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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:16:11 ADT
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
Sun, 22 Mar 1998 21:03:28 -0500
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Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 16:18:11 -0500
To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs@philodox.com>
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject: Call for Presenters: Philodox Market Development Conference on
Digital Bearer Settlement
Sender: <dbs@philodox.com>
Precedence: Bulk
Howdy, folks!
I figured I'd give you guys first crack at this.
If you have any corrections, send them to me directly.
And, of course, I've given this list a head start on submission on purpose.
:-).
Finally, pass it around to anyone you want to individually, but please let
me send it out to any public lists when I'm supposed to tomorrow night.
Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
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Issue Date: March 23, 1998
Call for Presenters
The Philodox Market Development Conference on
Digital Bearer Settlement
The Mount Washington Hotel and Resort,
Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA
August 10-13, 1998
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism, a business started by
Robert Hettinga to promote the advancement of digital commerce,
financial cryptography, and digital bearer settlement technologies on
open public networks, plans to hold the world's first market
development conference on digital bearer settlement at the Mount
Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, from August 10th
through 13th, 1998.
Towards that end, Philodox is searching for 6 expert presenters in
the history, technology, economics, finance, and law of physical and
digital bearer settlement to discuss their fields of expertise with
the conference attendees.
The Conference
The Conference itself will be run in four morning sessions, from
8:30 AM to 12:45PM, Monday through Thursday, August 10-13, 1998.
These sessions are designed to:
** acquaint financial professionals with the ability of some
cryptographic technology to create bearer certificates in digital
form, which could used to effect extremely low-cost transactions on
ubiquitous public internetworks,
** acquaint technical professionals and entrepreneurs in the digital
bearer technology area of the financial cryptography business with
the requirements of the investment and financial transaction
community for their products and services,
** brainstorm new applications for these technologies, and,
** brainstorm solutions to legal, regulatory, and market obstacles to
the successful implementation of digital bearer settlement technology
in capital markets and elsewhere.
Afternoons on conference days will be available for promotional
presentations, for sponsored activities, and, most important, for
informal discussions and business networking among the Conference
attendees. Some exhibition space may be available.
Conference attendees, keynoters, presenters, sponsors and staff will
be encouraged to bring their families and take advantage of the many
recreational opportunities afforded by the Mount Washington Hotel and
Resort, including golf, tennis, hiking, swimming, horseback riding,
day trips to nearby locations, including the top of Mount Washington
itself. Special one-week vacation package pricing with the Hotel and
surrounding Resort properties has been arranged by Philodox to
facilitate as much informal contact among the Conference community as
possible.
A network room will also be provided with direct access to the
internet, including lots of ethernet ports for laptop connections.
The Presentions
In addition to having four well-known daily keynote speakers -- who
are already being recruited individually -- Philodox would like to
have 6 expert presenters in the history, technology, economics, and
law of physical and digital bearer settlement in the capital markets,
and in its use in other areas where bearer technology has been or may
be used.
Presenters will receive round-trip travel -- including international
travel, if necessary -- to Bretton Woods, with single-occupancy
accommodation at the Mount Washington Hotel including all meals, and,
of course, a badge to the rest of the conference, including any
sponsored events which may occur. Presenters who bring their families
will receive reimbursement equal to the above towards their trip and
stay at the conference, plus an extra conference badge for a guest.
In order to be on hand as a resource to the rest of the conference
attendees, presenters will be required to attend all conference
sessions, however.
Presentation Requirements
Only one presenter will be selected for each presentation, and no
presenter will give more than one presentation. Each presentation
should be 90 minutes in length, and will be presented in the order
listed below. They should be targeted to an audience of management
and senior technology professionals in financial transaction
settlement and information technology, including entrepreneurs and
investors in the field of digital bearer settlement. Once selected,
the presenters will be able to correspond with each other in order
integrate their presentations into a more coherent conference
program.
It is expected that the presenters already know the material they
plan to present, have probably discussed and/or presented it
elsewhere before, and that no new research would be required on their
part to develop their informal 90 minute talks on the subject in
question.
In order to assure this, this Call for Presenters will expire exactly
one week from its date of issue, found at the top of this message,
and Philodox will individually recruit any presenters as necessary to
fill out the program after the expiration date.
The topics of the presentations required for the Conference are
detailed below.
The History of Transaction Settlement Technology
A fairly broad -- and entertaining -- history of bearer settlement
technology, starting with paleolithic trading, through the invention
of money and other abstractions of value, the advent of book-entry
settlement, settlement mechanisms currently prevalent in modern
industrial financial markets, and recent developments in internet
transaction settlement technology, with a focus on digital bearer
settlement.
