey on coffee a number of times, but each time he started again, because he thought coffee would help him concentrate better. He started his most recent withdrawal at the beginning of August, deciding to withdraw slowly, 20ml per week, to allow the psychological withdrawal to track the physical withdrawal. He also tracked his ability to concentrate, from June into October, so that when he started to think that starting coffee again might improve his concentration, he had objective proof that it wasn't so. Interesting. I've now been off the brown stuff for 3 weeks. Laid in bed the first week, was slightly-less-than-usually productive the second week. Could hardly work at all this past week, though I was vertical for most of each day. Hope it gets better soon.

Jon Matonis at The Monetary Future - an introduction and list of papers on electronic money. I repeated the paper links below. Once I find a system I like, and can understand, I'll add it to Trubanc. I want off-line trades to be a possibility, and for verification and reminting to be possible without an account, using a simple RESTful interface. Of course, you'll also be able to deposit and withdraw digital cash to and from your account, if you have one. If you have your favorite system, especially if you know where to find code for it, please comment or email (address at bottom of page). David Chaum's home page David Chaum, Amos Fiat, Moni Naor, "Untraceable Electronic Cash," Advances in Cryptology - CRYPTO '88, LNCS 403, pp. 319-327, 1990). Cryptographer's World Shaghayegh Bakhtiari, Ahmad Baraani, Mohammad-Reza Khayyambashi, "MobiCash: A New Anonymous Mobile Payment System Implemented by Elliptic Curve Cryptography," csie, vol. 3, pp.286-290, 2009 WRI World Congress on Computer Science and Information Engineering, 2009 Aline Gouget, "Recent Advances in Electronic Cash Design," CARDIS 2008, LNCS 5189, pp. 290-293, Smart Card Research and Advanced Applications 8th International Federation for Information Processing Conference, London, UK, September 8-11, 2008 Shangping Wang, Zhiqiang Chen, Xiaofeng Wang, "A New Certificateless Electronic Cash Scheme with Multiple Banks Based on Group Signatures," isecs, pp.362-366, 2008 International Symposium on Electronic Commerce and Security, 2008 Man Ho Au, Willy Susilo, Yi Mu, "Practical Anonymous Divisible E-Cash from Bounded Accumulators," FC 2008, LNCS 5143, pp. 287-301, Financial Cryptography and Data Security 12th International Conference, Cozumel, Mexico, January 28-31, 2008 Sebastien Canard, Aline Gouget, Jacques Traore, "Improvement of Efficiency in (Unconditional) Anonymous Transferable E-Cash," FC 2008, LNCS 5143, pp. 202-214, Financial Cryptography and Data Security 12th International Conference, Cozumel, Mexico, January 28-31, 2008 Debasish Jena, Sanjay Kumar Jena, Banshidhar Majhi, "A Novel Blind Signature Scheme Based on Nyberg-Rueppel Signature Scheme and Applying in Off-Line Digital Cash," icit, pp.19-22, 10th International Conference on Information Technology (ICIT 2007), 2007 Ling Zhang, Jian ping Yin, Yu bin Zhan, "An Anonymous Digital Cash and Fair Payment Protocol Utilizing Smart Card in Mobile Environments," gccw, pp.335-340, Fifth International Conference on Grid and Cooperative Computing Workshops, 2006 Chun-I Fan, Yu-Kuang Liang, Bo-Wei Lin, "Fair Transaction Protocols Based on Electronic Cash," pdcat, pp.383-388, Seventh International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT'06), 2006 Yoshikazu Hanatani, Yuichi Komano, Kazuo Ohta, Noboru Kunihiro, "Provably Secure Electronic Cash Based on Blind Multisignature Schemes," FC 2006, LNCS 4107, pp. 236-250, Financial Cryptography and Data Security 10th International Conference, Anguilla, British West Indies, February 27-March 2, 2006 Hyun Ju Lee, Mun Suk Choi, Chung Sei Rhee, "Traceability of Double Spending in Secure Electronic Cash System," iccnmc, pp.330, 2003 International Conference on Computer Networks and Mobile Computing (ICCNMC'03), 2003 L. Jean Camp, "An Atomicity-Generating Protocol for Anonymous Currencies," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 272-278, Mar. 2001 Moses Liskov, Silvio Micali, "Amortized