[cap-talk] Capabilities and Freedom vs. Safety

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 10:05 -0600, Nigel Williams wrote:
> On 7/23/07, Jonathan S. Shapiro <shap at eros-os.com> wrote:
> > However, it *is* possible to ensure that the connection is severed once
> > the purchase is completed. There is no way to know that only the
> > purchase data (and not other personal information) went out, ...
> 
> I wonder how important this concern about leaking personal information
> is going to be as we move into an era of multiple online identities.

Preliminary evidence is that these identities can be correlated
automatically with just about zero marginal effort.

> With the availability of throw-away
> phone numbers and email, throw-away credit cards...

The future of this stuff is debatable. Many vendors are very nervous
about one-time credit cards in particular, because there is no way to
verify the purchaser identity. This leaves the merchant exposed to
partial financial risk, which they aren't eager to accept.

shap