[taler-marketing] branch master updated: draft

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grothoff pushed a commit to branch master
in repository marketing.

The following commit(s) were added to refs/heads/master by this push:
     new 1fff5a3  draft
1fff5a3 is described below

commit 1fff5a3ccbe45e0059e52ffb0f7e410000f21c3c
Author: Christian Grothoff <christian@grothoff.org>
AuthorDate: Sun Nov 1 00:34:30 2020 +0100

    draft
---
 ecb/answers.txt | 138 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 138 insertions(+)

diff --git a/ecb/answers.txt b/ecb/answers.txt
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+5. Existing commercial banks should continue to be responsible for
+   consumer and business KYC, and the management of savings and loans.
+   Software companies should provide integration services, both for
+   consumers with special needs (such as disabilities) and for merchants
+   wanting to accept payments using digital Euros.
+   Most existing digital payment processing businesses built around
+   credit cards should die, as these parasitic middleman only drain funds
+   from the economy without actually providing adequate value.
+
+6. We see a limited use for "smart contracts". Here, most likely very few
+   well-defined build-in contracts (such as currency trading and
+   privacy-preserving digital auctions, as proposed by Prof. Brandt (TUM))
+   could be useful.  A Turing-complete general smart contract runtime would
+   likely be too slow, too generic, too insecure and most importantly lead to
+   digital contracts that would not be understood by their human users.
+
+   Cheap digital Euro payments can open the door to micro-payments, where
+   users may request payment to read e-mail (killing spam), servers may
+   request payment before returning expensive resources (limiting DDoS
+   attacks), and online publishers may process payments for each article
+   instead of relying on advertising or long-term subscriptions.
+
+   A well-designed digital Euro platform could be used to not only process
+   payments involving digital Euros, but might also serve to digitize
+   stock exchanges if digital coins are used to represent company shares
+   and voting rights. Integrated currency trading would then also enable
+   stock trading.
+
+7. Any digital Euro solution must be based on Free Software reference
+   implementations of open APIs (no patents, no royalties for the design)
+   to ensure a level playing field for all actors.  The design must
+   furthermore implement privacy-by-design and privacy-by-default (see GDPR)
+   while also including adequate provisions for KYC/AML/CFT. We know this
+   is possible.
+
+8. Cryptographic signatures are the first line of defense, with a proper
+   design ensuring that audits can attribute failures to the respective guilty
+   party. Additionally, modern designs can ensure that financial losses from
+   time-limited compromises of a party are at least bounded to the volume
+   handled by that party during the time window of the compromise.
+
+9. Blind signatures for Chaum-style digital cash remain the best foundation
+   for cash-like digital payments.  However, modern designs add additional
+   capabilities, such as giving change, key management (expiration of
+   key material) and charge reversal (refunds).
+
+   We believe that offline use should not be considered for digital
+   payments. With offline use, it is always possible for customers
+   to engage in double-spending while the global system state is
+   inconsistent. Given that electronic transactions can be automated,
+   the damage from double-spending is not double, but potentially
+   unlimited. Recouping funds after double-spending may not be possible
+   in cases where the culprit has privacy, does not have the economic
+   means, or even was a victim of a (cyber)crime themselves.
+
+   Furthermore, offline use is already adequately addressed by the
+   existing physical cash, which should be preserved as a means of
+   payment.
+
+10. A good trade-off is to ensure that anyone obtaining digital
+    cash must identify to withdraw, and that anyone receiving
+    digital cash must deposit it immediately into a KYC'ed bank
+    account to provide income transparency. Additionally, anyone
+    receiving digital cash should be responsible to provide digital
+    evidence (like a digital contract) cryptographically tied to the
+    transaction that explains why the funds were received. At the
+    same time, the system MUST NOT identify the spender, thus ensuring
+    that citizens have privacy in where they spent their money while
+    also making sure that merchants receiving funds can be held to
+    account. 
+
+11. Withdraw limits on digital cash, possibly combined
+    with an expiration time for the validity of digital cash signatures,
+    are sufficient to manage the quantity of digital cash in circulation.
+    Reasonable withdraw limits will likely even be requested by citizens,
+    as they may want to limit the damage from someone compromising their
+    online banking credentials and then illicitly withdrawing digital
+    Euros on their behalf.
+
+12. ???
+
+13. Incoming funds from transactions in digital Euros should not be
+    placed into the receiver's electronic wallet at all, but always into their
+    (regular) bank account.  Citizens should obtain digital Euros only by
+    (1) withdrawing them from their bank account, (2) receiving them as
+    subsidies from the government, or (3) non-transactional (trusted)
+    sharing of funds (say between family members sharing a wallet).  This way,
+    withdraw limits on digital currency can be used to easily limit holdings,
+    and the state can enforce taxation on income and revenues by auditing
+    (regular) commercial bank account transactions.
+
+    This can be made to have a minimal impact on usabilty as long as
+    withdrawing digital Euros from a bank account is easy, for example
+    if it only involves scanning a QR code during online banking or
+    holding a mobile phone close to an ATM (for NFC transmission).
+
+    Given the current state of computer security, holding large amounts of
+    digital cash on a personal computer or mobile device is also risky, so
+    withdraw limits should suffice to effectively cap the balance users should
+    be willing to carry.
+
+14. ???
+
+15. We do not see an urgent need for cross-currency payments, this creates
+    mostly economic and political hazzards.  However, what is important is
+    that a global standard is created, and that consumers can carry balances
+    in various currencies in their unified digital wallet. To create such
+    a global standard, a patent-free Free Software approach is crucial, as
+    no country should make itself dependent on proprietary software that
+    is likely subject to foreign influence. When the USA recently sanctioned
+    Huawei's use of Google Android, only the Free Software components remained
+    usable for Huawei. Creating a proprietary European standard would thus
+    fail to satisfy the possibility of global appeal, as countries increasingly
+    realize that they cannot have their critical infrastructure depend on
+    proprietary foreign technology.
+
+16. By requiring KYC on anyone receiving digital funds, the use of the digital
+    Euro for income can easily be restrained to European residents, without in
+    any way excluding visitors from spending money in Europe as they would
+    have the opportunity to withdraw (possibly limited amounts of) digital
+    Euros at ATMs, banks or online.
+
+17. An efficient design with a software-only approach is in principle usable
+    from any networked device.  If the core platform is written in C, the code
+    would be highly efficient and can run on any embedded system. By providing
+    a Free Software reference implementation, all vendors can easily integrate
+    support for the digital Euro into their products.
+
+18. Taler Systems SA can provide ECB with a complete implementation of a
+    payment processor, commercial bank integration, consumer wallet(s),
+    merchant backends suitable for issuing a digital Euro.  GNU Taler has been
+    designed with appropriate consideration of the regulatory concerns
+    (including privacy and CFT/AML and fiscal policy) and is expected to scale
+    easily to the required transaction levels and at minimal cost per
+    transaction.
+
+
+

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