- Taler was accepted into the GNU project today. GNU will offer advice,
- advocacy and cooperation --- and host our official public
- mailinglist taler@gnu.org.
-
- We finally have a first simple demo for Taler online. The Firefox-variant
- still needs some love, but you can start to try out the demo using
- the Chrome/Chromium browser at demo.taler.net.
- Please provide feedback to our bug tracker.
-
- We have reached our first big milestone, the 0.0.0 release!
- The release includes implementations of a bank, exchange, merchant and wallet
- and is available on the GNU FTP mirrors.
-
-
- While the exchange implements the
- complete protocol, the implementations of merchant and wallet are both
- fundamentally incomplete and still lack key features, including important
- error handling. GNU Taler still lacks an implementation of an auditor or
- logic for integration with "real" banks.
- Thus, this release should not yet be used for actual financial
- transactions.
-
-
- That said, you can already setup your own functional payment system
- and run your own toy currency -- or just try out the demo using
- the Chrome/Chromium browser at demo.taler.net.
-
-
- Please provide feedback to our bug tracker.
- There, you can also find our roadmap
- which contains a list of known open issues and our plans for the near future.
-
- We just finished the camera-ready version of our paper on how to use Taler
- for Web payments. This paper does not discuss the cryptography
- behind Taler, but focuses on the practical aspects of how the
- wallet and the merchants interact over the Web. Hence, this
- paper should be a good read for anyone who wants to integrate
- Taler support with their Web site. We have posted the
- paper here.
-
- We now have a first version of the Taler wallet for Firefox.
- For now, a development build of Firefox is required.
- Installation instructions are on the Wallet page.
-
- We are happy to announce the release GNU Taler v0.4.0 with support for customer
- refunds, protocol versioning, incremental key material download, returning funds
- from the wallet directly back into one's bank account,
- and various other minor improvements. The Chrome and Chromium wallets
- are available for download via the App store. The exchange, merchant
- backend and bank components are on the GNU FTP mirrors. Note that the
- Firefox wallet will take a few more days to become available in the
- App store due to the Mozilla review process.
-
- We are happy to announce the release of GNU Taler v0.5.0.
- The main new feature is customer tipping, which allows
- merchants to pay small rewards directly into a customer's
- wallet. Technical improvements include numerous performance
- improvements and bug fixes, as well as a new, simpler to use
- API for merchants that also enables the implementation of
- GNU Taler wallets on platforms that do not support
- WebExtensions.
-
-
- The Chrome and Chromium wallets are available for download
- via the App store. The exchange, merchant backend and bank
- components are on the GNU FTP mirrors.
-
-You must use a recent Git version of GNUnet to use Taler 0.7.0.
-
-
-
-{% endblock body_content %}
diff --git a/news/2020-04.html.j2 b/news/2020-04.html.j2
deleted file mode 100644
index 3468f0bb..00000000
--- a/news/2020-04.html.j2
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,20 +0,0 @@
-{% extends "common/news.j2" %}
-{% block body_content %}
-
2020-04: Exchange ready for external security audit
-
- We received a grant from NLnet
- foundation to pay for an
- external security audit of the GNU Taler exchange cryptography,
- code and documentation. We spent the last four months preparing
- the code, closing almost all of the known issues, performing static analysis,
- fixing compiler warnings, improving test code coverage,
- fuzzing, benchmarking, and reading the code line-by-line.
- Now, we are now ready to start the external audit. This April,
- CodeBlau will review the
- code in the Master branch tagged CodeBlau-NGI-2019
- and we will of course make their report available in full
- once it is complete. Thanks to NLnet and the European
- Commission's Horizion 2020 NGI initiative
- for funding this work.
-
- We received a grant from NLnet
- foundation to pay for an
- external security audit of the GNU Taler exchange cryptography,
- code and documentation. CodeBlau
- now concluded their audit. You can find the final
- report here.
- We have compiled a preliminary response
- detailing what changes we have already made and which changes we are still planning to make in
- the future. We thank CodeBlau for their work, and NLnet and the European
- Commission's Horizion 2020 NGI initiative
- for funding this work.
-
2020-09: GNU Taler operational at Bern University of Applied Sciences
-
- The GNU Taler payment system was launched at the
- Bern University of Applied Sciences
- in the presence of a representative
- of the Swiss National Bank. Students, staff, faculty and visitors
- can visit the cafeteria at Höheweg 80 to withdraw the electronic equivalent of Swiss Franks (CHF)
- onto Taler Wallet App
- running on their mobile phones and pay at a Taler-enabled
- snack machine. The system is expected to expand to allow payments
- at other places in the future. Various faculty members and
- students are involved various aspects of the project. Students
- interested in working on projects or theses related to the subject
- should contact Prof. Grothoff.
-
2020-10: GNU Taler presentation by Javier Sepúlveda in Valencia
-
- Javier Sepúlveda
- will give a
- talk
- in Spanish about GNU Taler at Valencia
- at an event organized by the GNU/Linux group
- from Valencia, which is a public organization supported by the Valencia City Hall
- to promote urban innovation and entrepreneurship.
