[HN Gopher] Eagle Cash
___________________________________________________________________
Eagle Cash
Author : enjoyyourlife
Score : 127 points
Date : 2021-01-01 07:43 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| jpkoning wrote:
| The US military has had some innovative payments ideas.
|
| An occupying force prefers to use a money that 1) doesn't
| dollarize the nation they are occupying 2) can be tracked, thus
| thwarting black marketeers 3) is lightweight 4) if they lose, the
| enemy can't reuse it
|
| Unfortunately, dollar bills are bulky, infiltrate local
| economies, and aren't enemy-resistant.
|
| So we get innovations like EagleCash, which solves a lot of these
| problems.
|
| Other payments ideas emanating from the military include Military
| Payment Certificates
| (https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2017/04/c-day-and-military-
| mon...), overstamped currency (
| https://twitter.com/jp_koning/status/1343874636480729088) and
| pogs (http://numispedia.org/AAFES/).
| [deleted]
| md_ wrote:
| Why is #1 a goal? I'm assuming because of some desire to
| maintain the independence of a central bank in the occupied
| country?
| jpkoning wrote:
| That's right. In the US's case, if it was protecting a
| weakened friendly country or trying to rebuild a not-so-
| friendly one, dollarizing the economy would have undermined
| the occupied government and interfered with the US's overall
| goals. Using cancellable paper certificates like MPC or a
| closed loop electronic system like EagleCash prevented
| leakage of US dollars into the local economy.
| Qub3d wrote:
| I imagine part of it is reducing the incentive for nation
| state actors to engage in counterfeiting.[1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
| alisonkisk wrote:
| This is an electronic form of "scrip".
|
| The risk is that it gives the script system owner control over
| the value of money.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
| ahelwer wrote:
| Microsoft uses something similar for their on-campus cafeterias.
| All Microsoft employees are issued a RFID card with a chip that
| functions as a door access card, visual ID (it has your
| photo/name/employee number on it), smartcard for 2FA (this is
| being phased out in favor of TPM-based device registration), and
| cafeteria payment system. You can elect to have some percentage
| of your paycheck automatically loaded on the card. I used it for
| a bit early on in my employment, but then switched to paying with
| credit card (like almost everyone else I know).
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| I think the core difference is that "Eagle Cash" is not
| centrally managed - the balance is actually on the physical
| card itself. I imagine the MS cards is more of a "central
| account" that is accessed when you swipe.
|
| I guess each "Eagle Cash" terminal has a certificate, and
| whenever you credit/debit the card, the terminal adds/subtracts
| the amount on the card, signs the new balance with the
| certificate, and then this can be verified at any other
| terminal.
|
| In other words, you can't modify the balance on the card unless
| you have the secret certificate, which is only present on the
| authorized terminals. If you try to modify it yourself, you
| can't do it, because no other terminal would accept the card
| unless the balance was cryptographically signed with the cert.
|
| That's my guess for how this works, at least. I wonder if each
| terminal has a unique cert that can be revoked if it is
| compromised.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| _Unlike regular debit cards, the Eagle Cash is managed on-base,
| using batch processing which ensures that the cards remained
| useful even when connections to banks and credit unions State-
| side are severed._
|
| This is really the whole point, but it's buried in the third
| paragraph. These cards work when the internet and all other
| communication with the outside world are down.
|
| Replacing physical currency in that scenario is really difficult.
| a-dub wrote:
| my laundry room in college used the same technology. sucks if you
| damage the card (by sitting on your wallet, for example).
| 1-6 wrote:
| Of maybe like electronic lunch chits. Once they go through the
| reader, it might 'burn the circuit' being equivalent to
| stamping a hole into the card.
| avian wrote:
| Back in the days when public phone booths were still a thing,
| the local telecom introduced pre-paid chip cards that you
| used for paying for your call. They were widely advertised as
| "fraud proof" because the chip physically burned polyfuses on
| the silicon as credits were used up. You can never restore a
| card that ran out of credits that way, they said.
|
| It was simple to make a card insert and a circuit that just
| lied to the phone that a fuse was burned. They switched to a
| different system soon after.
| ggrelet wrote:
| Similar topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa
| cbanek wrote:
| I'm reminded of the episode of M _A_ S*H where they are
| exchanging one color of scrip for another [0], and the hijinx [1]
| that ensues.
|
| [0] https://mash.fandom.com/wiki/Change_Day_(TV_series_episode)
|
| [1] Triple word score for a word with three dotted letters in a
| row.
