sync

1 files changed, 135 insertions, 48 deletions

diff --git a/sa/sa.tex b/sa/sa.tex
index e87b199..6bf4c59 100644
--- a/sa/sa.tex
+++ b/sa/sa.tex
@@ -25,18 +25,32 @@
 
 \def\red{}  % FIXME
 
+\begin{abstract}
+  Taler is a cryptographic protocol with a Free Software reference
+  implementation for a value-based transaction system.  Taler payments are
+  executed in an existing regulated fiat-currency, hence Taler requires
+  integration with some register-based accounting system, such as traditional
+  bank accounts.  Taler aggregates many small transactions from different
+  customers to the same merchant, thereby reducing the transaction rate in the
+  register-based accounting system.  Taler provides privacy for consumers
+  and accountability for businesses receiving payments.
+\end{abstract}
+
 
 \section{Introduction}
 
 Taler Systems SA is developing an online payment system called Taler, that
-broadly fits the requirements of SARB's CBDC project.  Taler is an electronic
-payment system with focus on security, efficiency and data minimization.
-Cryptography is employed for security.  While Taler includes privacy features,
-it can at the same time guarantee that cash flows to merchants/retailers are
-transparent for anti money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC)
-auditing requirements.  Transactions with Taler are fast and can execute in
-one network round-trip time. Taler is economically viable for micro-payments
-(payments of 1 cent).
+broadly fits the requirements of SARB's CBDC project.  Taler's unique focus is
+on regulatory compliance, efficiency and data minimization.  Cryptography is
+employed for security.  While Taler includes privacy features, it can still
+guarantee that cash flows to merchants/retailers are transparent for anti
+money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) auditing requirements.
+Transactions with Taler execute in one network round-trip time. Taler is
+economically viable for micro-payments (payments of 1 cent) as its design
+minimizes requirements in terms of CPU time (typically less than 1 M cycles
+per transaction), bandwidth (typically 1-10 kb/transaction), and storage
+(again a few kb/transaction, with the ability to delete old data once legal
+data retention periods have expired).
 
 The USPs of Taler are:
 
@@ -60,6 +74,7 @@ contracts and merchants deposit them in return for a credit to the register.
 The exchange collects cryptographic proofs that it operates correctly, which
 are then checked by an auditor (auditor not shown):
 
+
 \begin{center}
 \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{../presentations/comprehensive/operations.png}
 \end{center}
@@ -111,8 +126,20 @@ supports key features such as giving change, providing refunds, securely
 handling aborts and various other practical issues previous technical
 solutions lacked.
 
+The overall system roughly operates as follows: The Taler wallet is filled via
+wire-transfer to the Taler exchange's escrow account, where the subject
+identifies the Taler wallet eligible to withdraw the CBDC.  Regulators can
+limit the amount an entity is entitled to exchange from Rand into CBDC, like
+ATM limits.  When withdrawing electronic coins, they are blindly signed by the
+Taler exchange and stored in the consumer's wallet, which is value-based.  The
+consumer can then spend its coins at merchants using cryptographic signatures
+over electronic contracts.  Merchants must immediately deposit the coins at
+the exchange, which performs an online check for double-spending.  The
+exchange will then credit the merchant's register-based accounts using
+aggregated wire-transfers.
 
-\section{CBDC principles and attributes}
+
+\section{CBDC principles and attributes} \label{section:cbdc:requirements}
 
 This section elaborates on how the open source payment system GNU Taler fits
 into the requirements of a Centrally Banked Digital Currencency (CBDC) as set
@@ -434,17 +461,22 @@ holdings, without requiring input from the consumer.
 
