the limits of crypto and authentication

[Ian Grigg]

On Saturday 09 July 2005 23:31, dan at geer.org wrote:
> 
> Nick Owen writes:
>  | I think that the cost of two-factor authentication will plummet in the
>  | face of the volumes offered by e-banking.
> 
> Would you or anyone here care to analyze
> what I am presuming is the market failure
> of Amex Blue in the sense of its chipcard
> and reader combo?

There was no market failure - Amex Blue was
an outstanding success that sent waves of
astonishment through the credit card industry.
Everyone was talking about how stunningly
successful it was - how it had broken the laws
of account creation by actually acquiring new
accounts in the millions instead of cannibalising
existing accounts.  (I recall a number of 4 million?)

You may be thinking that the usage of the smart
card being a total and complete flop was in some
way correlated with the market success, but it
was quite the reverse - the smart card usage was
a complete and utter failure for the obvious reasons,
but the program itself was fantastically successful.

iang
-- 
Advances in Financial Cryptography, Issue 2:
   https://www.financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000498.html
Mark Stiegler, An Introduction to Petname Systems
Nick Szabo, Scarce Objects
Ian Grigg, Triple Entry Accounting

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