| josephkern wrote:
| Wait until you guys see the prices for the "AAFES POGS" on ebay
| ...
|
| Basically while you can use cash, coins are too heavy to justify
| shipping into country. AAFES instead prints "gift certificates"
| in the shape of a pog, in 0.05, 0.10, 0.25 denominations.
|
| The resale value on these is hilariously high ... these are
| federally issued mediums of exchange being currency except in
| name only. And only useable in deployed locations.
| bananapear wrote:
| > in the shape of a pog
|
| In case you are wondering what a "pog" is:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_caps_(game)
| nefitty wrote:
| Something I never intended to learn: "pog" is an acronym for
| "passion fruit - orange - guava".
| cracksmoka420 wrote:
| Person Other (than) Grunt
| gioscarab wrote:
| The word medium comes from latin, its plural is "media", not
| "mediums".
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| I'm ESL, how far should the "thou should pluralize a loanword
| as it was in the original language" rule go? It seems to be
| not universal.
|
| I mean, it's "hamburgers", not "die Hamburger", "robots", not
| "roboti", and "rubles", not "rubli"/"rubli".
| ouchjars wrote:
| Borrowed plural forms are most likely to happen with
| French, Latin, and Greek loans, and also those from
| languages that don't change words to make them plural, e.g.
| Japanese and Maori.
|
| Sometimes it happens with other languages, like the use of
| Hebrew plural rules for cherub/cherubim, but there's the
| best approximation.
| majewsky wrote:
| > Sometimes it happens with other languages, like the use
| of Hebrew plural rules for cherub/cherubim
|
| For what it's worth, the few times I've seen the plural
| of cherub in the English language (mostly in song
| lyrics), it was always "cherubs", not "cherubim". Not
| saying the latter wouldn't be acceptable: Wiktionary
| lists both.
| unscaled wrote:
| This is mostly relegated to Latin and some Greek plurals:
|
| Latin: stimulus/stimuli, fungus/fungi (2nd
| declension masculine) medium/media (2nd declension
| neuter) alga/algae, larva/larvae (1st declension)
| index/indices (3rd declension)
|
| Greek: phenomenon/phenomena,
| criterion/criteria (2nd declension neuter)
| analysis/analyses (3rd declension, I think proper Greek and
| Latin would actually be 'analyseis')
|
| Latin and Greek were the classical languages that were
| expected to be spoken by the educated upper class in 19th
| century Anglo-Saxon world (the British Empire and the US).
| Most of the present day language conventions we have were
| gradually developed throughout the 17th to 19th centuries,
| as a result of print becoming established. Before that,
| English spelling varied greatly from text to text and the
| even the English plural themselves were determined by the
| writer's dialect, as in this example by William Caxton
| (England's first printer) in 1490 (in modernized spelling):
|
| In modern spelling:
|
| "And specially he asked after 'egges'. And the good wife
| answered that she could speak no French. And the merchant
| was angry for he also could speak no French, but would have
| had 'egges' and she understood him not. And then at least
| another said that he would have 'eyren'. Then the good ife
| said she understood him well.
|
| The original splling was[1]:
|
| "And specyally he axyed after eggys. And the good wyf
| answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt
| was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe but wold haue
| hadde egges and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste
| a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren. Then the good wyf
| sayd that she understood hym we."
|
| During the period of standardization, it was the educated
| class I mentioned before that influenced spelling the most.
| Up to the 19th century they were expected to have a good
| grasp of Latin (and sometimes Greek) grammar, which is why
| "Grammar Schools" existed (originally meant to teach Latin
| grammar). Latin remained a requirement in some Elite
| schools and universities (like Oxford and Cambridge) well
| into the mid 20th century. This explains why the standard
| setters were quite pedantic about pluralizing Latin (and
| sometimes Greek) nouns correctly, but gave themselves a
| free hand in mutilating plurals (and even the words
| themselves) in other languages.
|
| Since most of the educated upper class didn't know Ancient
| Greek as well as Latin, you find that Greek plural usage is
| not as systemic as Latin. That's why we're missing the
| first declension (we do not pluralize catastrophe as
| _catastrophai, we say dogmas and not_ dogmata, atlases and
| not _atlantes) and second declension masculine (cosmos is
| pluralized as cosmoses, not_ cosmoi). On the other hand,
| the high classes in the 19th century often spoke French and
| Italian, which is why it used to be fashionable to have
| some pluralizations such as -eau/eaux (bureau/bureaux) and
| -o/i (virtuoso/virtuosi). I feel like this is not so
| faddish anymore.
