Ripple trading system is up and running

[Barterer]

Possible problems with Ripple:
1. Server owner able to manipulate stored IOU data to his/her advantage (either via a program flaw or roll-back of stored data, etc.)

Sure, same as with any bank.  Of course, people tend to check their balances and will come out with pitchforks and guns if you try to rip them off.  This is a problem for those who don't know who is managing the bank.. that will change after I move to New Hampshire and more people begin to take me seriously.

2. Users able to send forged data to the data store indicating that another user is now in debt to the forger

If there's a way for a user to force a payment from another user, I'd like to hear about it.

3. Privacy issues regarding individual transactions and/or the database/data store in general (most often due to program flaws)

This is the sort of thing I'm hoping you guys can help with.  See if there are any privacy issues I may have overlooked. 

4. Authentication and verification issues (can a cracker simply brute-force a username/password set?)

I don't know.. obviously a weak password can be forced in only a few guesses.  I can increase the maximum password length if that becomes an issue.

5. Denial of service issues (can a pissed-off user "clog" or block access to your account? To the whole "bank"?)

Yeah. For now, I would ask that you not DoS my little $12/month host, which would temporarily prevent others from accessing their accounts.  The integrity of the accounts would be fine though.  Hmm, maybe I will look into per-IP bandwidth allocation.

EDIT: Whoops, I forgot to thank you for your comments.. this is just the sort of constructive criticism I am looking for.  I appreciate it. 

[Barterer]

Ryan has updated the software.  Now it allows interest and also you can delete your account, if you don't have a balance.  Barterer I'm glad another liberty lover sees the power of this idea.  Barterer, have you considered having a currency unit that isn't an actual currency.  I look forward to the day when people trade "ripples" which floats against the FRNs. 

Right on, I'm running 0.2.  You may charge interest if you want, or just leave it at 0%. 

As for other currencies, I thought of adding "Liberty Dollars" and would do so if not for the Liberty Dollar "splits" designed to keep LDs roughly equivalent to USD, which makes LDs pointless on the system. 

I am also thinking of adding labor-hours and professional-hours for the labor of blue and white-collar workers.. but of course everyone's labor is worth a different amount/hour.

I appreciate your comments freeman4liberty, thanks!

[Minsk]

Possible problems with Ripple:
1. Server owner able to manipulate stored IOU data to his/her advantage (either via a program flaw or roll-back of stored data, etc.)

Sure, same as with any bank.  Of course, people tend to check their balances and will come out with pitchforks and guns if you try to rip them off.  This is a problem for those who don't know who is managing the bank.. that will change after I move to New Hampshire and more people begin to take me seriously.

Actually, that and the information disclosure is what turned me off Ripple in the first place. I very much hope you're successful in attracting people to local digital banking (Ripple or otherwise), because it helps pave the way for all sorts of interesting opportunities. To that end I'll probably swing by and donate later, rather than add an account that has zero credibility

[penguins4me]

I re-read the Ripple FAQs last night, and many of the possible issues I'd listed should be viewed in the light that Ripple is a trust-based monetary system (amusing enough, as ALL of them are) - it works best when your personal friends are the only ones you grant credit to, hopefully friends you can trust to pay you back, as that's how it works.

The interesting aspect of Ripple comes from its automation of connecting the trust chain: Joe trusts me, Jane trusts Joe, Bob trusts Jane, Barterer trusts Bob, error trusts Barterer, Russell trusts error, and so I can buy something from Russell using a Ripple-type currency. The system's power comes from its connectivity - it's not nearly as useful or interesting if everyone uses unconnected, isolated Ripple servers within their own communities...

-edit
clarification

[Russell Kanning]

Sure, same as with any bank.  Of course, people tend to check their balances and will come out with pitchforks and guns if you try to rip them off.  This is a problem for those who don't know who is managing the bank.. that will change after I move to New Hampshire and more people begin to take me seriously.

If the "banker" minipulated my account, then I would just not honor the bad transactions or data.

[Barterer]

I re-read the Ripple FAQs last night, and many of the possible issues I'd listed should be viewed in the light that Ripple is a trust-based monetary system (amusing enough, as ALL of them are) - it works best when your personal friends are the only ones you grant credit to, hopefully friends you can trust to pay you back, as that's how it works.

