“GNU Taler” and Hubzilla

2018-11-30 13:55:55

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

Just got to know about the „GNU Taler“.

https://taler.net/

To me this „GNU Taler“ seams to be a really really good idea.

Can someone of the devs proof and confirm that this idea is actually working and is save?

If so, I would really love to use the „GNU Taler“ with in Hubzilla - this would open the door for a really new way to paying for things.

Could be the GNU Taler merchant backend integrated into the Hubzilla by default ?

When I think about it – this seams to me the most important plugin for Hubzilla in the future.

!Hubzilla Support Forum
!Hubzilla Development

show all 41 comments

2018-11-30 14:11:41

hEARt PhoniX

tobias@hubzilla.rocks

2018-11-30 14:15:58

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

The Cart plugin has hooks that would allow implementation of nearly any payment system. It just has to return a 'payment complete' in some way that the system can recognize. That can happen in any number of ways. Basically, if a payment API exists, it can fairly easily be integrated into the cart system.

I've scanned Taler and find it interesting but I haven't deeply reviewed it.

What I have found with nearly all alternative payment systems and so-called crypto-currencies and cryptographically secured distributed ledgers, is that the biggest problem is getting money into the stored value system.

2018-11-30 16:17:35

hEARt PhoniX

tobias@hubzilla.rocks

2018-11-30 16:29:22

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

From what I can see it is a more opaque version of PayPal built on an opensource platform. The exchanges will likely be regulated under the regulations governing financial institutions just as PayPal and others are now. It seems to solve a lot of problems, but the slow pace of development likely means they have hit major roadblocks. 3+ years of media coverage without so much as a real world test case does not bode well.

2018-11-30 16:45:55

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

@Waitman Gobble It's not meant to "store" money, think of it more like "online cash". Just like regular cash you have to carry it around in your wallet and it can get lost. That's why you usually only get a limited amount from the ATM.
There are plenty of reasons why people prefer cash, and one of them is privacy. GNU Taler tries to fill that role and is indeed a bit like a more private and decentralized Paypal.

2018-11-30 21:05:42

Frank Aerror

aerror@hub.volse.no

the only aspect of gnu-taler i don't like is that it only runs on chrome and firefox (yet) asfaik. it looks like a promising project though.

2018-11-30 21:33:35

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

If you agree that blockchain currencies are not really social and build not on ethic values - then you have to think about the GNU Taler a bit longer.
Yes it seam a bit like the opaque version of PayPal.

Banks are working on having their own paypal like system, because they have understood it´s the future.

#^paydirekt – Wikipedia

Geschäftsführer: Christian von Hammel-Bonten (Vorsitzender),Niklas Bartelt, Helmut WißmannVorsitzender des Verwaltungsrats: Torsten Daenert paydirekt ist ein Online-Bezahlverfahren deutscher Banken und Sparkassen. Es wird von der paydirekt GmbH betrieben.[1][2] Um sich für paydirekt erstmals registrieren zu können, benötigen die Kunden ein Gi...

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Langsamer-Fortschritt-bei-Paypal-Alternative-Sparkassen-fuehren-Paydirekt-ein-3186868.html

Now someone like Taler project’s maintainer Christian Grothoff has to realize “The banks are not necessarily easy or cheap to deal with.” that´s because likely the banks want push there own system.

But an open source system like GNU Taler would be better than that – right ?

If it is a working and a save system (I can´t really say if it is so, or not) Customer like use could/should push banks like e.g. the “Stadtsparkasse”

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkasse

which are committed to work local for the people in Germany - to be open for such a system like the GNU Taler.

It´s a question of how payments can be done in the future with a certain amount of privacy. I think we know – we have to fight for this privacy in the future, it will not be granted just like that.

#^A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe | Richard Stallman

The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union, says president of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman

2018-11-30 21:48:12

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

3+ years of media coverage without so much as a real world test case does not bode well.

@M. Dent hmmm

thinking of the potential and actually WORKING for a project like hubzilla should make you think different

2018-11-30 23:01:10

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

@RockyIII

If Richard were a sole coder (or it was he and a few buddies) coding in his spare time in his mom's (or even his own) basement, I very much might think differently. But let's be a bit reasonable here. It seems to me that this particular personality could easily get access to some significant resources and coding talent to put together a full working reference implementation to walk up to the banks and say, "Here is your solution". But that's not the case this has been talked about for over 3 years. It's not a small job, to be sure. But I'm not sure that even assuming that the complexity is that much greater than Hubzilla (something I'm not really willing to concede), the projects are anywhere near comparable.

Hubzilla may be small, but it is far more than a functioning demo.

2018-11-30 23:06:11

Mike Macgirvin

mike@macgirvin.com

We had a real world test case before I even wrote a line of code. It goes something like this:

- Ellen's server is shutting down. Ellen doesn't want to lose her friends or start over again. This is her third server shutdown and would be the third time she has started over.

- Bob sends a private photo to Ellen. He doesn't want it to get fusked and spread all over the internet like the famous *private* photo of Mark Zuckerberg cooking dinner with his future wife.

