New OpenTransact draft

At the IIW earlier this week we created a more formal draft of OpenTransact.

Here is the html version:

http://www.opentransact.org/core.html

Changes are including a for field which is similar but more generalized to
PaySwarms asset concept. We are also requiring OAuth2 now.

P




OpenTransact                                              P. Braendgaard
Internet-Draft                                             PicoMoney Inc
Intended status: Informational                                 N. Matake
Expires: April 21, 2012                                 Cerego Japan Inc
                                                                T. Brown
                                                        October 19, 2011


                           OpenTransact Core
                    draft-pelle-opentransact-core-00

Abstract

   This document specifies the OpenTransact standard for requesting and
   performing transfers of assets over the http protocol.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 21, 2012.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.




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Table of Contents

   1.  Status of Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.1.  Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.1.1.  Asset Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.1.2.  Transaction URL  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       2.1.3.  Example of Asset Services  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.2.  Roles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.3.  Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     2.4.  Transfer Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     2.5.  Transfer Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     2.6.  Exchange Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       2.6.1.  Exchanged item URI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       2.6.2.  Authorization  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.7.  Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.8.  Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     2.9.  Parameter encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     2.10. Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     2.11. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   3.  Transfer Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.1.  Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.2.  Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   4.  Transfer Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     4.1.  Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     4.2.  Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   5.  Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     5.1.  Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   6.  Receipt  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   7.  Asset Meta data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   8.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20



















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1.  Status of Document

   This document is in draft and reflects the current designs from the
   OpenTransact mailing list.















































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2.  Introduction

   The goal is to develop a very simple low level standard for
   transferring an amount of an asset from one account to another.

   Most payment systems and existing standards use the messaging
   paradigm for historical reasons.  OpenTransact specifically rejects
   the message paradigm and prefers the restful resource approach as
   used on the web with URL's and HTTP at it's core.

   We aim to create a new standard from scratch ignoring all legacy
   systems, while leaving it flexible enough to allow applications built
   on top of it to deal with legacy systems.

   The standard is designed to follow standard RESTful practices and be
   concise and human readable.

2.1.  Assets

   Within OpenTransact we use the accounting definition of the word
   "Asset" as anything of value.  Eg.

   o  money

   o  shares

   o  bonds

   o  mobile phone minutes

   o  hours of work

   o  property

   o  domain names

   o  physical products etc.

2.1.1.  Asset Service

   An Asset Service is a service maintained by an organization to manage
   accounts of one assets.  For money and other financial assets the
   Asset Service would normally be run by a Financial Service Provider
   of some type.  However there are many types of assets that could be
   offered by non financial services.






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2.1.2.  Transaction URL

   Each Asset Service has a unique transaction URL.  This allows us a
   don't need to get into details in our standard about application
   specific details like currency, card type, size, color etc.

   This transaction URL would follow basic REST practices.

   o  A transaction URL should be a simple clean URL like
      http://eepay.com/transactions.

   o  A POST to the URL is used for creating a transaction transfering
      value.

   o  A GET to the URL from a normal html web browser should present a
      human readable description of the asset.

   o  A GET to the URL from a normal web browser with specific
      parameters becomes a payment request that the user can authorize.

   o  A GET to the URL in a machine readable form such as json returns
      meta data about the asset an optionally a list of transactions
      that the current user is allowed to see.

   o  Each transaction has a unique URL eg. http://epay.com/
      transactions/aaf4c61ddcc5e8a2dabede0f3b482cd9aea9434d.

2.1.3.  Example of Asset Services

   Lets say it's an imaginary electronic currency eepay.com they only
   offer one asset type, their currency.  So they would only have one
   transaction url:

   o  http://eepay.com/transactions

   If it offered multiple currencies it should have a url for each
   currency as they are really separate asset types:

   o  http://eepay.com/transactions/usd

   o  http://eepay.com/transactions/euro

   If a larger existing bank offered various kinds of services each one
   would have it's own URL:

   o  http://megabank.com/current





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   o  http://megabank.com/savings

   o  http://megabank.com/bonds/mortgage

   A mutual fund company would have a url for each of their funds.

   o  http://fidelify.com/funds/sp500

   o  http://fidelify.com/funds/emergingmarkets

   A broker could actually also implement an OpenTransact API and have a
   different URL for each symbol eg:

   o  http://feetrade.com/trade/AAPL

   o  http://feetrade.com/trade/EBAY

   This would allow them to create their own internal market.