|
| It's also important to note that the words we're covering
| here are _learned words_ - which are more influenced by
| elitist tendencies, since they first appear in print in
| academic publications and newspapers, before finding their
| way into everyday speech (if at all). Early borrowed words
| from Latin that have long become colloquial by then like
| wine (vinum/vina), pillow (pulivnus/pulvini) dish
| (discus/disci) and pound (pondus/pondera) don't even much
| the Latin singular form and are sometimes barely
| recognizable.
|
| tl;dr: The explanation has to do mostly with elitist
| tendencies and the particular languages the elite during
| the time of standardization knew well and happened to care
| about. There are many exceptions.
|
| The best rule of thumb is that learned Latin words are
| mostly pluralized as in Latin, Greek words are pluralized
| as in Greek only with certain suffixes (-on/a and -sis/ses)
| and very rarely with any other language.
|
| The second rule of thumb to remember is that once a Latin
| or Greek word becomes colloquial, the foreign plural is
| often used in conjunction with a native English plural or
| becomes abandoned completely. To use medium as an example:
|
| Academic usage: * means of communication
| (media) - 'mass medium' is almost always pluralized 'mass
| media' * material conductor (e.g. air as medium) -
| usually 'media'
|
| Colloquial usage: * average, in the middle
| - usually mediums * someone who communicates with
| spirits and ghosts - always mediums
|
| [1] https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126611.html
| jcranmer wrote:
| > I'm ESL, how far should the "thou should pluralize a
| loanword as it was in the original language" rule go? It
| seems to be not universal.
|
| The basic rule of thumb is: assume it doesn't apply. That
| is, for most foreign words, -(e)s is usually an acceptable
| plural word, and even if it isn't, people will understand
| what you mean.
| spindle wrote:
| Right! I especially like your Russian example.
|
| There is no general rule. Life sucks.
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| While some sources agree with you:
| https://www.thefreedictionary.com/mediums
|
| Both Media and Mediums are plural forms in common usage.
| Thus: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mediums has
| mediums variants: or media plural of medium
|
| ex: https://www.uspto.gov/kids/MiddleSchool-
| HowWellSoundTravels....
|
| And really, English just evolves over time so these kind of
| rules don't actually mean anything.
| err4nt wrote:
| Though English has two plural forms "media" and "mediums",
| are they interchangeable? If you say "media" I think of
| more than one medium of communication, but if you say
| "mediums" I think of a group of humans who engage in
| necromancy and talking to spirits and stuff (being a medium
| as a job)
| Retric wrote:
| I believe it's context specific. Both are in common use
| in acoustics or bacterial cultures, but it's electronic
| media and spirit mediums.
| gioscarab wrote:
| Here in Italy (that is where the word was invented in the
| first place) that is considered a bad common mistake.
| Forgetting about the etymology or misusing a word is not
| what I would define as "evolution". We say multi-media,
| mass-media ecc. for a reason, for the same reason we don't
| say multi-mediums or mass-mediums.
| gpderetta wrote:
| To be pedantic, the correct grammatical rule in italian
| is that foregin words (including latin) are kept
| invariant between singular and plural, so the plural of
| medium would still be medium.
|
| This rule is of course often misapplied, especially for
| latin words.
| Retric wrote:
| That's the thing, in English when enough people make a
| mistake it stops being a mistake.
| howlgarnish wrote:
| The word "media" has become shorthand for "communications
| media". While correct in the original Latin, trying to use
| "media" as the plural for "medium" in any other context in
| English is jarring.
| gioscarab wrote:
| The word medium identifies a mean of communication. The
| commenter uses it to identify a mean of exchanging value.
| IMHO the word was both misused and misspelled.
| howlgarnish wrote:
| "Medium of exchange" is standard terminology in
| economics.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_of_exchange
| gioscarab wrote:
| You are right! So just misspelled :)
| [deleted]
| zapdrive wrote:
| With upcoming satellite internet projects (see Starlink), I think
| it will be highly unlikely to disconnect any army base totally
| from the internet. In such scenarios, any centralized service
| would be much more efficient, secure and convenient. Soldiers can
| also use cryptocurrencies for trade among themselves, without
| needing to carry cash.
