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Another great invention by Microsoft

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sat, 27 Feb 1999 15:17:59 -0500
To:            cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net, dcsb@ai.mit.edu
From:          Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject:       Another great invention by Microsoft


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From: brands@xs4all.nl
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 23:21:16 +0100
To: dbs@philodox.com
Subject: Another great invention by Microsoft
Sender: <dbs@philodox.com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:requests@philodox.com?subject=subscribe%20dbs>

Hi,

Microsoft recently got their second patent on groundbreaking
electronic money methods. It's good to see that there is so much good
new work being done in the field!

Regards,
Stefan

=========================

US5872844: System and method for
detecting fraudulent expenditure of
transferable electronic assets

Inventor(s):
Yacobi; Yacov , Mercer Island, WA

Applicant(s):
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA

Issued/Filed Dates:
Feb. 16, 1999 / Nov. 18, 1996

Abstract:
                 An electronic asset system includes tamper-resistant
electronic
                 wallets that store transferable electronic assets. To
break such
                 tamper-resistant wallets, the criminal is expected to
spend an initial
                 investment to defeat the tamper-resistant protection.
                 The
electronic
                 assets are issued by an institution to a wallet
(anonymously or
                 non-anonymously). During expenditure, the electronic
assets are
                 transferred from a payer wallet to a payee wallet.
                 The
payee wallets
                 routinely submit the transferred assets for possible
audit. A fraud
                 detection system samples the assets submitted for
                 audit to
detect
                 "bad" assets which have been used in a fraudulent
                 manner.
Upon
                 detection, the fraud detection system identifies the
electronic wallet
                 that used the bad asset and marks it as a "bad
                 wallet".
The fraud
                 detection system compiles a list of bad electronic
                 wallets
and
                 distributes the list to warn other wallets of the bad
electronic wallets.
                 The list is relatively small since it only contains
identities of
                 certificates of bad wallets (and not bad coins) and
                 the
certificates
                 have short expiration terms, and hence can be stored
locally on each
                 wallet. When a bad wallet next attempts to spend
                 assets
(whether
                 fraudulently or not), the intended recipient will
                 check
the local hot list
                 of bad wallets and refuse to transact business with
                 the
bad wallet.


CLAIMS:

I claim:
                     1. An electronic asset system comprising:

                     a plurality of electronic wallets;
                     a plurality of transferable electronic assets
                     stored
on the
                     electronic wallets, the electronic assets being
transferred from
                     payer electronic wallets to payee electronic
                     wallets
during
                     transactions; and
                     a fraud detection system to sample a subset of
                     the
transferred
                     electronic assets to detect bad assets that have
                     been
used in
                     a fraudulent manner, the fraud detection system
                     further identifying the payer electronic wallets
                     that
transferred the bad
                     assets.

                     [66 other inventive methods and apparatus
                     omitted]

============================================

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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44
Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve
respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the
world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon,
'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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