[Cryptography] Checkoin: physical crypto-cash

[Ron Garret]

On Jul 14, 2017, at 2:28 PM, Camille Harang via cryptography <cryptography at metzdowd.com> wrote:

> Hi all, my name is Camille, I'm a senior software developer, as well as
> freedom, privacy, and economical independence advocate. As a response to
> the war on cash I have drafted a protocol allowing to create secure and
> decentralized cash, physically carrying (or backed by) valuable assets.
> Basically, it allows to manufacture physical packagings (containing
> sealed assets), and exchange them safely from hand to hand between
> untrusted people. The protocol authenticates the packaging integrity as
> unique, non-duplicated, not counterfeited, not tampered with, not
> unsealed, etc. thanks to several layers of verifications*. Until someone
> decides to retrieve the asset by unsealing it, thus tossing/destroying
> the packaging. It was first designed to exchange crypto-currencies cold
> wallets like cash, but in practice it can carry any other type of
> valuable information or transportable assets (gold nugget, medicine,
> coupon, organic seeds, etc.). It is anonymous (no end-user
> identification, no transaction, no wallet), network failure/censorship
> resistant, open source and decentralized. The packagings manufacturing
> is not part of the protocol, but left to the innovation of whomever aims
> to run such a business (crypto startups, precious metal minters, etc.).
> I've looked for people to review it, but hardly could find any with
> skills and/or time to do so. Yesterday a friend of mine suggested me
> this mailing list, so I try my luck in the hope of finding help for
> reviewing, strategy advise and means to implement it.
> 
> Here is the website: https://checkoin.org/
> 
> Thank you very much,
> 
> Freely,
> 
> Camille.
> 
> * The technical aspect needs to be understood in details and as a whole.
> But I know that it is repulsive and tedious, so I try here to synthesize
> the basics. There are three main layers of verifications, first one is
> geolocation (non mandatory, anonymous and optionally encrypted) in order
> to detect duplicate UUID in circulation (distance and time would become
> inconsistent, so the packaging identified as corrupted), second layer is
> the display of information about the packaging provided by the
> manufacturer (e.g. hologram check information, high resolution of the
> packaging when manufactured with unique details such as random paint
> splashes, etc.) and third layer is an optional cryptographic check if
> the package comes with a microchip (recommended for packagings carrying
> high value assets) which retrieves the public key of the microchip on
> the blockchain and asks it to sign random data with the private key
> present in the chip.

I can’t help but picture the following scenario: I accept a coin of the sort shown in the animation on your web site, the one with the scratch-off scratch-to-cash doodad on the back side.  I decide to cash the coin, so I scratch off the obscuring layer to reveal the word, “SUCKER!” written underneath.

rg