| lnanek2 wrote:
| So what about during war when the enemy may have shot down your
| sats? Your soldiers are still going to want to buy goods on
| base during their down time and morale will suffer if you just
| tell them the internet is down.
| zapdrive wrote:
| How many will they shoot down? SpaceX is launching them by
| hundreds every month. The end goal is 45000 satellites. And
| by shooting just a few, the enemy will maybe only slow down
| the internet, not turn it off completely.
|
| Let that sink in. They'll need 45000 missiles up shoot down
| every starlink satellite. Also, SpaceX will definitely be
| launching new ones as they are being shot down. So it's a
| very impractical approach.
| pram wrote:
| Huh. I was in the Air Force from 2005-2010 and I literally never
| saw this. I was at LSA Anaconda in Iraq too (mentioned in the
| article) ... must be an Army thing?
| studius wrote:
| Eagle Cash makes me think of something related to the World
| Space Commission[1][2].
|
| But, apparently the US Dept. of the Treasury[3] manages three
| kinds of payment cards, EZPay, EagleCash, and Navy Cash.
|
| Both the Army and Air Force use EagleCash[4][5].
|
| There may have been some consolidation[6], but EZPay and Navy
| Cash still seem to have presence[7][8].
|
| Note: previously there were four programs[9], once of which was
| Marine Cash.
|
| [1]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999
|
| [2]- https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2jizp?Space-1999The-Thirty-
| year...
|
| [3]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored-value_card
|
| [4]- https://www.af.mil/News/Article-
| Display/Article/122557/eagle...
|
| [5]-
| https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/eaglecash/organizations.html
|
| [6]- https://www.usafmcom.army.mil/News/Article-
| Display/Article/1...
|
| [7]- https://fiscal.treasury.gov/ezpay/
|
| [8]- https://fiscal.treasury.gov/navy-cash/
|
| [9]- https://www.secureidnews.com/news-item/us-military-relies-
| on...
| xedeon wrote:
| It was used in the Air Force as well. It was issued in Basic
| Training and deployed locations.
|
| https://www.dvidshub.net/image/44435/eagle-cash-has-landed-a...
|
| https://www.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2000452297/
|
| https://www.afcent.af.mil/Units/332nd-Air-Expeditionary-Wing...
| pram wrote:
| I'm not denying it exists (it's obviously a thing) but when I
| went through basic, they had us bring a voided check to set
| up direct deposit. We never had anything like this. Also I
| used my USAA debit card with zero issues while deployed in
| Iraq/Afghanistan/Kyrgyzstan. Very strange!
| dibujante wrote:
| Wait until you see what you can use your metro card for in
| Taipei...
| odiroot wrote:
| Isn't this the same as Octopus in HK or FlashPay in Singapore?
| lxgr wrote:
| Many countries have (or used to have) similar stored-value
| cards. They are really useful for some use cases: Given that
| they are very cash-like (transferable, anonymous unless
| registered), they are usually available to foreigners and
| minors without any formalities.
|
| Japan's version could at one point even be used to purchase
| games in Nintendo's eStore by tapping a transit card on a game
| console - genius, given that a big part of their target
| audience doesn't have a credit or debit card.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| This was a common practice in the 19th century, paying workers in
| company chit that was only good at the company store. The
| practice might come back if the economic conditions are right.
| max_ wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| How does this thing solve the "double spend problem" [0].
|
| Without needing network access?
|
| You usually need server communication in electronics payment
| systems to confirm payment & update account balances. How does
| Eagle Cash solve this problem?
|
| [0]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/doublespending.asp
| lcabral wrote:
| This uses the same flow as many transportation cards (which in
| some countries can also be used to purchase goods). Essentially
| the card chip holds the debit amount it has (the user makes an
| initial transaction to load it, debiting the money from a
| debit/credit card or paying for directly with money) so that
| every time a transaction occurs, the value in card is altered
| directly. This system also has the potential of making
| transactions fully anonymous as no-one needs to know who the
| holder of the card is or where he spends his money.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| The card chips are issued by a trusted central authority and
| (supposedly) tamperproof.
|
| You can't "run EagleCash" on your laptop; it only runs on card
| chips issued by the military.
| murderfs wrote:
| You trust the secure element, and if you think that's not
| enough, you reconcile spending logs and bring the wrath of the
| federal government on whoever was dumb enough to try.
| 0x426577617265 wrote:
| Funds are stored on the card and loaded from a kiosk.
