Re: [Taler] How to trust an auditor?

[Martin Schanzenbach]

Hi,

On 14.11.22 02:12, Taler wrote:
> Hi Sebastian,
> 
> thank you for that quick reply! :)
> 
> I plan (for learning purposes) to create a setup with two different
> exchanges; payer and payee would have their accounts at different exchanges
> then.
> 
> Does this currently work already? How is trust established here? Does the
> payee need to trust the payer's exchange, or do only the exchanges need to
> trust each other (e.g. by configuration)?
> 

from the docs I think you only need to configure the merchant with
exchange/auditor information:

"Manually setting up exchanges is only recommended under special circumstances. 
In general, GNU Taler will include trustworthy auditors (for each currency) in 
the default configuration, and there is rarely a good reason for trusting an 
exchange without an accredited auditor."
https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-manual.html#exchange

and:
"To add an auditor to the list of trusted auditors (which implies that all 
exchanges audited by this auditor will be trusted!) you create a section with a 
name that starts with “MERCHANT-AUDITOR-”."
https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-manual.html#auditor

I may be wrong, but conceptually if the merchant accepts your payment
with the respective trust anchors (auditors/exchanges) your payment can
be processed and this does not appear to have anything to do with the
(Android) wallet.
So, the payee needs to be able to (or "trust") the coins issued by the
exchange of the payer, but the payer does not need to trust the exchange
of the payee.
In practice, however, it seems to be that this will likely be the case.

Of course in order to withdraw coins into your wallet, you need to have
an exchange configured.
Now, either there is a multi-purpose Taler wallet that allows you to
configure the exchange (I think that is what Sebastian is hinting at) or
each Bank will offer their customers a custom App "forked" from the
current App in which case the exchange is likely hard coded.

(This is my 10000 miles view on this architecture, anybody feel free to educate
me)

Br
Martin

> Florian
> 
> On 11/14/22 02:06, Sebastian Javier Marchano wrote:
> > Hi Florian,
> > 
> > you've got it right, exchange and auditor management is in our roadmap
> > but not implemented yet.
> > 
> > --
> > Sebastian
> > 
> > 
> > On Sun, 13 Nov 2022 at 21:59, Florian Jung via Taler <taler@gnu.org>
> > wrote:
> > 
> >     Hi!
> > 
> >     As I read through the exchange setup manual, I found out that I can /
> >     need to(?) sign my exchange's keys with an auditor key. To me, this
> >     kinda makes sense in a real-world scenario, because I don't want to
> >     trust every single bank by its own, but I would like to trust, for
> >     example, "the euro-zone's auditor" (and every bank that is audited
> >     by them).
> > 
> >     However, how do I configure this in my Android wallet? I found a
> >     list of
> >     exchanges, but is there also a way to set up a certain auditor as
> >     trusted?
> > 
> >     Or did I misunderstand the purpose of these auditors?
> > 
> >     Best regards,
> > 
> >     Florian
> > 
> >