 
 
-
-
-
-
 \section{Company profile}
 
 \subsection{Company structure and physical location(s)}
+
 %, with the
 %emphasis on sustainability and the ability to undertake the
 %feasibility project
 
+Taler Systems SA is headquartered in Luxembourg, but also has developers in
+Germany and Switzerland. Taler Systems SA was founded as a startup by with
+support from INRIA, the French national institute for research in computer
+security (\url{https://www.inria.fr/}) and the Free Software community
+(\url{https://www.gnu.org/}).  The company is privately owned and debt-free.
+
+
+
 % FIXME: Leon
 
 \subsection{Capacity to support the feasibility project}
@@ -453,7 +485,15 @@ holdings, without requiring input from the consumer.
 %location and availability of subject matter experts and
 % technical support
 
-% FIXME: Leon
+Taler Systems is in the unique position of not having technological business
+secrets to protect, as all of our code and documentation is freely available.
+Thus, we can easily find and train local partners in our technology and focus
+on providing second-level support.
+
+Our experts are in principle all available to work on the SARB project, as
+we are currently investigating options for a first deployment of the Taler
+product.
+
 
 \section{Ability in the subject matter}
 
@@ -474,8 +514,59 @@ to be concluded later this year.
 %
 %and technical experts applicable to the feasibility project
 
-Grab vitas of our core team from investor presentation.
-Also mention advisory board members.
+The Taler Systems SA executive team currently consists of the following
+members:
+
+\begin{description}
+  \item[Dr. Christian GROTHOFF (Founder \& Technology)] Christian is Professor
+    for computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Bern
+    focusing on network security and privacy. He is an Ashoka fellow, serves
+    on the GNU advisory board and maintains four GNU software packages. He
+    earned his PhD in computer science from UCLA, an M.S. in computer science
+    from Purdue University, and a Diploma in Mathematics from the University
+    of Wuppertal.
+  \item[Leon SCHUMACHER (Founder \& Business)] Leon is a leader in the
+    international CIO community who possesses a deep knowledge of the needs
+    and functioning of Fortune 100 companies. Prior to co-founding Taler, Leon
+    served as group CIO at two global companies, Mittal Steel and Novartis.
+    Leon earned his master’s in electrical engineering from ETH Zürich and his
+    master’s in management from HEC Paris. He also has a post-MBA certificate
+    from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
+  \item[Michael WIDMER (Investor, Business Development, Legal \& Regulatory)]
+    Michael is an Entrepreneur and Investor. He brings to Taler his extensive
+    banking and financial market experience. In his 20 years of experience in
+    the international financial sector, he worked as a commercial lawyer, as
+    managing director of the Eurex stock exchange and as Co-CEO of the
+    Gutenberg Group. He received a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Zurich
+    and an executive MBA from University of Rochester. Michael is also
+    admitted to the Bar Association in Zurich.
+  \item[Dr. Florian DOLD (Founder \& Development)] Florian is a passionate
+    programmer and researcher. Prior to co-founding Taler, he worked on
+    GNUnet, a decentralized and privacy-preserving peer-to-peer
+    Framework. Florian earned his Master of Science from the Technical
+    University of Munich. He has obtained his PhD at Inria / Rennes 1 in this
+    subject.
+\end{description}
+
+Our advisory board members are:
+\begin{description}
+\item[Jenny MENNA] SVP, Information Systems Security at US Bank
+\item[Teppo PAAVOLA] Former Head of Business Development at PayPal
+\item[Sekhar NAGASUNDARAM] Head of Enterprise Data Security at Visa
+\item[Sandeep MEHTA] EVP, Enterprise Platform Services Tech at Wells Fargo
+\item[Greg FRAMKE] CIO at Manulife / John Hancock (former COO Etrade)
+\item[Chris PAGETT] former Head of Security Fraud \& geopolitical Risk at HSBC
+\item[Ante GULAM] CISO, Skyscanner
+\item[Manish TIWARI] CISO, Airtel India
+\item[Lars RABBE] former CIO of Yahoo! and Skype
+\item[Justin DOLLY] EVP, CISO at Malwarebytes
+\item[Dr. Richard STALLMAN] Founder of the GNU Project
+\item[Dr. Mikhael ATALLAH] Professor of Computer Science, Purdue University
+\item[Dr. Alex PENTLAND] Professor of Computer Science, MIT Media Lab
+\item[Dr. Roberto DI COSMO] Professor of Computer Science, Director of IRILL
+\item[Dr. Edgar FLEISCH] Professor of Information Management, ETH Z\"urich
+\end{description}
+
 
