Open Transactions Server: Asset/Bond/Commodity/Cryptocoin/Deed/Share/Stock Exch.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Happy Christmas!

 

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[kokjo]

Happy Christmas!

 

and a marry new year.

[Mashuri]

Has anyone connected via I2P yet?  I'd like to contribute but, in all honesty, I'm still having a hard time figuring this software out.  Do you have a guide or FAQ for setting up a client to connect to your server?

[fellowtraveler]

Has anyone connected via I2P yet?  I'd like to contribute but, in all honesty, I'm still having a hard time figuring this software out.  Do you have a guide or FAQ for setting up a client to connect to your server?

FYI, the connect info for any server is stored INSIDE the server contract.

If you want to connect to a specific server, go to the 'contracts' tab, and import the server contract.

From there, if you open any accounts, or perform any transactions with that server, OT will be smart enough to read the connect info out of its contract.

[becoin]

fellowtraveler and markm, thanks for putting some time to address my questions.

How is it possible to return the cash notes anonymously to the user?  ANSWER: Over an anonymous network.

How is it possible that the note itself cannot be traced as it is spent?  ANSWER:  Using blind signatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Signatures

As end result for the user, how is that different to using eCash anonymous banking operating through interfaces in the Tor network or using uKash (Smart Voucher Ltd)?

[fellowtraveler]

fellowtraveler and markm, thanks for putting some time to address my questions.

How is it possible to return the cash notes anonymously to the user?  ANSWER: Over an anonymous network.

How is it possible that the note itself cannot be traced as it is spent?  ANSWER:  Using blind signatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Signatures

As end result for the user, how is that different to using eCash anonymous banking operating through interfaces in the Tor network or using uKash (Smart Voucher Ltd)?

I am not too familiar with those systems, though I'd assume they are similar to running OT in cash-only mode, since they probably offer real Chaumian blinding.

I had heard of eCache, but not uKash. (URL?) There was also blindbitcoin.com. OT should make it easier for people to offer such services.

[becoin]

I had heard of eCache, but not uKash. (URL?)

URL is http://www.ukash.com/global/en/home.aspx

Smart Voucher Limited. (of which Ukash is a trading name) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom as an electronic money institution. This regulation has been passported to all other countries in which Smart Voucher Ltd operates, with approval from the relevant local regulator. Smart Voucher Ltd (trading as Ukash) FSA register number: 900007, Company Number 4202050 registered in England & Wales at 5-7 Tanner Street, London, SE1 3LE, UK

[fellowtraveler]

I had heard of eCache, but not uKash. (URL?)

URL is http://www.ukash.com/global/en/home.aspx

Smart Voucher Limited. (of which Ukash is a trading name) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom as an electronic money institution. This regulation has been passported to all other countries in which Smart Voucher Ltd operates, with approval from the relevant local regulator. Smart Voucher Ltd (trading as Ukash) FSA register number: 900007, Company Number 4202050 registered in England & Wales at 5-7 Tanner Street, London, SE1 3LE, UK

eCache I am pretty sure is the legitimate thing: (Chaumian untraceable cash, backed in gold.) They also have some kind of bonding mechanism, to secure the gold.

As for Ukash, I checked out their website and I am not so sure. Seems like they have "vouchers" issued by their server. But I see nothing about those vouchers being untraceable. Furthermore, an OT server is unable to change your balance without your permission (you must sign first, and the server cannot forge your signature.) But I don't see that Ukash has any similar technology. Absent claims / proof to the contrary, I'd have to assume that they have the power to change my balance anytime they want, with or without my agreement, the same as PayPal or MtGox could.

-FT

[Geir]

I would like to join you in alfa testing. Really cool project I've downloaded the pre builds for ubuntu and tryed to run it several times, but I keep getting this error: (MoneyChanger)

http://bayimg.com/OaLFBAADM

Any ideas?

[markm]

I would like to join you in alfa testing. Really cool project I've downloaded the pre builds for ubuntu and tryed to run it several times, but I keep getting this error: (MoneyChanger)

http://bayimg.com/OaLFBAADM

Any ideas?

After making and installing OT, you also need to make clean and make java to create the java lib, which you then need to put someplace where moneychanger will find it.

For me that place is /usr/local/lib, since the java client no longer seems to find it if it is in the same directory you are in when you run the client. I put moneychanger's jar and its lib directory in /usr/local/lib/ot, and have a shell script /usr/local/bin/ot_j that changes dir to there then runs the jar. I used to put the java lib in with the jar but that no longer works, thus nowadays I put it in /usr/local/lib and it gets found. (Albeit for a while my linker wasnt looking in /usr/local/ at all, dunno if that was standard or a result of some muck-up, but I fixed that too, had to else anything I built that put its shared lib in /usr/local/lib wouldn't work.)

-MarkM-

[Geir]

Thanks for your answer But I still cant make it work, I downloaded the pre builds so should be no need to build. And i followd the readme in /binary folder. Still no chance

[markm]

Thanks for your answer But I still cant make it work, I downloaded the pre builds so should be no need to build. And i followd the readme in /binary folder. Still no chance

You still need to put the shared library (the .so) somewhere where your runtime linker will find it.

-MarkM-

[finway]

Watch this.