Exactly. You have to seek out and extend credit to your friends, who extend credit to you.  The onus is on the traders to set up trading rings.  The system will hopefully reach a sort of "critical mass" beyond which it will work like cash, and we won't have to think so much about who is in what trading group.  One way to speed this along (as Ryan is working on) is connecting ripple servers together.  Once that is accomplished, and well-connected members of servers A and B extend credit to each other, the group is now much larger and more diverse.  The bridge(s) of trust would still have to be made by users on each server.  The beauty of it is, no matter how complex things get, you decide exactly how much to trust each member.  Whatever the state of server connectedness/isolation, you can only lose to the extent that you miscalculate the integrity of your immediate trading partners.

Another way to speed things along is brokers.  Notice the opportunity that is coming about here.. someone can easily open a paypal or e-gold account and open shop, converting ripple currencies into cash, gold, etc.. for a fee.  Being able to actually get money out (not just goods/services from others) will go a long way toward promoting confidence in ripple.                     

I don't want to go off too much about this.. like I said, it's just the framework for the trading network I hope to build someday.  The reason I announced it so early is so that you guys can test it and begin to set up rings and trades (real or imagined) if you want to. I'll see ya in about 1.5 years if all goes according to plan.

[freeman4liberty]

Right on, I'm running 0.2.  You may charge interest if you want, or just leave it at 0%. 

As for other currencies, I thought of adding "Liberty Dollars" and would do so if not for the Liberty Dollar "splits" designed to keep LDs roughly equivalent to USD, which makes LDs pointless on the system. 

I am also thinking of adding labor-hours and professional-hours for the labor of blue and white-collar workers.. but of course everyone's labor is worth a different amount/hour.

I appreciate your comments freeman4liberty, thanks!

Good objection about liberty dollars.  I was thinking the same thing as "labor-hours" only I wanted to call the unit "a ripple."  Suggest to people that one ripple should be the cost of one unskilled labor hour, but allow the market do it's magic, so the value could change as circumstances change.  I was thinking in the abstract that maybe a new macDonald's worker could be paid one ripple/hour and experenced worker could be paid 1.2 ripples/hour but nothirg rigid.  If so a candy bar would be about .1 ripple.  Ahh, remember the days when a little money bought a lot?  Me niether, but it would be nice. 

[Friday]

Tom Sawyer pointed me to this thread at PorcFest.  I never heard of the Ripple system before, but it sounds like it has fantastic potential for the Free State!  I have some questions:

• Barterer, what's the latest?  The last post on this thread was over 3 months ago.
• Does anyone here actually know Barterer?  No offense intended, just being properly paranoid. 
• How many users does LibertyBrew currently have?
• Does the system go by real names, online handles, or both?
• Regarding turning off the email functionality, couldn't you leave that up to the choice of the users?  For most transactions, I would probably like an email receipt.  I'll just switch it off prior to buying a handgun from XYZ and selling a crackpipe to PDQ. 
• Can anyone think of downsides to such a system, other than the ones already mentioned by PowerPenguin?

[EthanAllen]

I never heard of the Ripple system before, but it sounds like it has fantastic potential for the Free State! 

The idea came out of the "Swiss Economic Trading Circles" during the depression when credit was tight. Today the modern equivalent in Switzerland is called the "WIR Coop Bank" and trades about 1.8 billion Swiss francs annually. It is a paperless, credit clearing/bookkeeping system kept on a secure network that employs a debit cards at the point of purchase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIR

[nonya]

This is interesting.  Can u turn off the email notification/authorization, at least for now during testing.

So in a ripple economy, who owns the land?  And how would one purchase it through trade?  Instead of 900 dollars a month in currency, we would trade 40 hours of labor?

Never heard of this, but am definetly willing to understand it!

[Barterer]

Hi Friday, thanks for reviving my old thread. Obviously I agree that the ripple concept has lots of potential for promoting free trade in the free state!

• Barterer, what's the latest?  The last post on this thread was over 3 months ago.

There's not much new to report.. I have not changed the way the site works or had any requests to do so (that I can handle).

• Does anyone here actually know Barterer?  No offense intended, just being properly paranoid. 