- Jim wants to post on Bob's wall. Bob is on another server.

We delivered all of these before 2012. If nobody actually wants these things, that isn't my problem. I wanted them.

Still do.

2018-11-30 23:37:17

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

Ok i don´t want to defend or make a pitch for a project i just discovered and don´t really know.

Also don´t know much about Richard and his influence on heads who think all the day of money and sit all day in a bank...

Just had the feeling that it is an interesting project to know about... and probably you can´t judge over it in just few minutes or a day or so, even the project is around for 3 years... just my feeling...

2018-12-01 00:13:18

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

Fair enough... It is an interesting project. I thought so 9 9 months ago as I was evaluating potential payment processors to put baseline into the Cart addon ... still think so.

Guess I'm more or less dismayed and think that even if they couldn't make progress on integration with the banking industry, they could have at least finished a reference implementation that "faked it."

2018-12-01 00:13:51

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

It isn't going to help them that Belarus has an official CryptoCurrency named Taler.

2018-12-01 07:20:49

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

they could have at least finished a reference implementation that "faked it."

https://demo.taler.net/en/

Seems to do just that, or are you thinking of something different in regards to "faking it"?

2018-12-01 08:32:04

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

It isn't going to help them that Belarus has an official CryptoCurrency named Taler.

The name “Taler” for a currency has a long tradition in Europe – no one can claim an elusive right to use this name.

If you use it – you could see it as a sign and statement that you want to build on something with a long history.

#^Taler – Wikipedia

Der Taler, dt. Schreibweise bis 1901 Thaler, ist ein Typus einer großen, von der Frühneuzeit bis ins 19. Jahrhundert bedeutenden europäischen Silbermünze. Silbermünzen, die vom zeitgenössischen Wert her einer goldenen Guldenmünze entsprachen, wurden erstmals 1486 in Hall in Tirol geprägt. Solche Münzen breiteten sich ab 1500 allmählich in...

2018-12-01 11:22:56

hEARt PhoniX

tobias@hubzilla.rocks

2018-12-01 16:18:56

Sophie

sophie@hub.somaton.com

fun fact #3: the word dollar comes from Taler (Thaler) as well, originating in 16th century Czech, which then had close economic bonds to the German speakers in what is now Germany and Austria.
#^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar#History

2018-12-01 16:37:43

mathew

mathew@hub.libranet.de

Taler is apparently based on Dr David Chaum's work on DigiCash, so it should be technically very solid and well thought out.

The problems will be the same things that prevented DigiCash from succeeding in the 90s: the selfish and abusive commercial interests of governments, banks and other corporations. Your bank, the supermarket, the government — none of them want you to be able to transact anything anonymously. They would all spend money just to prevent digital cash from taking off. That's a massive hurdle any cash-like system has to overcome.

2018-12-01 20:45:45

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

"Was ist ein Einbruch in eine Bank gegen die Gründung einer Bank? - Bertolt Brecht
(The worst crime is to found and run a bank, instead of rob a bank)

@mathew you are very right – BUT... the DigiCash story is 25 years ago... people are learning, and begin slowly to understand

I see this as part of our mission – we got to learn and then sprat the word and teach people that they should and actually CAN care about their rights also in the digital world. That means people should and CAN care about a certain amount of privacy.

I have to say that I´m really flashed by getting to know this GNU Taler project. The next time the town council has to decide eg how tickets for the Public Transportation System should be cashed digitally We can start a public campaign for using the GNU Taler as one option. The town council can force the local banks to accept the GNU Taler. Yes they can.

It is all about understanding. If enough people understand the meaning of all this – then the government has to follow the interest of the people how care for privacy.

I strongly want to believe that this is possible, actually if not it will lead to the break down of our social system, for sure.

2018-12-02 22:13:02

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

Richard Stallman on a free and anonymous Paymentsystem:

"We know the technology, it was developed twenty year ago to do this work.
What´s needed is the businesses and SOCIAL task of getting it set up so that lots of people can use it."

https://peertube.mastodon.host/videos/watch/ebcd2e7e-1eb3-4c2d-ab43-b26ee5c2ee5f

2018-12-03 17:18:13

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

Christian Grothoff on the GNU Name System – GNUnet and GNU Taler

I think Christion has really something to say – check it here (in german language – sorry ) :

#^Netzwerkdienste für sozial-liberale Gesellschaften

Welche politischen Anforderungen könnten wir an neue Netzwerkdienste stellen? In diesem Vortrag sollen die politischen Anforderungskatalo...

please

@Mike Macgirvin
@Mario Vavti
@M. Dent

check also:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=GNUnet&t=ffsb&ia=videos&iax=videos
and
https://secushare.org/

2018-12-04 00:19:37

Andrew

andrewmanning@start.hubzilla.org

Don't apologize for things in German! It's a legitimate language :-)

2018-12-04 16:43:40

Giacomino

giavec@zotum.net

"It's a legitimate language ? I don't think SO! " by latin people when thinking in german language
:-P
;)

2018-12-04 16:54:29

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

@RockyIII thanks for posting that video. He mentioned an interesting GNU Taler feature in the discussion part that I was unaware of and which could be nicely implemented in Hubzilla: public key sharing. This way you can share money anonymously into a common pool (for example among your friends). He mentions it as a form to support wistleblowers, but I think it is in general an interesting way to do donations to a common goal that by its nature is completely transaction cost free and fully private.

