Re: Web Payments and voucher URIs

On Tue, 20 Aug 2019 at 15:12, Adrian Hope-Bailie <adrian@hopebailie.com>
wrote:

> Hey Melvin,
> Have a looked at paymentpointers.org?
> The voucher could be $vouchersforyou.com/87t88yef76df7td7wtde7twde which
> translates to https://vouchersforyou.com/87t88yef76df7td7wtde7twde and is
> de-referenceable.
> Adrian
>

Regarding the lookup of a voucher.  I think we can register

/.well-known/voucher/voucher_id

For those that want to provide more info

This would be declarative and be open ended as to the nature of the voucher

As mentioned expiry is an important field.  But I think this could also be
generalized.  Because once you have declarative definitions you can become
fully turing complete.  Smart "web" contracts if you like, can be baked
into a voucher, for various use cases.

For example expiry is simply a voucher plus a time function.  (if before
date X, value = 100% face value) I like the thought experiment of thinking
of these things as programmable in a modern sense.  ie functional,
chainable, conditional, returning promises etc.  Doesnt have to be in the
spec, this can simply be an extension of the voucher definition when it
gets dereferenced.


>
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2019 at 11:43, Sam Mbale <smbale@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all
>>
>> This might off topic, but I thought about what Michiel highlighted:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Maybe start by base64-decoding it? But what would you see then, and how
>> would that refer to a party who is willing to "cash" the voucher? There
>> could be some indication of some account identifier at some ledger, but for
>> that, you would need some more mechanics than just the opaque URI scheme.
>> An interesting approach to that problem is Interledger addresses, for
>> instance.  *
>>
>>
>> This could be a practical example
>> New Age of Digital Asset Exchanges - Japan's Largest Gift Card Exchange
>> Pioneers Blockchain Expansion
>> <http://wire.mpelembe.net/pr-newswire-news-releases/?rkey=20190820EN43448&filter=9768>
>>
>> Tom Kanazawa, the chairman of Amaten said: *"The current system and
>> technology used for gift card is completely obsolete and dates all the way
>> back to the mid 90s. It has never evolved to match today's digital world.
>> It still suffers from basic fundamental shortcomings and is very
>> inconvenient. I believe that the gift card industry can be a perfect use
>> case for blockchain. The two are a completely natural fit.**We have
>> chosen to partner with the best blockchain technology providers in the
>> space, aelf, because they offer the scalability, dedicated sidechains and
>> smart contract modules that we very much need to build our service rapidly
>> and most cost effectively. We are wholeheartedly excited for the future of
>> truly digitized gift card industry."*
>>
>> All the best
>> Sam
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 19 Aug 2019 at 07:39, Michiel de Jong <michiel@unhosted.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Melvin,
>>>
>>> Great topic! I like how the scheme is very generic, but maybe at the
>>> same time that's a downside, because how would you dereference
>>> 'urn:voucher:12345abcd ...'? Maybe start by base64-decoding it? But what
>>> would you see then, and how would that refer to a party who is willing to
>>> "cash" the voucher? There could be some indication of some account
>>> identifier at some ledger, but for that, you would need some more mechanics
>>> than just the opaque URI scheme. An interesting approach to that problem is
>>> Interledger addresses, for instance.
>>>
>>> I would say there are generally two types of vouchers, relational (where
>>> the issuer has some social connection to the redeemer) and anonymous (where
>>> the voucher has a more universal value, against some anonymous "bubble").
>>> If you're interested in peer-to-peer vouchers rather than anonymous ones,
>>> then may I take this opportunity to plug the Network Money mailing list I
>>> started last year, particularly this post in which I concluded that maybe
>>> peer-to-peer money is in the end not really what people want:
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/network-money/Z2zAyX1R8Xo.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Michiel.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 18, 2019 at 5:02 PM Melvin Carvalho <
>>> melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have written a payment server that can use arbitrarily many
>>>> authentication methods on the web.
>>>>
>>>> The outcome of that authentication is to return a verified URI.  You
>>>> could think of it as a super set of WebID, DID, user addresses and so on.
>>>>
>>>> One thing I'd like to do is have a voucher system.  So the idea with a
>>>> voucher is that it has a special code, say you email it to someone, or have
>>>> a scratch card or something.
>>>>
>>>> Then when that code is shown the back end is able to let the user spend
>>>> whatever balance it is for.  So it's a long the lines of a voucher, a
>>>> shared secret or a one time password.
>>>>
>>>> This may be similar to a bearer token, im not sure, as Im not so
>>>> familiar with those.
>>>>
>>>> My question in all this is, given that I need a URI that is linked to
>>>> the voucher.  Is there something existing I can use.  Or, is there some
>>>> sensible standard we can start experimenting with.
>>>>
>>>> The idea I had was to use the URI
>>>>
>>>> *urn:voucher:12345abcd ...*
>>>>
>>>> And if that appears in the request you know. the user can spend the
>>>> voucher, and that allows me to build an app.
>>>>
>>>> Any thoughts, ideas or previous work that can be reused here?
>>>>
>>>