Web Payments Telecon Minutes for 2012-01-27
Manu Sporny
The minutes for today's call are now available here:
http://payswarm.com/minutes/2012-01-27/
Full text of the discussion follows for archival purposes at the W3C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Web Payments Community Group Telecon Minutes for 2012-01-27
Agenda:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2012Jan/0058.html
Topics:
1. PaySwarm Innotribe@Sibos
2. Updated PaySwarm Editors Draft
3. The Decentralized Settlement Process
4. The Data Portability and Authority Migration Algorithm
5. The Transaction Intents Process and Algorithm
Facilitator:
Manu Sporny
Scribe:
Manu Sporny
Present:
Manu Sporny, Jeff Sayre, David I. Lehn
Manu Sporny is scribing.
Manu Sporny: Any additions to the Agenda, before we start?
Manu Sporny: Since discussing this stuff with the OT folks, it
became clear that we didn't have enough in the spec. So, we
detailed the algorithms we're using in the current implementation
in the spec, let's review those today.
Manu Sporny: Transactions, decentralized settlement, data
migration, transaction intents, and web keys have been split.
Jeff Sayre: Looked through the split - interesting. We have been
discussing OpenTransact and PaySwarm.
Jeff Sayre: At some point we need to hone in on that decision. I
don't think we can accommodate everything.
Manu Sporny: Yeah, there are more splits on the way.
Jeff Sayre: At some point, we have to pick a particular track
and focus on that. We need to pick a direction and go with it.
Manu Sporny: Yes, I agree. It was important to have the
discussion, now we need to pick a direction.
Topic: PaySwarm Innotribe@Sibos
Manu Sporny: Positive news - Peter Vander Auwera invited us to
present PaySwarm at Innotribe @ Sibos in Osaka, Japan in October
of this year. This is a great opportunity to get the standard in
front of the world's financial sector.
Manu Sporny: Sibos is the world's banking conference. Innotribe
focuses on innovation in banking. Peter invites new payment
technologies to come and speak. Last year they had Bitcoin, Bank
Simple, etc. speak. Invited to speak at two events - a great
opportunity for us.
Manu Sporny: I asked Peter if he understood what PaySwarm does
and he really had a very strong grasp of what we're going for - a
universal payment standard for the Internet. He got it, it was
nice to see someone in the financial sector really understand
what we're trying to do here.
Manu Sporny: We are going to be speaking at the Future of Money
talk and a break-out session on payment APIs.
David I. Lehn: Who else is speaking there?
Manu Sporny: 40-80 people, Bitcoin folks, Bank Simple folks,
etc. It's very early days.
Topic: Updated PaySwarm Editors Draft
http://payswarm.com/specs/ED/web-api/2012-01-16/
Manu Sporny: The latest Editor's Draft for the PaySwarm Web API
has been updated. The updates were directly influenced by the
month-long conversation we've been having w/ the OpenTransact
folks. The positive that came out of it was that it made us
realize that we were focusing too much on implementation and not
enough on specs and explanation of what we're doing here.
http://payswarm.com/specs/ED/web-api/2012-01-16/#the-transaction-process
Manu Sporny: The biggest complaint was that the specification
was too heavy weight, we didn't cover the basics first. So, we
added documentation for the simpler mechanism into the spec -
simple transactions. Basically, you take a JSON object, digitally
sign it, and you post it to an authority transaction service and
the payment is made. You know who it came from, the payment can
be made in a decentralized way going from one authority to
another. The transaction can happen in a disconnected way. It's
just one object, you sign it, do a post - it covers a ton of our
use cases.
Manu Sporny: There is still this question of digital signatures
floating out there. Jeff, do you feel that digital signatures are
overkill? Is it too high of a barrier to entry?
Jeff Sayre: I think digital signatures are fine. There is
substantial value doing it this way - it is a desirable approach.
Manu Sporny: Yeah, we feel the same way. OAuth and TLS are
complicated to do implementations for, but that's why there are
libraries and once there are libraries, the technology becomes
much easier to use. The same for many of the APIs in the browser,
very complicated, but the APIs make it easy for the non-expert to
use. This stuff gets easier when you have demos out there, public
domain licensed software - people can use that.
