Is Digital Cash Something To Fear? Essay -- Digital Cash Money Essays

Is Digital Cash Something To Fear?I. ledger entryIn todays society, bills is quickly becoming obsolete. The vast major(ip)ity of minutes can now be completed without bullion. If a person has bespeak deposit, they can directly deposit their paycheck into their posit account. Using their position computer, that person can pay their monthly bills electronically by utilise a third-party bill paying system authorized by their bank. accredit t calm, once reserved for major purchases, atomic number 18 now accepted at grocery stores, fast food restaurants, pay phones, and coffee shops. Debit separate are quickly replacing checks for many of our day-to-day purchases. There are quite a few transactions that cannot be completed with cash, including undertake cars, many mail order purchases, and subscribing to an Internet service provider. In a typical day, cash is really only necessary for very teeny-weeny transactions, such as purchasing a morning paper, or purchasing a candy ba r out of a vending machine. These micro-transactions1 do not represent a significant enough qualify of value to cover the transactional costs of accepting credit or account cards. A person still exacts to carry enough cash for these micro-transactions. Currently, the way to get cash is to personally go to an automatic bank clerk machine (ATM) for a withdrawal. Digital cash,2 stored on smart cards3 or personal computers, promises to make micro-transactions possible in twain the everyday world and in cyberspace. II. IS DIGITAL CASH NECESSARY?The need for digital cash closely parallels the need for regular cash. Most plenty do not use regular cash to make major purchases. Carrying large amounts of cash can be very insecure. Carrying credit cards is more secure because, at least in th... ...urden on the bank to prove that a transaction was by the consumer. See Sandberg, supra tonus 3. 8 Compare the use of encryption technology in fashioning a credit card purchase (see CyberCash , Six Steps of a Secure Internet Credit Card Payment (visited Oct. 5, 1977) <http//a.dn.cybercash.com/cybercash/shoppers/ stopsteps.html), with the use of encryption in making a digital cash purchase, (see DigiCash, An Introduction to Ecash (visited Oct. 5, 1977) <http//www.digicash.com/ecash/docs/ease/ease(g).html). 9 Of course, the consumer protection laws will limit the consumers losses to $50. If the digital cash transmission was for a micro-transaction, a consumer would still prefer to lose 1 to $50. 10 Jim Miller, E-money mini-FAQ (release 2.0) (visited Oct. 5, 1977) <http//www.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/ emoneyfaq.html. 11 Id. 12 Id.