User:Which Linden/Office Hours/2007 Oct 11

Transcript of Which Linden's office hours:

[11:12]	Which Linden:	As usual, I'll be posting this transcript on the public wiki
[11:13]	JayR Cela:	ok i am ready
[11:13]	Which Linden:	What's new this week is that diagram over my head
[11:13]	Which Linden:	It illustrates how I'm imagining the escrow to work
[11:13]	Morgaine Dinova:	Good afternoon everyone
[11:13]	Which Linden:	however, the resolution probably sucks
[11:13]	Which Linden:	Hi Morgaine
[11:14]	Which Linden:	is it readable for you?
[11:14]	Ciaran Laval:	Yes
[11:14]	Which Linden:	It's readable for me -- I know what all the text says already though
[11:14]	Morgaine Dinova:	Yes, think I can make out the text
[11:15]	Morgaine Dinova:	Yes, perfect, texture hadn't ressed yet before
[11:15]	Which Linden:	So, the idea here is that the escrow (middle thing) mediates a transaction between two parties
[11:16]	JayR Cela:	ok look.......
[11:16]	Which Linden looks
[11:16]	JayR Cela:	a mode of finacial transaction need to be established / ASAP / and secure
[11:17]	Which Linden:	what do you mean by that?
[11:17]	Which Linden:	I'm not sure what a mode is
[11:17]	Which Linden:	model?
[11:18]	JayR Cela:	if you are going to work here for / peanuts on the dollar / and people refuse to pay you / what financial security do you have / nothing
[11:18]	Morgaine Dinova:	That's exactly what escrow is part of JayR. It's part of an implementation of atomicity for transactions.
[11:19]	Which Linden:	yeah, unfortunately it's going to be impossible to solve social problems like people not paying wages or whatever, in a general way
[11:19]	Which Linden:	But one thing that we can hopefully do is make it so that it's easier to implement vendors
[11:20]	Morgaine Dinova:	Cool Which. Run us thro' the protocol please :-)
[11:21]	JayR Cela:	ok it needs to be a no brainer / unfortunately that may require RL info
[11:21]	Which Linden:	The notional vendor protocol? Hmm.... I'll be honest -- I don't have anything concrete on that
[11:21]	Morgaine Dinova:	No no, escrow protocol
[11:21]	Which Linden:	oh, ok
[11:21]	Tree Kyomoon:	is this where the serious discussions are?
[11:21]	Which Linden:	We're running through the escrow protocol, Tree
[11:21]	Which Linden:	I'm about to
[11:21]	Which Linden:	The beginning is some sort of action by some human being
[11:22]	Which Linden:	I.e. you right-clicking on an object and selecting "buy"
[11:22]	Which Linden:	This then talks to your agent store, which is a reliable machine that holds you inventory, L$ balance, etc
[11:23]	Don Misfit:	Hi all :)
[11:23]	Which Linden:	and the agent store starts a transaction with the escrow
[11:23]	Which Linden:	hi don
[11:23]	Ciaran Laval:	Ah got it now
[11:23]	Which Linden:	we're up to the first arrow I think
[11:24]	Rex Cronon:	hi everybody
[11:24]	Which Linden:	when the escrow persists the data, it writes it to the hard disk, makes copies, whatever it can do to make sure it doesn't forget that it started this transaction
[11:24]	Ciaran Laval:	Hi Rex
[11:24]	Which Linden:	even if it crashes, its local hard drive gets corrupted, whatever failure you can imagine
[11:25]	Morgaine Dinova:	Idempotent on that initial state storage?
[11:25]	Which Linden:	yeah
[11:25]	Morgaine Dinova:	Cool
[11:25]	Which Linden:	so that's what chttp gets us -- you'll note that all the arrows have little "certified" background text
[11:26]	Which Linden:	that's what that means
[11:26]	Morgaine Dinova:	Oh yes, haha ... very faint shades of green :-))
[11:26]	JayR Cela:	ok i have a stament I would like to make ......................
[11:26]	JayR Cela:	this is the new econemy
[11:26]	Which Linden:	once it has started the transaction, the escrow goes and talks to the various parties, getting the resources that they're going to exchange
[11:27]	JayR Cela:	we have to take this as serious business
[11:27]	Which Linden:	well, we're trying to replicate the current economy but make it work better, JayR
[11:27]	Which Linden:	and we are totally serious here
[11:28]	JayR Cela:	the old model does not work here
[11:28]	Ciaran Laval:	Ok so it certifies that A has received the object before processing the money?
[11:28]	JayR Cela:	this is the Meta_Verse
[11:28]	Which Linden:	actually not quite Ciaran, the idea is that B gives the object to the Escrow first
[11:28]	Which Linden:	(effectively)
[11:28]	Morgaine Dinova:	Ciaran: not yet. It's just a statement of intent at this point in the protocol.
[11:28]	Ciaran Laval:	Sorry WHich I'm further down the page sorry, I'll be quiet for a bit
[11:28]	Which Linden:	then if A doesn't give the money to the escrow, the escrow can give the object back
[11:29]	Which Linden:	(assuming that makes sense, obviously if you were buying a copy of an object it would just discard the unbought copy)
[11:29]	Rex Cronon:	the escrow gets a copy of the object. right?
[11:29]	Which Linden:	yeah, I guess so
[11:29]	Which Linden:	or it could have a reference to an asset on the asset server
[11:30]	Which Linden:	not sure yet what the best thing to do is
[11:30]	Which Linden:	so, if it works out, at some point the escrow has both the object and the money
[11:30]	Which Linden:	that is the horizontal line in the middle labeled "Distribute Phase Begins"
[11:31]	Which Linden:	at that point neither party can cancel the transaction, it's a fait accompli
[11:31]	Which Linden:	and then all the escrow has to do is give the resources to the proper parties
[11:32]	Ciaran Laval:	Ok could you build in a cancel option at that stage?