2018-12-04 17:16:03

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

Christian Grothoff also mentions in the video that he is still in talks with the Banks: There is still one legal problem to solve and the banks also ask for to much money for their services right now ...

so it is not a technique issue

2018-12-04 17:31:52

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

Yeah, but I doubt they will have much success with negotiating with banks at the current stage.

What is probably needed is that some legal entity as a non-bank financial services company is created under the recent EU regulation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive
) and run with a cool FOSS software such as Mifos-X ( #^https://mifos.org/mifos-x/ ) as a micro-credit institute. Then people could start using Taler in actual transactions and Banks would be much more likely to take it up.

2018-12-04 17:34:47

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

@Waitman Gobble You misunderstood the system. The Bank customers are not anonymous at all with the GNU Taler system. Just as your bank knows when you get money from the ATM, so does the Bank know when you convert money into Talers.

2018-12-04 17:56:55

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

@Waitman Gobble Yes Taler holders are anonymous in the same sense as cash holders are. But Taler creation/conversion isn't (just like getting cash from the bank isn't) so that is really all the bank needs to worry about. Afterwards why should they care what you do with your cash?

2018-12-04 18:30:49

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

why should they care what you do with your cash?

Because governments want to know what you do with your cash for tax or "security" reasons and banks are lapdogs of governments (or is it governments that are lapdogs of banks?)

2018-12-04 18:38:54

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

@Marshall Sutherland Exactly that is why the "T" in Taler stands for "Taxable" :p

The non-autocratic governments don't (or should not) care about what a citizen spends their cash on, but they want to know about the commercial activities of the supply side in order to do taxation and regulation of security relevant isses. GNU Taler is designed to allow exactly that without overly compromising the privacy of the customers in a commercial transaction.

No argument about the lapdog duality though ;)

2018-12-04 18:45:34

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

As long as they get to prohibit the purchase of things they want to prohibit and get their cut of the transaction, I suppose many governments don't really care who is making the purchase.

2018-12-04 19:00:23

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Oh, good point. Not everyone is allowed to purchase the same things.

2018-12-04 19:29:18

poVoq

povoq@social.freegamedev.net

A "prohibited person" sounds a lot like what an authoritarian system would come up with, but I understand the definition of that has become somewhat blurry in recent years :(

But regardless of that, an identification system such as having to show an age verification to buy for example alcohol or complying with regulations of international air-traffic (not necessary for domestic air-travel though), can and should be implemented independently of the payment system to reduce unnecessary data collection and opportunities for misuse of private data.

Regarding the tipping: I guess you are referring to potential abuse for bribing politicians? Well the politician would have to declare that they received 15 million USD from an anonymous source, and that would probably raise enough eyebrows even if the actual donator isn't known. But in the end such "donors" are already now smart enough to hide themselves behind the front of some nice sounding foundation or such and that is probably anyways more effective than doing it anonymously.

2019-06-20 11:33:08

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

This is a major one: Facebook is launching a cryptocurrency called libra 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/18/libra-facebook-cryptocurrency-new-digital-money-transactions

We know we need a different cryptocurrency

I still think "GNU Taler" has some very good points. We need to discuss about it more i think so that things start moveing

#GNU #Taler #GNUTaler #cryptocurrency #Facebook

2019-06-29 16:34:43

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

I generally like the concept and hope they can keep to their timeline, but I'm a bit doubtful.

2019-06-29 18:09:36

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

they just released a new version 0.5.1, by 10 June 2019 and got a new web page – so the project is alive ;-)

2019-12-08 20:45:33

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

GNU Taler looking for F-Droid hackers

https://forum.f-droid.org/t/gnu-taler-looking-for-f-droid-hackers/8005

#jobs #free-software #freedom

2019-12-08 23:18:14

M. Dent

dm42@my.hosted.social

Very interesting!

2021-02-15 18:08:37

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

Mit dem Bezahlsystem GNU Taler wollen Entwickler die Vorteile des Bargelds in die digitale Welt tragen. In der Mensa der FH Bern lässt es sich jetzt nutzen.

https://www.heise.de/news/Projekt-GNU-Taler-Das-quelloffene-Bargeld-4892826.html

2021-02-25 08:58:07

Harald Klimach

harald@klimach.family

Fefe hat heute einen längeren Eintrag zu GNU Taler.

2021-02-25 13:39:22

RockyIII

rockyiii@huby.infozoo.de

@Harald Klimach Danke

Hier für alle schnell zum Klicken auch der dort enthaltenen Link zu:

Die Schweizer Zentralbank denkt über den Einsatz von GNU Taler nach.
https://www.heise.de/news/Vorschlag-aus-der-Schweiz-Digitales-Zentralbankgeld-mit-GNU-Taler-5064307.html