| smhg wrote:
| Something similar existed in Belgium from 1995 to 2014 for
| small payments, called Proton [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(bank_card)
| eecc wrote:
| Also Chipnik in NL, discontinued several years ago. Too
| fiddly, nobody worries about privacy any longer.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip
| flemhans wrote:
| And Danmont in Denmark, 1991-2005.
|
| I think Sweden had one called Kash or something like
| that.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| In Germany, there's GeldKarte. Still relatively widely
| supported on public transportation ticket machines and
| cigarettes vending machines, so they can be used offline.
|
| I found it awesome to use with at-home recharging (with an
| appropriate card terminal) and use on trains. Often, the
| ticket machine would refuse coins or not have change.
| Electronic payment to the rescue! :)
|
| Unfortunately, its fate is already sealed with basically
| all banks having announced their withdrawal from the
| system.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geldkarte
| alasdair_ wrote:
| They rely on the fact that the double spenders are easy to find
| and punish.
| max_ wrote:
| So security is maintained using violence? Not technology?
| murderfs wrote:
| I find it hilarious that someone running a "fintech studio"
| doesn't understand this.
| est31 wrote:
| I think that's the entire point of any army :). In this
| instance I guess the military police would be responsible
| though.
|
| It's a centralized system, and every account holder is
| fully identified to the government (even with DNA samples
| IIRC). The kiosks likely keep the logs and upload them when
| a connection can be made. Then the data get collected and
| compared centrally, and any discrepancy would show up. At
| least that's how I understand the "batch processing" remark
| in the wiki page.
| [deleted]
| eecc wrote:
| What do you think society is all about? I can recommend
| Debt by the late David Graeber
| lucb1e wrote:
| Not sure a whole book is needed, it seems fairly
| straightforward to show that society is based on threats
| of violence.
|
| If you don't pay someone, that someone can go to a judge.
| If you indeed did something illegal (e.g. if you did a
| double spend, money forgery, whatever) you should be
| declared guilty and ordered to pay the damages plus
| perhaps a fine. If you don't do that, the amount due will
| increase and eventually you get ordered to jail. If you
| don't go voluntarily, they will make you. Of course
| everything comes down to force and eventually violence in
| the end. Why else would you comply with things that don't
| please you? (Because you're an honest party, okay, and
| the vast majority of people are, but not everyone is in
| the privileged position where they have what they want
| without applying dishonesty.)
|
| Even if you think to solve it with technology, preventing
| a crime is indeed better than detecting and punishing
| one, but let's say it's impossible to detect the double
| spend ahead of time and your technological solution only
| finds out that there was a double spend after the fact.
| What's it going to do, block your card from now on? In
| the end, it will still have real world consequences for
| you. Taking away someone's card, through physical or
| technological means, it's all more or less the same
| thing.
| max_ wrote:
| One reason I am interested in Bitcoin is that it doesn't
| rely on violence to enforce it's rules.
| texse wrote:
| If someone can round up 51% of Bitcoin's miners and hold
| them at gunpoint, then they have full control over
| Bitcoin's rules.
|
| Well over 51% of bitcoin mining happens in China, so Xi
| Jinping can probably change Bitcoin's rules tomorrow if
| he desires.
| dandanua wrote:
| It doesn't prevent from physical torturing that can be
| used to steal your coins. I've already seen a bunch of
| news about missing or killed people in this field. The
| creator is also probably dead.
| eecc wrote:
| It still acts as a token for debt, and the underlying
| force of that is violent retribution for default
| lucb1e wrote:
| I think you missed the last paragraph.
| louwhopley wrote:
| Similar to many Mastercard/Visa cards. The electronic chip on
| the card is capable of actually storing the balance and then
| syncing it back when it reaches a terminal machine that's
| connected to the internet.
|
| In my experience, many (most) chip-card based transport systems
| for busses or trains (eg tap n go) operates in this offline
| mode where it only syncs when you go to the kiosk to top it up.
|
| It uses cryptographic methods to securely store and update the
| balance. The chip itself is an embedded processor.
| sargun wrote:
| How do you solve the FLP problem?
|
| e.g.
|
| Kiosk->Device: Give me $100
|
| Device: Subtract $100 from myself
|
| Device->Kiosk: Send $100 (fail)
|
| Alternatively, what if this happens the other direction?
