Re: ILP and signatures

On 26 January 2016 at 19:27, Stefan Thomas <stefan@ripple.com> wrote:

> If you want escrow, the funds' release has to be triggered somehow.
> Cryptography (hashes or signatures both work) is very convenient for this,
> but you can in principle use any trusted signal, like a wire with physical
> security.
>

Got it, thanks.


> As far as making ILP a standard I think we'd want to use common
> cryptographic primitives.
>
I like that cryptographic primitives are supported, that makes sense.

What about other kind of "web smart contracts" (for want of a better name)
... ie to trigger the release of a payment when something on the web
happens.  e.g. the ledger operator could publish a receipt of the funds
transfer to escrow?


> On Jan 26, 2016 9:03 AM, "Melvin Carvalho" <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Cryptographic signatures are a simple way for ledgers to securely
>> validate the outcome of the external conditions upon which a transfer is
>> escrowed. Any one-way function can be used [18]. Using asymmetric
>> cryptography, the ledger escrows funds pending the presentation of a valid
>> signature for a pre-defined public key and message or hash. The ledger can
>> then easily validate the signature when it is presented and determine if
>> the condition has been met.
>>
>> http://interledger.org/interledger.pdf
>>
>> Question: are signatures a necessary component in the ledgers?
>>
>