[da2ce7]

OK New stuff for testing:

Please download; compile, fix, and submit bug reports for my patches of Moneychanger:
https://github.com/da2ce7/Moneychanger

To compile Open Transactions on debain; I have updated instructions here
https://github.com/da2ce7/Open-Transactions/blob/master/INSTALL-DebianStable.txt

Cam.

[markm]

Open Transactions has been changed radically inside to make it much more robust than it used to be, and most of the large-volume placerse of market orders have recovered from the bottlenecks of messages their large volumes of messages had caused them in earlier versions of the software.

There are probably things that can still be done to streamline the communictions between client and server and make it even more robust, but basically it works now so people are preparing to trade in earnest. A high level scripting interface is being prepared that will make scripting it much easier for casual scripters, and we are starting to look at various proposed companies looking to be traded on the exchange to figure out which ones to set up in the system and what exactly their asset contracts should say and suchlike.

I guess we are maybe preparing to transition from alpha to beta. Throughout all the hacking and testing and debugging we have not lost any of the assets, although the account display in the client still sometimes shows zero balance on accounts that do in fact have a balance. That is basically cosmetic, so it is time to get people who create pretty clients to create some pretty version of the client.

ALso sicne trading is becoming active, a more sphisticated look at the markets would be useful, such as filtering to show only assets you actually have account for, or picking specific assets to show the markets of and stuff like that.

-MarkM-

[jtimon]

I've been reading the wiki and this pdf linked from it and I think I finally get how blind signatures are used for cash.
But what is actually blinded? Only the random secret that proves the ownership?
If so, why not just use public keys or hashes of public keys like bitcoin?
That would allow atomic trades of digital cash.
Maybe you're interested on my last thoughts about cryptographic assets:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60591

Any criticism is welcomed.

[markm]

Public keys are not intrinsically "blinded". The "blinding" allows you to be given finds by the server that it will not recognise as being the funds it gave to you when someone else redeems them. All it will know is whether the funds have already been redeemed. You could keep taking out and putting back the same unit/denomination of funds over and over again and it would not know whether it is the same funds over and over or completely different fund each time.

Meanwhile, I am putting together a list of companies that are looking to be traded on the Open Transactions server, giving highest priority to those that use DeVCoins as their unit of account.

There is a real likelihood that most companies traded will already have buyers lined up for all their shares, unless we can convince them that raising their asking price high enough to prevent their already-lined-up buyers from being able to buy all the shares will be worth their while. It is possible that not all of them are prepared to make use of more capital than they initially contemplated but hopefully some of them will be adaptable enough to be able to accommodate however much capital our users turn out to be wanting to put in.

By the way, it seems it might be possible that this should be operated as a private operation, open only to members equipped with suitable client software, rather than being some kind of "offering to the general public" as might be construed to be the case if it were operated by means of a public website. The Galactic Milieu mostly believes the planet known as Earth to be mythical and thus its laws and customs to be irrelevant, however people who believe in such a planet, and especially people who claim to actually live there, might not all agree...

-MarkM-

[jtimon]

Public keys are not intrinsically "blinded". The "blinding" allows you to be given finds by the server that it will not recognise as being the funds it gave to you when someone else redeems them. All it will know is whether the funds have already been redeemed. YOu could keep taking out and putting back the same unit/denomination of funds over and over again and it would not know whether it is the same funds over and over or completely different fund each time.

Yes, this is an advantage over public keys. But the mint still knows which funds are which funds and could trace them from secret to secret, he just can't know who created each secret.
Since there's no way to relate public keys with persons neither, I don't think it is a big problem. When you send some funds to another address, the mint doesn't know if you're giving them to other person or moving them to other address you own. The server is only needed to provide atomicity (preventing DoS attacks by enabling an expiry field), timestamping transactions without actually knowing what they contain.
Anyway, the augmented capabilities of the assets (could be traded atomically between them and/or for bitcoins) may compensate that "disadvantage".

Maybe I'm still missing something.

[fellowtraveler]

But the mint still knows which funds are which funds and could trace them from secret to secret, he just can't know who created each secret.
...
Maybe I'm still missing something.

Let's assume a couple of users:  Alice, Bob, Carla, and Deborah

If Alice transfers 10 clams to Bob,  and Bob transfers 5 clams to Carla, and Carla transfers 1 clam to Deborah, the server sees:

Alice->Transfer 10 clams to Bob.
Bob->Transfer 5 clams to Carla.
Carla->Transfer 1 clam to Deborah.

-----------------------------------------------------

BUT IF THEY USE CASH, then the server would see this instead:

Bob->Has just verified 10 clams in cash (source unknown.)
Carla->Has just verified 5 clams in cash (source unknown.)
Deborah->Has just verified 1 clam in cash (source unknown.)


Of course "Bob" and "Carla" are really just public keys, as far as the server is concerned.

As you can see, the server can NOT trace the path of any money from Alice to Bob to Carla, etc. The server can only see when someone has received cash, but the server has no idea where that cash came from (because it's untraceable.)

[jtimon]

If Alice transfers 10 clams to Bob,  and Bob transfers 5 clams to Carla, and Carla transfers 1 clam to Deborah, the server sees:

Alice->Transfer 10 clams to Bob.
Bob->Transfer 5 clams to Carla.
Carla->Transfer 1 clam to Deborah.

If the server only acts as timestamper, the server only sees:

transaction 1 at dateTime1
transaction 2 at dateTime2
transaction 3 at dateTime3

The clams minter is the one watching the actual transfers, but this happens with both systems.