Manu Sporny: Did you guys get push-back on WebID and digital
signatures?
Jeff Sayre: Digital signatures are used heavily in WebID...
there was debate on the mailing list on security issues - what is
the best way to handle security.
Jeff Sayre: Months and months of debate... push back at Identity
and Browser workshop - people that like OpenID and OAuth know of
one way to do it... and WebID is harder to understand because of
the digital signatures bit. It makes it harder to just jump in.
Jeff Sayre: All this stuff is complex though - the way Web pages
get sent back and forth... all fantastically complex. In the long
run, WebID simplifies the process... but you really have to
understand the internals more.
Jeff Sayre: There are certificates involved no matter what -
whether you're in control is a different issue. If you are doing
authentication - there are certificates involved.
Manu Sporny: The danger here is that people see "digital
signature" and get scared by it and end up using the "simpler"
solution that doesn't use digital signatures. People may not
grasp the benefits right away - decentralization, verification,
etc.
Manu Sporny: We also require TLS, just like OpenTransact for
pieces of the spec. There are some things, like submitting a
transaction, that you just don't want to run over an unencrypted
connection.
Jeff Sayre: This is about giving the everyday person controlling
their software more control. You can authenticate w/o TLS - lots
of earlier social web apps did that - they encrypted.
Jeff Sayre: Yeah, encryption is important... early social web
apps didn't have good security. It's important to really do a
deep dive on this stuff.
Manu Sporny: The other issue with TLS is cost, we can't require
everybody to buy a $30/year security certificate to use this
technology - and when stuff is decentralized, you have lots of
people that don't have that sort of money to spend to just
participate in sending and receiving money.
Manu Sporny: Ok, so general position is - digital signatures can
be scary to beginners, but most of that is mitigated by libraries
- digital signatures bring too much to the table to ignore - they
support a ton of use cases that we care about.
Topic: The Decentralized Settlement Process
http://payswarm.com/specs/ED/web-api/2012-01-16/#the-decentralized-settlement-process
Manu Sporny: It's important to point out that none of the core
protocol for PaySwarm changed - we've been working on this
problem for a long time, we had just not documented it. This is
very different from not putting something in the spec by design
as OpenTransact does. We didn't put it in the spec due to time
limitations on our part.
Manu Sporny: The decentralized settlement algorithm is /not/ a
Nostro account - far more detailed in how it works, decentralized
and automatic book keeping is used. So, the decentralized
settlement algorithm works like this: when an authority detects
that a payment must go between two authorities, the first
authority notifies the second one that there will be an incoming
transfer. There is an escrow transfer log. When you do a
transaction, you could be paying thousands of people across
hundreds of authorities. When you settle a transaction, it must
be atomic. Decentralized settlement algorithm explains how it
works. Decentralized settlement is a two-stage commit - first you
say what you're getting ready to transfer, then once every
authority acknowledges that, then you perform the transfer.
Manu Sporny: This algorithm does require organizations to have
legal agreements with one another, it is not a replacement for
that. If money is moved from one authority to another authority -
they will most likely hold their money at other banks - and when
they hold their money at other banks, you have to do an ACH
transfer to move the money.
Jeff Sayre: Is this something that is in the license?
Manu Sporny: No. If you run an authority and I run an authority
- both of us have to agree that any payments across our systems
will be settled. Lying about money that you don't have will
result in legal consequences.
David I. Lehn: Is this sort of how the banking system started a
long time ago before they had the central bank?
Manu Sporny: Well, in short - yes. It's SWIFT that does all of
this inter-bank transfer communication, but basically - all banks
have to have legal agreements in place (and regulations) that
state that they will not misrepresent transfers among themselves.
This is how the banks operate today - it's just that PaySwarm is
far more automated - books kept across the entire system is
automated - no human must get involved unless something goes
horribly wrong (mismatched bulk transfers between authorities).
Other than that, the system is meant to be fully automated.
Jeff Sayre: This really comes down to trust... authorities will
trust most authorities but maybe not others. Customers will trust
certain authorities.