The Technology of Digital Bearer Settlement
A very good layman's introduction to cryptography, to financial
cryptography, and to the technology of modern digital bearer
settlement, including some discussion of the mechanics of blind
signatures, hash collisions, and other ways of creating unique
unforgeable binary objects. Finally, some descriptions of the
commercially available protocols in use today, some of the
experimental protocols being tested, and a look at possible avenues
for new developments in the financial cryptography of digital bearer
settlement. Since this is a business conference, significatnt
attention should be paid to the operating costs of these technologies
in a commercial setting.
The Economics of Digital Bearer Settlement
A business-level discussion of the possible economic consequences of
digital bearer settlement, including transnationality and its effects
on national financial institutions, effects on liquidity and the
velocity of financial transactions, the effect of Moore's Law and
digital bearer settled auctions on the potential granularity of
tranaction size, of firm size, and the flexibility and scope of
financial activity in digital bearer settled markets.
The Regulation of Digital Bearer Settlement
A brief history of the regulation of transactions, up to and
including the virtual abolition of physical bearer settlement by the
US government and the IRS in the 1980's. A survey of current US and
international laws and requlations on bearer transactions, with an
eye toward the specific regulations which would hinder digital bearer
settlement markets the most.
Digital Bearer Settled Capital Markets
An extremely creative discussion of the use of digital bearer settled
transactions in the capital markets, including how to use the
technology to implement all forms of financial instruments: debt,
equity, and all derivatives thereof, including the bundling of
digital bearer certificates to form bonds, anonymous voting protocols
and secret sharing for control of equity, including limited liability
using software alone, and ways to create bearer held contingent
claims on assets of all forms. Finally, ways to integrate these
technologies into the current financial infrastructure on the status
quo's own regulatory and legal terms.
Other Markets for Digital Bearer Technology
A more speculative discussion of other applications of digital bearer
settlement technology on open public networks, including gaming and
collectibles, and, possibly most important in the long run, the
efficient cash-auction of internet resources in real time using
digital bearer micropayment.
Presentation Submissions
To submit your presentation for consideration, please send the
following, via email, in ASCII text, to Robert Hettinga <mailto:
rah@philodox.com>, before Midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on Monday,
March 30, 1998:
** a single-paragraph biography of yourself,
** a single-paragraph description of the talk you're giving
(especially if it's better than the one above :-)),
** a 100-word informal biography of yourself, including an email
address and any URLs to other information about yourself,
** a 250-word informal abstract of your talk, including URLs to other
information about your talk.
The above materials will be used to promote the Conference and your
talk in particular, and, as such, become the property of Philodox if
your presentation is accepted. Otherwise, they will remain in
confidence.
Please set your email message for a return receipt if you would like
confirmation of the receipt of your submission.
All presentation candidates will be notified by email of the final
status of their submission, accepted or declined, by Midnight,
Eastern Standard Time, Wednesday, April 1st, 1998.
Good luck to all presentation candidates!
For More Information
For further information about presenting at, sponsoring, or
participating in The Philodox Market Development Conference on
Digital Bearer Settlement, please contact Robert Hettinga at <mailto:
rah@philodox.com>.
A formal Call for Participants for the Conference, including pricing,
payment, program, and travel and lodging information will be sent
by Philodox to most appropriate financial, crytographic, economic,
and legal listservers and newsgroups on Midnight, Eastern Standard
Time, April 1st, 1998.
In addition, there is now an email discussion list, dbs@philodox.com,
which is devoted to to the discussion of digital bearer settlement,
this conference, and a proposed peer reviewed conference on digital
bearer settlement to be held in New York's financial district
sometime this winter.
Sign up for the digital bearer settlement list with this URL:
<mailto:requests@philodox.com?subject=subscribe%20dbs>.
And, for those of you without MIME URL processors in your mail
readers:
Send email to:
With a subject:
subscribe dbs
Finally, A Personal Note
Thanks to everyone who responded to the Call for Founders for
the Digital Bearer Settlement email list. We now have more than a
hundred people from every dicipline that digital bearer settlement
will effect, including some well respected experts in those fields.
It is the quality of this response which inspired me to make this
forthcoming Conference happen, and I thank all of you for your
enthusiasm and support.
See you all at Bretton Woods!
Cheers,
Robert Hettinga,
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism
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Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
--- end forwarded text
-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:16:11 ADT