Taler

[Changaco]

Now that Liberapay is no longer limited to Mangopay's wallets we should be able to add support for GNU Taler when it becomes operational. This payment method is designed to provide an unparalleled level of privacy to the payer.

Related issues: #1062 and #1268.

[davidak]

FYI: "It's not on our immediate list" to support recurring payments.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/taler/2019-01/msg00003.html

[Changaco]

Liberapay doesn't need Taler to support recurring payments itself.

[davidak]

I don't understand how that should work with my definition of recurring payments. https://github.com/liberapay/liberapay.com/issues/1400

[Changaco]

It doesn't. If a payment method doesn't allow pulling money, then patrons have to renew their donations manually, and thus pay several months in advance to avoid being bothered too often.

[techtonik]

If Taler is yet another crypto, then creating a wallet for each user on Liberay side will allow autopayments. People will just need to send tokens to this Liberapay controlled wallet periodically to fill up the balance and Liberapay will distill weekly amount from it automatically.

[fossdd]

@Changaco Is there anything new, or is it a old idea that was never forward developed? I would love to see Taler as third payment processor but the first free, open and secure processor.

[Changaco]

@fossdd There isn't anything new, I'm still waiting for Taler to become actually usable with real money.

[techtonik]

So what is actual user story behind "usable with real money"? No exchanges to buy and sell Taler?

[davidak]

@techtonik the software is not ready to be used in production. and when it is, yes, there have to be exchanges.

but don't mistake it for yet another cryptocurrenty (blockchain). it uses cryptography, but no blockchain. you will not be able to get it from a cryptocurrency exchange but from your bank (they are in contact with some banks and also the european central bank)

you can read here what it is and how it works https://taler.net/en

[techtonik]

@davidak is there a checklist with a list of problems for it to be solved to be production ready? The FAQ does not cover how do they aim to prevent double spending https://taler.net/en/faq.html and the search at https://docs.taler.net/search.html?q=double# is broken.

If they don't have testnet (or test cluster if they need centralized infrastructure), then I doubt it is a viable technology.

Blockchain is not just a way to handle signed records - it is a database synchronization protocol with finality, and if Taler doesn't have it, then I doubt it will be adopted at all.

[davidak]

They have a roadmap here: https://bugs.gnunet.org/roadmap_page.php (you have to select Taler as a project at the top right)

testnet

again, it is not a blockchain. there is no p2p network and no mining. forget blockchain for a moment...

there will be multiple exchanges, so if you not trust one, choose another one. like e-mail. you could call it decentralized an exchange needs a banking license because they are handling money, so it will be hosted by banks or fintech. they are in contact with multiple european banks

they have a demo: https://demo.taler.net/en/ try it out and report issues you find! you can use it in the browser with a browser plugin or on the smartphone to use in stores etc.

they have a vending machine at a university for testing where you can use real money already https://taler.net/en/news/2020-09.html

[techtonik]

They have a roadmap here: https://bugs.gnunet.org/roadmap_page.php (you have to select Taler as a project at the top right)

I am afraid the list of issues includes too much stuff to be useful. I've meant roadmap with major challenges to be solved, not the things like showing fees in the wallet. Stuff like double spending prevention. If you buy Taler from exchange and spend it at the same time at two merchants - how Taler prevents that? I would expect this answer to be in the FAQ, and stating that Taler is not blockchain is not the answer.

[grothoff]

Double spending prevention works since 0.0. We just do an online check in the Postgres database. Trivial. Remember, Taler is NOT a decentralized system, so we don't need consensus with third parties to make atomic commits. As for what is needed, well, mostly regulatory hurdles. For example, we're discussing when and how to do what style of authentication/KYC/etc. with PSD2 experts. Plus actual deployment of an exchange with a bank (currently battle-testing the https://docs.taler.net/taler-exchange-setup-guide.html so that real banks can do it). And then there is the little capitalist thing called the business case (who would use it, which merchants, which users, etc.). Happy to hear that liberapay is considering to support Taler, that'll help with the business case ;-). Also, I personally think davidak is right to point to our bug tracker, as we do need a bit more work on the tiny bugs (and some more security audits) before we'd be happy to launch as well. But the "big issue" is really ticking all of the boxes to ensure we are compliant with European banking regulation.

[techtonik]

@grothoff so the attack vector is one central PostgreSQL database. I don't see how that's better than any game currency. Whoever gains access to this DB can either print money, or double spend endlessly by stabbing the check.

[davidak]

@techtonik how many times did that happen at your bank? they will have a central database of some sort. or at paypal? or with some game currency? is that really a problem that needs to be solved?

[techtonik]

@davidak my country (Belarus) was about to be disconnected from SWIFT for manipulations with balances in 2020. So it happened just recently and not just once. My bank has own databases, but transactions between account balances had to go through external system. For PayPal you tell me. There is no PayPal in Belarus, so I don't know about them.

Game currency is not the money you can buy food and other good for real world needs, so it will never be production ready for that purpose. It is not a problem for game currency, but it is a problem for Taler.

[Changaco]

@techtonik Please stop wasting everyone's time with ridiculous comments.

Liberapay is itself based on a central database, so your criticism of Taler for having the same architecture is misplaced in addition to being unhelpful.

[techtonik]

@Changaco the criticism is that Taler would never be production ready and I explained why. And I've expected explanations, not personal attacks that I'm wasting everyone's time. It might be a good technology, but labeling it GNU is not enough to treat it as not a scam. And if question how the Taler is better than just game currency can not be answered, I conclude that nobody will adopt it. I really expected people to just update FAQ and post the link relevant answer here instead pointing with stick in the eye.

[Atemu]

(To moderators: Would it be possible to hide the pointless off-topic comments involving the person who obviously didn't spend a single second understanding what Taler is and what it isn't? This thread is hardly readable.)

[Changaco]

As the Taler project has entered a new phase, and I've been asked about it on Mastodon, here is the current situation for Liberapay, as I see it.

There are two possible ways for Taler to be usable with Liberapay. The first is for Taler to be added as a payment method by Stripe. This would enable us to make Taler available to donors as a payment option without requiring any action from the recipients. The second is to integrate Taler directly in Liberapay. This would require recipients to opt-in to Taler by providing us with their bank account numbers. These two integration pathways are not mutually exclusive, and there would be some advantages in implementing both.

For a direct integration, I would prefer that the Liberapay software interact directly with the Taler wallets and exchanges through their respective APIs (i.e. this one and that one, I think) rather than with the merchant backend developed by the GNU Taler team.

The possibility of applying for a grant is of no direct use to me because my work on Liberapay is already funded by the community, but if there was someone else able and willing to work on integrating Taler into Liberapay, then a grant might enable paying them to get it done.

[techtonik]

@Changaco I doubt Stripe integration will ever happen. "making sale incomes transparent" is particularly a scary thing for merchants to read from the project presentation.

For direct integration, I don't really understand why a bank account is needed. Maybe the transactional technology itself is awesome, and the theory for it since the invention of public key signatures, but for users it is just another layer of wallet management complexity on top of what we already have.