Jeff Sayre: Just like any financial institution - you trust that
banks have the money they say they have.
Manu Sporny: We hope to just get rid of ACH in the future.
David I. Lehn: Well, timing is important - you can send money
unless you have it.
Manu Sporny: Actually, with ACH you can - depends on the
settlement order. That is not to say that there aren't
implementation concerns with timing and money. For example if you
have something equivalent to a bank run on an authority. However,
authorities can protect against that by delaying withdrawals by a
certain number of days or preventing high-dollar withdrawals from
happening too quickly. We could create a best practices
document... is there some place you would like to see us mandate
this stuff in the spec?
David I. Lehn: Some of this stuff may be policies that may
happen in the authorities - we don't want the spec to assume that
it is always instant. It may not be practical to do so.
Topic: The Data Portability and Authority Migration Algorithm
http://payswarm.com/specs/ED/web-api/2012-01-16/#the-authority-migration-algorithm
Manu Sporny: Data Portability is a big concern. Vendor lock in
is a big concern - this is something that the market cannot
address. If you let the market address it, there are a ton of
different incompatible formats. We want to spec data portability
- moving all accounts, identities, all of it should be
downloadable or transferrable to another authority. We want to
support it - it's mandated in the spec. You are not conforming
unless you implement data portability in PaySwarm.
Manu Sporny: Are we being too aggressive? Is this going to far?
Are we going to loose implementers because of this - people like
banks?
Jeff Sayre: We are pushing for a decentralized, open standard
for Web Payments. The system overall has to be decentralized.
This is necessary. Will certain banks not want to become
authorities? Yes... but will they still use it... possibly. This
is playing in the Web space - this may not be that big of a
turn-off to financial institutions.
Jeff Sayre: Looking at Facebook, who is opposed to true data
portability, would they like this - probably not. It's not
beneficial to their corporate goals - they're going to offer up
their own payment solution that is beneficial to their corporate
goals - not customer-centric. We need to separate what's been
going on globally - people trying to get more control in their
lives - need to separate the needs of the few from the needs of
the many.
Manu Sporny: We are going to split data portability out of the
spec, but these are required to be implemented: Web Keys,
Transactions, Commerce, Decentralized Settlement and Data
Portability MUST be implemented in order to label yourself as a
PaySwarm Authority. For portability to happen - you must be able
to export public keys, identities, financial accounts and all
transactions. This means that you can hope from authority to
authority without issue... just like you can port a cellphone
number, you should be able to port your entire financial history.
Topic: The Transaction Intents Process and Algorithm
http://payswarm.com/specs/ED/web-api/2012-01-16/#the-transaction-intent-process
Manu Sporny: This is the newest stuff we've been working on -
support for crowd funding. A Transaction Intent is an intent to
pay - kind of like an IOU. Kind of like Melvin's Web Credits
proposal. His system is more decentralized because there is no
authority - but his Web Credit could be submitted to an authority
and the payment would be made at that point. Transaction intents
are an intent to pay something based on some pre-set
requirements.
Manu Sporny: A promisor says "I will do X if I raise Y by Z
date.". A promissee says "I will put A towards the goal of Y as
long as the minimum amount is reached by Z date.". Transaction
intents are stored on the promisor's authority. The authority
collects transaction intents until it thinks it can collect the
entire amount. When it thinks it can gather all of the intents,
it goes out to all authorities and sees if all funds are
available.
Jeff Sayre: Can you freeze funds if you are the promisee? Can an
authority notify the promissee's that they've promised a certain
amount? Freeze the funds?
Manu Sporny: So, you're saying can the promisor freeze the
funds?
Jeff Sayre: No, I'm asking can the promisee freeze the funds so
they're guaranteed to pay the person when the authority goes to
collect the funds?
Manu Sporny: Ah, so it's the reverse of that.
Jeff Sayre: Yeah, I want to make sure that if I have a number of
payment intents that I've promised to pay, that I can pay them
when the time comes.