   If we let the URL do the describing, there are tons of different
   possibilities.  We can keep the core API very simple, while allowing
   pretty open support for all manners of asset types.

   All the above examples are fungible assets.  In general it is best
   practice that one item of value for one asset is fungible for one
   another.

   For unique items such as domain names, property titles and diamonds
   that are unique and infungible, we can still create asset urls for
   each item, but only accept transfer amounts of 1.

2.2.  Roles

   OpenTransact defines 4 roles:

   o  Asset provider

      *  The entity providing or issuing the asset

   o  Transferer

      *  The entity transfering an amount of the asset

   o  Transferee

      *  The entity receiving an amount of the asset





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   o  3rd party application

      *  An application performing a transfer on behalf of the
         Transferer

2.3.  Transfer

   We will use the term "Transfer" as it is more widely applicable than
   "Payment".

   A Transfer is legally a transfer in owner ship of some amount of the
   Asset from the Transferer to the Transferee.

   Eg.  A Payment of $12 from Bob to Alice is a Transfer of 12$ with Bob
   being the Transferer and Alice the Transferee.

2.4.  Transfer Request

   A Transfer request is when the Transferee requests a transfer of a
   given amount of an asset from the Transferer.

   Eg.  Alice sends an invoice to Bob for $12.  This is a Transfer
   Request from Alice to Bob where Alice is the Transferee and Bob the
   Transferer.

   A Transfer Request is simply a specially formatted payment link that
   takes Bob to Asset Service if followed.  The Asset Service shall
   present the Transfer Request to Bob who can authorize or decline it.

2.5.  Transfer Authorization

   A Transfer Authorization is when the Transferee or a third party
   application requests an authorization to transfer of a given amount
   of an asset from the Transferer.

   Eg.  Bob wants to hire someone on an online job board to edit a
   document for $33.  The Job Board creates a Transfer Authorization
   link.  Bob follows this link to the Asset Service and authorizes the
   Job Board to transfer $33 from his account to some one else within a
   time period.

   A Transfer Request is simply a specially formatted payment link that
   takes Bob to Asset Service if followed.  The Asset Service shall
   present the Transfer Request to Bob who can authorize or decline it.
   If Bob authorizes it the Asset Service issues an authorization code
   to the Job Board that they can use to exchange for an OAuth token.





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2.6.  Exchange Transaction

   A Transfer is often but not always part of an exchange of value
   between 2 types of assets.  Eg.:

   o  10 consulting hours exchanged for 1100EUR

   o  10 USD exchanged for 8 EURO

   o  0.99 USD exchanged for an mp3 song

   There are as many different exchange mechanisms for create exchanges
   as there are exchange types. eg.

   o  Invoicing system

   o  App Store

   o  Web shop

   o  Auction site

   o  Stock Exchange

   It is outside the scope for OpenTransact to define every single type
   of exchange that is possible.  However OpenTransact should be able to
   be a fundamental building block in building such systems.  It should
   also integrate well with exchange systems that don't yet understand
   OpenTransact.

2.6.1.  Exchanged item URI

   In an Exchange Transaction we can include a url to the exchanged
   item.  This URI could either be a link to the exchanged item itself
   or the unique URI identifying the transaction itself.

2.6.2.  Authorization

   A useful building block for creating Exchange services is the
   Transfer Authorization flow.

2.7.  Vocabulary

   As part of OpenTransact we are creating a simple vocabulary of
   parameter names that can be used in various parts of the standard.






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   o  _asset_ - Transaction URL

   o  _from_ - Transferer account identifier

   o  _to_ - Transferee account identifier

   o  _amount_ - Amount of asset

   o  _note_ - Textual description of transfer

   o  _for_ - Identifier of exchanged item.  This SHOULD be a URI

   o  _redirect_uri_ - URI to redirect User Agent to

   o  _callback_uri_ - URI for performing callback after request

   o  _client_id_ - Identifier of 3rd party application

   o  _expire_in_ - Request that a token expires in given seconds

   They are designed to be small and semantically correct. eg

      A transfer of 10 USD from Bob to Alice for consulting.

