[Cryptography] Accounting Resource Location (was: Questions of taste on UDF presentation)

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 7:20 AM iang <iang at iang.org> wrote:

> Hey Phillip,
>
> any update?  do you have any other writings on this idea?
> On 16/02/2019 20:48, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
> One of the new UDF types is the Encrypted Authenticated Resource Locator.
> I am looking for backers to see if we could use this to fix filing of
> expenses, invoices, etc. This is an idea that I proposed over 20 years ago
> and was told it was stupid because there is no business model.
>
>
> The deployment is hard because accounting moves slower than glaciers.
> Having looked at this idea for the same era, my conclusion is that there is
> no way to do "just that."  Instead, it has to be piggy-backed onto some
> other application or business process.  In other words, it is not so much
> an invention as a design pattern that should be slipped stealth-wise into
> the business and allowed to spread outwards.  I've recently been consulting
> with someone who is doing just that, it turns out to be very valuable when
> one has the right incentives.
>
>
> Well I have yet to see a better way put into practice. I have full prior
> art disclosures on this going back a decade so nobody even dream of
> perjuring yourselves to the USPTO like so many other bastards have in the
> past.
>
>
> The basic ideas should be hard to patent - it is similar or same or
> related to what Todd Boyle was talking about in the late 1990s on his web
> site now cached here:
>
> http://linas.org/mirrors/www.gldialtone.com/2001.07.14/STR.htm
>
> His design was called the Shared Transaction Repository, altho being an
> accountant and not a cryptoplumber, he didn't get deep into the magic of
> hashes and exactly how to share the docs.  He coined the term "triple entry
> accounting" which I wrote about later:
>
> https://iang.org/papers/triple_entry.html
>
> Which also was something of an inspiration for Bitcoin in some mythical
> sense.  Having said all that, one can easily convince the patent office of
> some of the detailed implementation issues, and chances are that is already
> happening.  Doesn't make it right, but patents aren't right, they are
> rights.
>
> More recently, R3's Richard Brown has been marketing the notion that "I
> know that what you see is what I see" as an aphorism leading to the
> benefits of known equivalence as well as integrity.  It turns out that when
> done in certain fields such as clearing & settlement, there are dramatic
> short cuts one can take with the old systems if we know that there are no
> reconciliation issues to bite us.  Coincidentally, my description of these
> processes fell out of a design for payments that was intended for exactly
> that - trading in real time gross settlement, without the clearance &
> settlement nightmare.
>
>
> So lets imagine we are on a business trip. We stay at a Hilton, we get a drink at Starbucks, etc. and when we get home we have a pile of receipts that we have to remember to turn in.
>
> What if each of those receipts had a QR code that linked to an encrypted version of the receipt? What if we didn't need any PKI or even public key to decrypt it? What if this could be the first step on the road to finally getting rid of emailed invoices, tax forms, etc. etc.?
>
>
> Yes it would work.  That challenge is to not to build it, but to encourage
> adoption.  This is chicken & egg.  Someone has to take the lead and start
> posting these.
>
> Then, as soon as you start posting these, the worryworts come out of the
> woodwork.  Privacy, security, compliance, taxman, patriotism, ...
> everyone's got their criticism.  So part of the puzzle is to find a space
> where it can be protected for long enough to keep back the no-dooers.  Like
> mPesa was protected.  Not sure what that is tho.
>
> Business wise, it could be loyalty points - the receipt QR could lead to
> not only the digital receipt but also include the extra points needed to
> get the "free coffee after 6" deal.  Wrap the app around it and start
> brewing.
>
>
> [Yes, can also do it over near field communication and we could integrate the payment mechanism. Got the specs for that as well.]
>
> So I am going to need some people/governments to invest in this to realize the full potential.
>
>
> As above, I do not think just investing will work.  What you need is to
> convince someone who is already doing something quite close to get a bit
> closer.  We need to borrow someone else's chicken, make some quick
> evolutionary hacks, and then try for our first new egg.
>
>
> [elided]
>
> So to make this happen in real life, what I plan to do is:
>
> 1) Finish the revisions to the spec
>
> 2) Release the reference code (C#) enabling the non QR code version
>
> 3) Make a You Tube video describing the scheme
>
> 6) Profit?
>
>
> Any update?
>
> iang
>
I am just about to present on the Mesh as a whole to IETF and tomorrow at
SECDISPATCH and 13:30 local.
I went with 4:4:4. The new draft is here:

http://mathmesh.com/Documents/draft-hallambaker-mesh-udf.html
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