I don't think any freestaters have met me personally, but some could probably vouch for my longstanding support.  Ian Bernard knows me as an FTL amplifier, Alan Milner knows me as a Freedom Friends Tuath applicant, Kat Kanning knows me via a donation to the KFP,  Lauren Canario probably remembers a letter I sent while she was briefly detained in Connecticut. These are not really "knowing" sort of things, but that's the best I can do remotely.  Of course it's all internet hearsay, but Barterer might also be found at johnbilyeu.com, or on the "board of engineers" sites for Texas and New Hampshire.                                                                           

As far as Ripple goes, knowledge of my character doesn't matter.  All of the trust is between the individuals who extend credit to each other on the system.  Likewise, it doesn't bother me too much that I don't know anyone who has signed up to use the site.   I have no idea if any transactions passed through it pertain to real-world goods and services being exchanged, or if users are just running tit-for-tat transactions (or transaction loops) to test it out.  I encourage both types of activity.

• How many users does LibertyBrew currently have?

Not counting the few accounts I set up to test chains of transations... 6.  Pretty sad, huh?

• Does the system go by real names, online handles, or both?

That is your choice.  You can use your real name or just a handle.  It's the responsibility of the users to verify, in real life, that DadaOrwell=Dave and Friday=Sandy etc. before trusting a particular user.

• Regarding turning off the email functionality, couldn't you leave that up to the choice of the users?  For most transactions, I would probably like an email receipt.  I'll just switch it off prior to buying a handgun from XYZ and selling a crackpipe to PDQ. 

Yeah, if I didn't suck so bad at programming that wouldn't be difficult.  But I almost died of frustration just learning enough about Python, PostgreSQL and Django just to get it running.  I did request the optional email feature a while back, and it is cued up for development. In the latest source code release notes it says "ideas for things to work on: ... make email notifications optional and/or encrypt them with user's PGP key."  And, not being a *complete* computer-dolt, I can find the lines of code that control emails and comment them out (so could accommodate your gun purchase) but the behavior would be the same for everybody.  Since the main developer is focused on the P2P protocol that will drive future versions, the per-user email option will have to wait.

• Can anyone think of downsides to such a system, other than the ones already mentioned by PowerPenguin?

The main downside is the one that the P2P development will solve.  The fact that the site depends on one server and could be construed as a central "bank."  This is enough to cause both users and bureaucrats to think it is some sort of rich target where actual value is stored, or where criminal activity could occur.  But really, it's just an IOU tracking system that, like currency, simplifies trade.

[Barterer]

This is interesting.  Can u turn off the email notification/authorization, at least for now during testing.

So in a ripple economy, who owns the land?  And how would one purchase it through trade?  Instead of 900 dollars a month in currency, we would trade 40 hours of labor?

Never heard of this, but am definetly willing to understand it!

Nonya,

I left the email authorization thing (to start a new account) enabled to prevent some smartass with a script from making thousands of accounts.  So to get started, you have to hit the confirmation link which is sent to a unique email address.  As a courtesy I'll PM you the confirmation email that bounced.   

In a "ripple economy" the main thing that would change would be that people could conduct their business without the necessity of transferring so many coins, bullion or paper bills. Nothing about land or other property would change.  Essentially we already live in a ripple economy, using paper bills as our primary medium of exchange.  The problem is, these paper bills get counted as "income" and "sales" with taxes to be paid at every turn. By reducing the actual number of dollars changing hands, ripple cuts out the middleman.. who isn't so much a middleman as a thief.

As you can see by my username, I like the idea of bartering a lot, mainly because it trips up the government in its effort to rob you.  There's no way to evaluate how much "value" changes hands when people just help each other out with even trades.  When no actual money is exchanged, can you imagine some bureaucrat demanding that you to put a dollar amount on the (subjective) value you received, and pay him 30% of it?

[error]

Barterer is indeed an AMPlifier. I can't say anything further though.

[Friday]

I never heard of the Ripple system before, but it sounds like it has fantastic potential for the Free State! 

The idea came out of the "Swiss Economic Trading Circles" during the depression when credit was tight. Today the modern equivalent in Switzerland is called the "WIR Coop Bank" and trades about 1.8 billion Swiss francs annually. It is a paperless, credit clearing/bookkeeping system kept on a secure network that employs a debit cards at the point of purchase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIR

That's really interesting; thanks for the link.  I think this sort of thing would be more valuable if businesses started participating as well, which looks like what they're doing in Sweden.  Even if every Freestater I know signed up, the truth is, most of them don't have the stuff I want to buy.  hmmmm...

[error]

What do you want to buy?