E-Cash," FC 2001, LNCS 2339, pp. 1-20, Financial Cryptography and Data Security 5th International Conference, Grand Cayman, British West Indies, February 19-22, 2001 H. Wang, Y. Zhang, "Untraceable Off-Line Electronic Cash Flow in E-Commerce," acsc, pp.191, Australasian Computer Science Conference (ACSC '01), 2001 Hua Wang, Yanchun Zhang, "A Protocol for Untraceable Electronic Cash," WAIM 2000, LNCS 1846, pp. 189-197, Web-Age Information Management First International Conference, Shanghai, China, June 21-23, 2000 Tomas Sander, Amnon Ta-Shma, "On Anonymous Electronic Cash and Crime," ISW'99, LNCS 1729, pp. 202-206, Second International Workshop, ISW’99, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 6-7, 1999 Tim Ebringer, Peter Thorne, "Engineering an eCash System," ISW'99, LNCS 1729, pp. 32-36, Second International Workshop, ISW’99, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 6-7, 1999 Shingo Miyazaki, Kouichi Sakurai, "A More Efficient Untraceable E-Cash System with Partially Blind Signatures Based on the Discrete Logarithm Problem," FC 1998, LNCS 1465, pp. 296-308, Financial Cryptography and Data Security Second International Conference, Anguilla, British West Indies, February 23-25, 1998 Markus Jakobsson, Ari Juels, "X-Cash: Executable Digital Cash," FC 1998, LNCS 1465, pp. 16-27, Financial Cryptography and Data Security Second International Conference, Anguilla, British West Indies, February 23-25, 1998 Khanh Quoc Nguyen, Yi Mu, Vijay Varadharajan, "A New Digital Cash Scheme Based on Blind Nyberg-Rueppel Digital Signature," ISW'97, LNCS 1396, pp. 313-320, Information Security First International Workshop, Tatsunokuchi, Ishikawa, Japan, September 17-19, 1997 Stig F. Mjølsnes, Rolf Michelsen, "Open Transnational System for Digital Currency Payments," hicss, vol. 5, pp.198, 30th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) Volume 5: Advanced Technology Track, 1997 Osamu Watanabe, Osamu Yamashita, "An Improvement of the Digital Cash Protocol of Okamoto and Ohta," Algorithms and Computation, 7th International Symposium, ISAAC '96 Osaka, Japan, December 16-18, 1996 Daniel R. Simon, "Anonymous Communication and Anonymous Cash," CRYPTO ’96, LNCS 1109, pp. 61-73, Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO ’96 16th Annual International Cryptology Conference, Santa Barbara, California, USA, August 18-22, 1996 Hua Yu, Zhongtao Wang, "Final Report on Anonymous Digital Cash," 1995 Tatsuaki Okamoto, "An Efficient Divisible Electronic Cash Scheme," CRYPTO ’95, LNCS 963, pp. 438-451, Advances in Cryptology — CRYPT0 ’95 15th Annual International Cryptology Conference, Santa Barbara, California, USA, August 27-31, 1995 Ernie Brickell, Peter Gemmell, David Kravitz, "Trustee-Based Tracing Extensions to Anonymous Cash and the Making of Anonymous Change," Proceedings of the Sixth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, 1995 Stefan Brands, "Electronic Cash on the Internet," sndss, pp.64, 1995 Symposium on Network and Distributed System Security (SNDSS'95), 1995 Yacov Yacobi, "Efficient Electronic Money," ASIACRYPT'94, LNCS 917, pp. 151-163, Advances in Cryptology — ASIACRYPT'94 4th International Conferences on the Theory and Applications of Cryptology, Wollongong, Australia, November 28 - December 1, 1994 Tony Eng, Tatsuaki Okamoto, "Single-Term Divisible Electronic Coins," EUROCRYPT ’94, LNCS 950, pp. 306-319, Advances in Cryptology — EUROCRYPT '94 Workshop on the Theory and Application of Cryptographic Techniques Perugia, Italy, May 9-12, 1994 Stefan Brands, "Untraceable Off-line Cash in Wallet with Observers," CRYPTO ’93, LNCS 773, pp. 302-318, Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO ’93 13th Annual International Cryptology Conference, Santa Barbara, California, USA, August 22-26, 1993 Tatsuaki Okamoto, Kazuo Ohta, "Universal Electronic Cash," Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO ’91, LNCS 576, pp. 324-337, 1991 Barry Hayes, "Anonymous One-Time Signatures and Flexible Untraceable Electronic Cash," AUSCRYPT '90, LNCS 453, pp. 294-305, Advances in Cryptology — AUSCRYPT '90 International Conference on Cryptology, Sydney, Australia, January 8-11, 1990