Manu Sporny: That's neat - no, we didn't think of it from that
direction. There are a few approaches we discussed to ensure that
the funds are available; 1) Tie your bank account or credit card
to your authority so you are always auto-debited the amount in
the transaction intent, 2) have the authority put a "safe to
spend" amount and warn you if you go over that
David I. Lehn: This is sort of a personal escrow.
Manu Sporny: Yes, there is nothing in the spec now.
Jeff Sayre: Yes, other thing you could do is get a full report
from PaySwarm Authority for all promised funds.
Weekly/Daily/Monthly report.
Manu Sporny: I don't know if we need to spec this out - maybe
have a best practices? Transaction Intents aren't required for an
authority - side issue. I don't know what spec language we could
actually write on this.
Manu Sporny: I guess the spec language we could add would be to
be how you could query. Show me all Transaction Intents on
record. We could spec that out.
Manu Sporny: If you have a way to query, then you have a way to
export. The authority could do it anyway, but if it doesn't, you
still have a way to get to your Transaction Intents. Yes, this is
a good idea Jeff - we hadn't thought about it this way.
Manu Sporny: We had thought about putting the funds on hold -
but that sucks, because you may want to overcommit on funding
knowing that only a small percentage will reach their limit. If
you look at KickStarter's successful funding runs, slightly less
than 50% make it.
Manu Sporny: So, if something isn't funded - you may have to
wait for 1-2 months. So, we thought it best to not put funds on
hold like that.
Manu Sporny: A Transaction Intent is a 3-stage commit process.
The first stage queries to see if enough funds are available to
meet the minimum amount, the second stage puts the funds on hold
for a very short amount of time (maybe 5-10 minutes), the third
stage collects the money across all authorities using the
decentralized settlement algorithm.
Manu Sporny: There is a chance that the promisor meets their
goal ahead of time. If that happens, all Transaction Intents
after the minimum is met automatically go through because the
minimum was met.
David I. Lehn: Some transfers can fail, and that is okay?
Manu Sporny: Yes, the transfers that fail don't end up with a
completed contract for the thing that the promisor is promissing.
So, if the promisor is trying to raise $10,000, and when they go
to collect, only $9,999 can be withdrawn, then the authority
waits for new Transaction Intents to come in and tries to collect
all of the money all over again and keeps doing so until the
minimum is met or the timeout passes.
David I. Lehn: Yeah, it's a problem when people don't have the
money. With KickStarter, they sometimes don't pay out the minimum
because some people didn't have the money.
Manu Sporny: So, this algorithm is an improvement on the
KickStarter algorithm - with this algorithm, you're guaranteed to
at least get the minimum if enough people have the funds
available. You won't end up in a situation where you don't meet
the minimum.
David I. Lehn: There are still failure cases - like what happens
if a credit card is charged on demand and the charge is reversed?
Manu Sporny: Well, that is still the authority's responsibility
- if it tells another authority that it has sent funds over,
those funds are the sending authority's liability. Very bad
things happen if it doesn't follow through on the funds transfer.
Manu Sporny: While it could be that an authority may not have
the money, it's of no consequence to the person that is receiving
the money.
David I. Lehn: Yes, but what happens when the money isn't there?
The entire series of Transaction Intents fail, right?
Manu Sporny: Yes, but that just means that the authority tries
again when the next Transaction Intent comes through.
David I. Lehn: Would that go beyond the expiration date?
Manu Sporny: No, once the expiration date passes, the authority
cannot try to process the Transaction Intent. If you don't hit
the minimum by the expiration date, you don't get the money.
David I. Lehn: We could just run the transaction intents through
if they're close enough?
Manu Sporny: Yeah, but then you might as well have a donation
button. You could also set your transaction intent low - if you
want $40K, you could set it at $35K to make sure you get it if
you get close.
David I. Lehn: Well, that has all sort of social consequences.
We can discuss later.
Manu Sporny: Does this cover the basic crowd-funding use case?
Jeff Sayre: Yeah, it's a good basis.
Manu Sporny: Ok, we're out of time today. We'll continue to
split the specs and re-organize them.
-- manu
--
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Web Payments - PaySwarm vs. OpenTransact Shootout
http://manu.sporny.org/2011/web-payments-comparison/