-
2020-11: RFC 8905: "The 'payto' URI Scheme for Payments" published
-
-We are happy to announce the publication of RFC 8905 by the IETF.
-
-
- RFC 8905 defines the 'payto' Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
- scheme for designating targets for payments.
- A unified URI scheme for all payment target types allows applications
- to offer user interactions with URIs that represent payment targets,
- simplifying the introduction of new payment systems and
- applications.
-
-You must install GNUnet v0.14.0 to compile GNU Taler 0.8.
-
-You must first install GNUnet v0.14.0 to compile GNU Taler 0.8.
-
-{% endblock body_content %}
diff --git a/news/2021-01.html.j2 b/news/2021-01.html.j2
deleted file mode 100644
index 517af76a..00000000
--- a/news/2021-01.html.j2
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
-{% extends "common/news.j2" %}
-{% block body_content %}
-
2021-2: "How to issue a Central Bank Digital Currency" published
-
-We are happy to announce the publication of our paper on "How to Issue a Central Bank Digital Currency" by the Swiss National Bank.
-
-
-With the emergence of Bitcoin and recently proposed stablecoins from BigTechs, such as Diem (formerly Libra), central banks face a choice of either leaving the field to private actors or offering their own digital alternative to physical cash. We do not address whether a central bank should issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Instead, we demonstrate how a central bank could do so, if desired or needed. We propose a token-based system without distributed ledger technology and show how earlier-deployed, software-only electronic cash can be improved upon to preserve transaction privacy, meet regulatory requirements in a compelling way, and offer a level of quantum-resistant protection against systemic privacy risk. Neither monetary policy nor financial stability would be materially affected because our CBDC would replicate physical cash rather than bank deposits.
-
-In December 2020 the European Parliament asked the European Commission
-about the suitability of GNU Taler to establish a digital Euro in a
-small inquiry.
-In the official answer,
-the commission mostly asserts that it is unable "to assess the functioning of the GNU Taler payment system",
-and points to a maximum transaction limit of 150 EUR, without really answering
-the questions raised by the inquiry.
-
-
-
-To assist the European Union with regards to the inquiry, we point
-out that the operation of GNU Taler is completely and transparently
-made public at https://taler.net/,
-so if the European Commission is, like anyone else, in position to assess the
-functioning of the GNU Taler payment system. We recently also described
-details of how the system would function for an E-Euro in a
-working paper
-with the Swiss National Bank. Based on our publicly available documentation,
-Prof. Birchler, a previous member of the directorate of the Swiss National Bank,
-publicly
-commented that our approach is the best published proposal for digital cash.
-
-
-
With respect to EU policy objectives, we would like to point out that the
-150 EUR limit postulated by the European Commission for private payments is
-very low, and in our view incompatible with the data protection objectives of
-the European Union. We want to stress that with GNU Taler, only the citizen
-making the payment can remain anonymous. Thus, Taler is not suitable for money
-laundering or illegal business activities as receivers of payments are easily
-identified. A recent broad
-consultation by the European Central Bank showed that the European
-population demands privacy compareable to physical cash when it comes to the
-Digital Euro. With cash, the transaction limit is at 10,000 EUR. Thus, were
-the 150 EUR limit apply truly to all forms of privacy-friendly electronic
-cash, this would be a key point where the European Union should provide for more
-citizen-friendly regulation, especially for technical solutions that include
-security features that adequately minimize the risk of citizens suffering
-financial losses.
-
-
-
-Finally, we would like to stress that the GNU Taler project is open to
-a cooperation with the European Central Bank, and is happy to answer
-questions from specialists of the European Parliament or the European
-Commission.
-
2021-3: "Why a Digital Euro should be Online-first and Bearer-based
-" published
-
-We are happy to announce the publication of our paper on "Why a Digital Euro should be Online-first and Bearer-based".
-
-
-The European Central Bank’s “Report on a Digital Euro” considers
-two distinct types of designs for a digital euro. It argues that all functional
-requirements laid out in the report can be fulfilled by operating the two systems
-in parallel:
-
-
A bearer-based digital euro based on trusted hardware that can be used
-offline, anonymously, and without third-party intervention.
-
An account-based digital euro that can be used online, is fully software-
-based and excludes the possibility of anonymity.
-
-The report does not discuss other choices of hybrid systems. However, the
-choice is more arbitrary than it might seem at first sight: bearer-based systems
-are not necessarily offline payment systems, and online payment systems do not
-need to exclude anonymity.
-
-
-We argue that operating a bearer-based payment system to complement an
-account-based CBDC in order to gain offline and privacy features is not a good
-trade-off. Adding permanent, regular offline capabilities via the bearer-based
-payment instrument constantly exposes the CBDC to the severe issues inherent
-in offline-capable payment systems. Instead, the offline mode of operation
-should be restricted to scenarios where it is actually required, which mitigates
-the risks.
-
- {% trans %}
- News posts about changes related to
- GNU Taler such as releases and events
- {% endtrans %}
- –
- {{ _("subscribe to our RSS feed") }}
-