| texse wrote:
| Technically FLP impossibility only applies to deterministic
| algorithms, not randomized ones, otherwise no consensus
| protocol would work. So you could imagine a complicated
| technical solution that could work (eg. treating everything
| as a big Raft cluster and using Raft's membership changes
| every time a device is connected / disconnected).
|
| In practice the solution is to realize that failures are
| rare (especially compared to events like the soldier simply
| misplacing the card), and to have a trusted human available
| to resolve any issues that do occur.
| wyattpeak wrote:
| Atomic transactions, as with any database. After sending
| the money, confirm that it arrived. If it didn't, undo the
| subtraction.
|
| That said, shoddy implementations of these systems often do
| fail in numerous ways. As an end-user, you really just have
| to live with it.
| sargun wrote:
| What protocol guarantees that there is an atomic
| transaction, in the presence of faults, in such a system?
| lmz wrote:
| Those cards typically store the last few transactions (e.g.
| [0] is an Android app that can display transit card usage
| history), so it should be possible to code idempotency into
| the card firmware.
|
| [0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.code
| butler...
| sneak wrote:
| > _This method allows soldiers to purchase goods and services at
| U.S. military posts and canteens, without carrying cash, or
| manage their personal bank accounts while on deployment or in
| training. The program reduces the amount of American currency
| required overseas, reduces theft, saves thousands of man-hours in
| labor, helps reduce the risk of transporting cash in combat
| environments, and increases security and convenience for service
| members._
|
| It also prevents soldiers from being able to trade easily with
| anyone who isn't an authorized card terminal user.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| It doesn't prevent them from carrying physical cash. They can
| still do that.
| someperson wrote:
| Famously instant ramen noodles is the currency of choice for
| people in prison: small, uniform and non-perishable.
|
| Just like every other society, in the absence of cash I'm sure
| soldiers have developed a bartering economy. Likely including
| to acquire drug/alcohol/tobacco products that may be otherwise
| banned. You sell me your old Nintendo Switch and I'll use my
| EagleCash card to buy you 100 packs of instant ramen at company
| store [1] prices.
|
| Also, if anybody has a somewhat-trusted human network, it's
| possible to do Hawala [2] transfers across different financial
| systems without any actual foreign exchange transactions across
| the boundaries.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
| eru wrote:
| Couldn't soldiers also just use cash to augment their
| trading? Or is that specifically banned?
| sneak wrote:
| Hard to get much of your US bank account contents as USD
| cash when you're off on a military base enclave in some
| foreign land. It's less hard (but still expensive and
| inconvenient) to get it in the local currency.
|
| You're also capped at relatively small amounts (a few
| hundred bucks of local currency per day).
| chipsa wrote:
| It's possible to still use cash on deployed bases. But this
| reduces the need to use cash for things like: buying from
| random morale things, like the Fox at the 'Deid.
| someperson wrote:
| > buying from random morale things, like the Fox at the 'Deid
|
| Took a bit of searching to understand what you meant: buying
| drinks at the Fox Sports Bar located in Al Udeid Air Base
| within the nation of Qatar.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| This sounds like a better alternative to bitcoin! I guess it
| requires a trusted central authority, but for most users that's a
| feature not a bug, and it sounds like it has a load of
| advantages:
|
| - Faster transactions
|
| - Can work "offline" (to some extent)
|
| - No wasted energy calculating redundant sha256
|
| - Able to rectify fraudulent transactions
| alisonkisk wrote:
| What use case is there for this where it's better than bitcoin?
|
| This is just a local payment system, that's existed for
| centuries as scrip. ("On a computer" doesn't change the nature
| of it.)
|
| Centralization undermines the purpose of bitcoin.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > What use case is there for this where it's better than
| bitcoin?
|
| Any situation where you want to purchase legal goods or
| services? Or hold some money temporarily in a low-volatility
| cash-like form?
| geraldcombs wrote:
| It's backed by a nation-state that has carrier groups?
| H8crilA wrote:
| Lol you just described credit cards.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| No, because credit cards charge exorbitant interest rates.
| This is more analogous to electronic cash, since the value is
| stored on the card.
| lxgr wrote:
| Stored value cards are different from debit cards: Their
| value is physically stored on the chip, rather than the card
| just being a reference to some centrally maintained account.
|
| As a consequence, they are usable completely offline and with
| very low latency.
| Multicomp wrote:
| this was tried in the UK in the late 90s (see !w Mondex) ...
| i sooo wish it was a thing today!
| [deleted]
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