It is perfectly possible for somebody to come into the possession of the information I want to sell without ever having to pay for them. First Virtual is basically nothing but a credit card clearing house on the internet. You give them your number once and can then use it at different places without having to retransmit that number over unsecure lines every time again. DigiCash is entirely different. I don't quite understand the underlying cryptologic mechanisms, but from what I gather it will be close to impossible to defraud that system.
Every single coin is authenticated and impossible to doublespend.
However I agree with you that at this point in time E-cash is not perfect just yet. This is a fake email address. So many old members of this list were getting spam generated from siphons trolling the archives that I replaced all email addresses with randomly generated spam traps that forward mail to spam fighters. If you need to reach individuals mentioned in these archives, use a search engine to find their current location, as these addresses and archives date from 1994 to 1996.