An administrative note

I probably should have thought of this before I posted, but I'm at the airport on my way out of town.  My post on credit card fraud is generating a lot of feedback (thanks!) but I won't have time to respond properly until later today.  But I do appreciate the feedback, and I will respond.

Just a couple of points off the cuff:

1.  This is just the beginning of a pretty long story.  The events that led up to this unfolded over a period of nearly four years.  The issues involved are complicated, and they are complicated across multiple dimensions: technically, legally, and politically.  And I'm writing for a very broad audience that spans a very broad range of background and expertise.  So please bear with me, and cut me a little slack.

2.  The problem is not so much the failure of the banks and credit card companies to solve the fraud problem per se.  The real problem IMHO is the obstacles I encountered when I tried to start a company that would solve, not the credit card problem per se, but a related problem (that I believed, and still believe, would also solve the credit card fraud problem as a side effect).  Like I said, long story.  Bear with me.  [UPDATE: I would like to rephrase my statement of the problem: the problem is that the cost of fraud is hidden from consumers, and the industry has, through regulatory capture, erected all-but-insurmountable barriers to entry to competition.  And, by the way, when I started, Bitcoin didn't exist.  Bitcoin may well change everything.  But that is also a complicated topic in its own right.]

3.  I am not the only person to have encountered this problem, and public key crypto is not the only possible solution.  I just cited that as an example of an available solution that is not being deployed, or at least not being deployed as expeditiously as it could be.

More later.