   Would become the following:

   o  amount=10

   o  asset=http://pay.me/usd

   o  from=bob@test.com

   o  to=alice@test.com

   o  note=Consulting on XYZ project

   o  for=http://myinvoice.test/invoices/123123

2.8.  Authentication

   OpenTransact does not define any new authentication mechanisms, but
   relies on the Asset Provider's existing mechanisms for authenticating
   the Transferer and OAuth 2.0 [OAuth.2.0] for authenticating 3rd party
   applications on behalf of the Transferer.







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2.9.  Parameter encoding

   Since OpenTransact is designed to be simple to implement, the basic
   parameter encoding is URL form encoding.

   Any data responses should be in JSON format.

2.10.  Extensions

   OpenTransact is designed to be extensible, either through proprietary
   extensions, conventions or futher standards.

   For example it may be useful to follow the lat/lon convention
   allowing geotagging of data.

2.11.  Notational Conventions

   The key words 'MUST', 'MUST NOT', 'REQUIRED', 'SHALL', 'SHALL NOT',
   'SHOULD', 'SHOULD NOT', 'RECOMMENDED', 'MAY', and 'OPTIONAL' in this
   specification are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

   This specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF)
   notation of [RFC5234].

   Certain security-related terms are to be understood in the sense
   defined in [RFC4949].  These terms include, but are not limited to,
   'attack', 'authentication', 'authorization', 'certificate',
   'confidentiality', 'credential', 'encryption', 'identity', 'sign',
   'signature', 'trust', 'validate', and 'verify'.

   Unless otherwise noted, all the protocol parameter names and values
   are case sensitive.



















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3.  Transfer Request

   A Transfer Request consists of a GET to the Asset URL.

GET /usd?to=bill@example.com&amount=100.00&note=Milk&redirect_uri=http://site.com/callback
HTTP/1.1
Host: pay.me

                                 Figure 1

   We use the following parameters from our common vocabulary.  All
   fields are optional:

   o  _to_ Account identifier of Transferee.  If left out it defaults to
      the 3rd party applications own account on Asset Service or a
      predefined account as specified when authorizing the access token.

   o  _amount_ Amount as a number with decimal points.  Symbols are
      allowed but SHOULD be ignored.  If left out it defaults to the
      Asset's minimum transfer, 1 or an amount predefined when
      authorizing the access token.

   o  _note_ Textual description, which can include hash tags.  Asset
      Service may truncate this.  No default.

   o  _from_ Account identifier of Transferer.  This should normally be
      left out as it is implied by the authorizer of the Access Token.
      The Asset Service MUST verify that the Access Token is authorized
      to transfer from this account.  This could be useful for Asset
      providers charging their customers accounts.

   o  _for_ URI identifying the exchanged item.

   o  _redirect_uri_ URI for redirecting client to afterwards

   o  _callback_uri_ URI for performing a web callback

   When a user follows this link, the Asset Service should present the
   user with a form authorizing the payment.

   Note: Client can include OpenID Connect parameters.

3.1.  Response

   The user is redirected back to the clients redirect uri with the
   following url encoded parameters:






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   o  _txn_url_ A url identifying the transaction.

   Asset provider can include an access_token in the query string of
   txn_url.

3.2.  Errors

   Error types use OAuth 2.0's error codes.  [OAuth.2.0]











































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4.  Transfer Authorization

   A Transfer Authorization consists of a GET to the Asset URL with a
   client_id.

GET /usd?to=bill@example.com&amount=100.00&note=Milk&redirect_uri=http://site.com/callback&client_id=1234
HTTP/1.1
Host: pay.me

                                 Figure 2

   A Transfer Authorization is really a OAuth2 Authorization [OAuth.2.0]
   with a few extra payment related parameters.

   We use the following parameters from our common vocabulary.  All
   fields are optional:

   o  _to_ Account identifier of Transferee.  If left out it defaults to
      the 3rd party applications own account on Asset Service or a
      predefined account as specified when authorizing the access token.

   o  _amount_ Amount as a number with decimal points.  Symbols are
      allowed but SHOULD be ignored.  If left out it defaults to the
      Asset's minimum transfer, 1 or an amount predefined when
      authorizing the access token.

   o  _note_ Textual description, which can include hash tags.  Asset
      Service may truncate this.  No default.

   o  _from_ Account identifier of Transferer.  This should normally be
      left out as it is implied by the authorizer of the Access Token.
      The Asset Service MUST verify that the Access Token is authorized
      to transfer from this account.  This could be useful for Asset
      providers charging their customers accounts.

   o  _for_ URI identifying the exchanged item.

