Re: making the webcredits.org spec more strict about 'source' and 'destination' fields.

On 24 April 2012 22:22, Walter Stanish <walter@ifex-project.org> wrote:

> > I suggest that example identity strings in the short spec doc don't have
> > fragments in them, also that the sentence where you state that any URL
> will
> > do could affirm that when fragments are provided, the fragment is
> important
> > and MUST NOT get stripped.
>
> In many mature financial systems we see various types of multifactor
> authentication in use:
>  - Credit card processing often has a requirement for signatures,
> physical addresses, expiry dates, customer names in addition to
> numbers
>  - International SWIFT or Western Union transfers often pair recipient
> address, phone, email, name or other data along with recipient bank,
> branch and account number
>
> These additional factors within a financial transaction assist in
> either reducing fraud (debit transaction) or accidental routing errors
> (credit transaction) from the simplest case of only using the base
> financial endpoint specifier (ie. the credit card number in the case
> of a credit card debit transaction, or the bank, branch and account
> number in the case of an international transfer).
>
> There MAY be some potential to use the 'fragments' you mention for
> such multi-factor 'error (or fraud) reduction' or for carrying
> reporting information that may be mandated for regulatory or other
> purposes (check out what's 'required' to send a SWIFT transaction
> these days - you can't predict bureaucracy!), though I am not clear
> enough about the proposal at this stage to say so with clarity.
>

Thanks for pointing this out, it's very key.

Multi factor auth is important for financial integrity.  I didnt model auth
in my minimal spec (principle of least power) but it should be possible to
layer on top.  I considered creating a facebook payement system basedon
both your facebook login AND a client certificate in your browser, to
illustrate a point, but didnt get time.  I think I could have built it
using webcredits in under a month, maybe under a week.  Just a case of
doing things in the right order.


>
> Just some thoughts...
>
> Regards,
> Walter Stanish
> The IFEX Project
> http://ifex-project.org/
>