 \subsection{Commentary on the CBDC principles and attributes}
 
@@ -504,29 +595,32 @@ the public's trust in the solution.
 %feasibility approach specifically and the needs of an
 %innovation lab (sandpit) in general
 
-We imagine a realistic CBDC solution based on the Taler system to
-be effectively a hybrid solution, with a register-based component
-provided by integrating the existing SA banking system with
-a value based component using Taler.
-
-The CBDC Taler wallet can exist on smartphones, in browsers, on
-smartcards or secure USB sticks. It is filled via wire-transfer to the
-Taler exchange's escrow account, where the subject identifies the
-Taler wallet eligible to withdraw the CBDC.   Regulators could
-limit the amount an entity is entitled to exchange from Rand into
-CBDC, like ATM limits.  When withdrawing electronic coins, they are
-blindly signed by the Taler exchange and stored in the consumer's wallet,
-which is value-based.  The consumer can then spend its coins at
-merchants using cryptographic signatures over electronic contracts.
-Merchants must immediately deposit the coins at the exchange, which
-performs an online check for double-spending.  The exchange will then
-credit the merchant's register-based accounts.
-
-Thus, the Taler system combines value-based and register-based
-accounting, providing anti-money laundering capabilities by making
-income transparent, identifying the users of the system (upon
-withdrawal and deposit), but also providing privacy for citizens by
-not requiring identification of the buyer for ordinary transactions.
+A realistic CBDC solution based on the Taler system requires integration with
+an existing register-based banking system.  Here, the Taler architecture calls
+for the implementation of a simple adapter that needs to be able to query the
+banking system for wire transfers into the escrow account and needs to be able
+to trigger wire transfers from the escrow account into merchant accounts.
+Once these two simple operations are implemented, Taler can in principle
+transact in the respective currency.
+
+We would typically expect this integration with the existing SA banking system
+to be the first step.  In parallel, the specific regulatory requirements on
+launch would be discussed and then deployed in the sandpit. At that point, one
+might begin making the API publicly accessible to allow businesses to
+experiment with integrating Taler support into their systems, while performing
+exercises to stress test the system to ensure acceptable availability under
+high load or component failures.
+
+The CBDC Taler wallet can exist on smartphones, in browsers, on smartcards or
+secure USB sticks. However, typically the integration with the diverse payment
+operations used in a country will take time.  Taler Systems SA has already
+integrated Taler support with a few shopping systems, but largely to gain
+experience with the process.  We have had a team of Bachelor students
+successfully integrate Taler with a Web shop with virtually no support from us
+as part of a student project in their 2nd year of study.  Thus, given our open
+system specification and Free Software reference implementations we expect the
+bulk of the work to be done by local small businesses, which would only fall
+back on us for 2nd level support.
 
 
 \subsection{Methodology proposed to support the proposed approach}
@@ -578,7 +672,7 @@ Further information about the Taler system can be found at
   \vfill
 
 \begin{tabular}{l l}
-  Prof. Dr. C. Grothoff	&	grothoff@taler.net	\\
+  Dr. C. Grothoff	    &	grothoff@taler.net	\\
   Dr. F. Dold           &   dold@taler.net \\
   L. Schumacher	        &	schumacher@taler.net	\\
   M. Widmer         	&	widmer@taler.net	\\
@@ -603,13 +697,6 @@ Further information about the Taler system can be found at
 
 \subsection*{What would a solution for a register-based CBDC look like?}
 
-Taler's focus is on a cryptographic protocol for a value-based
-transaction system.  However, Taler requires integration with
-some register-based accounting system, equivalent to traditional
-bank accounts.  For this, it would be possible to use a permissioned
-block chain.  Taler aggregates many small transactions from different
-customers to the same merchant, thereby reducing the transaction
-rate in the register-based solution.
 
 \subsection*{What would a solution for a value-based CBDC look like?}
 
@@ -675,7 +762,7 @@ a government monopoly equivalent to a government mint for coins.
 
 
 
-\section*{Addressing CBDC Requirements} \label{section:cbdc:requirements}
+\section{Addressing CBDC Requirements} 
 
 We now sketch how the Taler components map to a Centrally Banked Digital
 Currency system run by the ECB or national central banks (NCBs), according to