• DOI:10.1109/MIC.1997.643931
• Corpus ID: 8072432

David Chaum on Electronic Commerce How much do you trust Big Brother?

@article{Chaum1997DavidCO,
  title={David Chaum on Electronic Commerce How much do you trust Big Brother?},
  author={David Chaum},
  journal={IEEE Internet Computing},
  year={1997},
  volume={1},
  pages={8-16}
}

• D. Chaum
• Published 1 November 1997
• Computer Science
• IEEE Internet Computing

A bout 20 years ago David Chaum had a vision of the future of information technology that changed his life. At the time Chaum was studying for his doctorate in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was working on cryptographic protocols for establishing trust between mutually untrusting parties. Chaum intuitively " got " where the Internet was taking us, and began to think about models that would make electronic commerce feasible. What eventually resulted was a new method for making electronic transactions untraceable, Chaum's blind signature protocol. Applied to an online payment transaction, this new protocol assured a bank or merchant that payments were not forged, while also assuring users that information about them and their purchases could not be traced. Sound good? Well, there's a little matter that it would lead to a paradigm shift from the way electronic transactions are handled in our society , where credit card use predominates. But still—aren't you worried that your privacy will become illusory as information goes increasingly online: that you may be forced to trade some rights and some independence for the efficiencies and miracles of the digital age? Chaum has spent his professional life in creative confrontation with this issue. After teaching at New York University and the University of " While many people are focused on making computers do more, a few of us are focused on technology for ensuring that there are certain things computers will not do, such as invade your privacy. " —David Chaum