   OAuth2 related parameters.  See [OAuth.2.0] section 5 for full
   details

   o  _client_id_ OAuth2 client id

   o  _redirect_uri_ URI for redirecting client to afterwards

   o  _callback_uri_ URI for performing a web callback

   o  _response_type_ token or code REQUIRED





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   o  _expire_in_ Request the amount of time in seconds this token
      should be valid

   When a user follows this link, the Asset Service should present the
   user with a form authorizing the payment.

   Note: Client can include OpenID Connect parameters.

4.1.  Response

   Follows OAuth 2 response depending on response_type requested.
   [OAuth.2.0]

4.2.  Errors

   Error types use OAuth 2.0's error codes.  [OAuth.2.0]



































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5.  Transfer

   A transfer consists of a HTTP POST to the asset url by a 3rd party
   application on behalf of the Transferer.

   The Application should have an OAuth 2.0 access token issued as
   defined in the OAuth 2.0 draft section 5.

   POST /usd HTTP/1.1
   Host: pay.me
   Authorization: Bearer vF9dft4qmT

   to=bill@example.com&amount=100.00&note=Milk

                                 Figure 3

   We use the following parameters from our common vocabulary in 1.6.
   All fields are optional:

   o  _to_ Account identifier of Transferee.  If left out it defaults to
      the 3rd party applications own account on Asset Service or a
      predefined account as specified when authorizing the access token.

   o  _amount_ Amount as a number with decimal points.  Symbols are
      allowed but SHOULD be ignored.  If left out it defaults to the
      Asset's minimum transfer, 1 or an amount predefined when
      authorizing the access token.

   o  _note_ Textual description, which can include hash tags.  Asset
      Service may truncate this.  No default.

   o  _from_ Account identifier of Transferer.  This should normally be
      left out as it is implied by the authorizer of the Access Token.
      The Asset Service MUST verify that the Access Token is authorized
      to transfer from this account.  This could be useful for Asset
      providers charging their customers accounts.

   o  _for_ URI identifying the exchanged item.

5.1.  Response

   http 201 with Receipt json.









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6.  Receipt

   The receipt is returned when creating a transaction as well as when
   accessing a transaction url.  It can also be used for creating a
   transaction list by the asset provider.

   The receipt is a JSON object consisting of the following fields:

   o  _txn_url_

   o  _to_

   o  _from_

   o  _amount_

   o  _note_

   o  _for_

   o  _asset_url_

   o  _timestamp_




























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7.  Asset Meta data

   A client can find out information about an asset by accessing the
   asset url directly with a http Accept header of application/json:

   GET /usd HTTP/1.1
   Host: pay.me
   Accept: application/json

                                 Figure 4

   This returns a json hash of meta information about the asset.

   The minimum required data would be:

   o  name - Short name of asset

   Further opentransact specific parameters could be:

   o  default_amount - The default amount transfered if an amount is not
      specified in a transfer

   o  provider_url - The provider of the asset's home page

   o  description - Short descriptio

   o  logo_url - Image url for Assets logo

   o  unit - ISO currency unit of asset if monetary or other such as
      (minute, gram, point etc)

   Asset services can provide further information more specific to their
   particular asset type.

   If an OAuth Access Token is provided the Asset Service should provide
   information related to the capabilities of the token.

   o  balance - balance of account

   o  available_balance - available balance of account

   For tokens obtained through a Transfer Authentication this should
   reflect the remaining balance of the authorized amount.

   If tokens scope allows access to accounts transaction history, the
   transaction history should be included here:





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   o  transactions - array of receipts


















































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8.  Normative References

   [OAuth.2.0]
              Hammer-Lahav, E., Ed., Recordon, D., and D. Hardt, "OAuth
              2.0 Authorization Protocol", Jul 2011.














































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Authors' Addresses

   Pelle Braendgaard
   PicoMoney Inc

   Email: pelle@picomoney.com


   Nov Matake
   Cerego Japan Inc

   Email: nov@matake.jp


   Tom Brown

   Email: herestomwiththeweather@gmail.com


































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-- 
http://picomoney.com - Like money, just smaller
http://stakeventures.com - My blog about startups and agile banking

Received on Friday, 21 October 2011 15:49:05 UTC