[11:32]	Which Linden:	so it gives the money to B and the object to A
[11:32]	Which Linden:	It's not clear why you'd want to Ciaran
[11:32]	Morgaine Dinova:	Which: this seems to require Agent B to change ownership of the object to Agent A, which appears to make middlemen impossible unless they become owners. Is that right?
[11:32]	Ciaran Laval:	Land sales Which
[11:32]	Ciaran Laval:	People claim they make a mistake and a bot snaps it up
[11:32]	Ciaran Laval:	with a cancel option at the point there, they can avoid that
[11:33]	Which Linden:	The proper point to cancel is when the escrow contacts your agent store
[11:33]	Which Linden:	It will be able to say "hey, A wants to buy land from you for this amount of money"
[11:33]	Which Linden:	And if you say no, then it doesn't transfer the land to the escrow
[11:33]	Which Linden:	and the transaction fails
[11:34]	Which Linden:	That's a UI thing, though, the escrow only enables that sort of behavior to happen
[11:34]	Ciaran Laval:	Ok that makes sense. People have suggested escrow for land sales.
[11:35]	Which Linden:	yeah, it's important to note that this escrow isn't really the same thing as an escrow for, say, buying a house
[11:35]	Which Linden:	It can sort of do the same things, but at the end of the day it's just a transaction coordinator
[11:36]	Morgaine Dinova:	I'm curious why Agent B is responsible for changing the ownership to Escrow, since Escrow isn't an actual agent. Is there a reason why Escrow doesn't do all the ownership changes?
[11:36]	Which Linden:	Though the important property is that it allows you to see the entire transaction and agree to be a party to it
[11:36]	Which Linden:	Morgaine: yeah, that's a good point
[11:36]	Which Linden:	as far as I'm concerned that's an implementation detail
[11:37]	Morgaine Dinova:	kk
[11:37]	Which Linden:	if we're doing this cross-domain, the escrow might not have the ability to make those sorts of changes on its own
[11:37]	JayR Cela:	ok i can just be a whore here / make / tons ove money
[11:37]	Ciaran Laval:	??
[11:38]	Morgaine Dinova:	Oh, Escrow might sit on the gateway and map inter-domain Agent identities. Interesting
[11:38]	Ciaran Laval:	Ok the only other observation is that I'm assuming the change of ownership is assumed when the object moves to A's inventory
[11:38]	Rex Cronon:	what if it never goes to the buyer's inventory?
[11:39]	Which Linden:	You're talking about what if the distribute phase fails
[11:39]	Rex Cronon:	yes
[11:39]	Which Linden:	Ciaran, actually the ownership should cahnge when the object gets to the escrow
[11:40]	Which Linden:	At this point we've decided that if the distribute phase fails, a human has to be involved
[11:40]	Which Linden:	... but we'll do everything in our power to make that not happen
[11:40]	Rex Cronon:	can the buyer get a receipt to be used in case it never gets what it paid for?
[11:40]	Which Linden:	yeah, that's what the token represent
[11:40]	Morgaine Dinova:	Although another valid policy is "if anything breaks anywhere, no transaction"
[11:41]	Rex Cronon:	oh, ok
[11:41]	Which Linden:	And you can do clever stuff like distribute the object first, and if that fails, then refund the money
[11:42]	Ciaran Laval:	I see that Which but it changes ownership to Escrow but doesn't change it to A at the distribution phase. I'm assuming it's assumed ownership changes once it's transferred to the inventory, just my lecturer would whinge at me for leaving that out!
[11:42]	Rex Cronon:	so, with a token it sholdn't very hard to check buyer's invetory to see if indeed it has that object or not?
[11:42]	Which Linden:	Oh, Ciaran, good point, I'll make that more clear
[11:42]	Which Linden:	Hopefully, Rex. We don't really have any idea what these tokens will look like though
[11:43]	Which Linden:	We can give them whatever magical properties we want though!
[11:43]	Morgaine Dinova:	Which, will it be possible for us to get the texture later? I'd like to pin it up on the wall to think about :-)
[11:44]	Which Linden:	Sure, I'll put it up on the wiki Morgaine
[11:44]	Ciaran Laval:	Cool, it looks good Which.
[11:44]	Morgaine Dinova:	Fantastic, thanks :P
[11:44]	Which Linden:	I can just make this billboard copyable though
[11:44]	Rex Cronon:	that would be good too
[11:45]	Which Linden changes the name from "object"
[11:45]	Morgaine Dinova:	Aye, but don;t want to just view it in world
[11:46]	Which Linden:	Yeah, I'll still put it up on teh wiki
[11:46]	Morgaine Dinova:	tnx :-)
[11:46]	Which Linden:	power-of-2 textures are not great for data like this
[11:47]	Which Linden:	So, yeah! That's the battle plan as it stands
[11:47]	Morgaine Dinova:	Perfectly readable, good image. :-) But I like pinning things up, go around the house thinking about them
[11:47]	Rex Cronon:	it is going to be a while untils is live?
[11:48]	Which Linden:	The major holes in it are: WTF these tokens are actually going to be
[11:48]	Ciaran Laval:	lol
[11:48]	Which Linden:	Yeah, it's going to be a while, Rex
[11:48]	Which Linden:	We're planning on finishing chttp this quarter, and that's just the basis for the escrow
[11:48]	Rex Cronon:	those tokens don't seem that hard to generate which:)
[11:49]	Morgaine Dinova:	We need the chttp for idempotency in the AWG services too, so important.
[11:49]	Which Linden:	Yeah, the tokens could be as much as a response that says "yeah"
[11:50]	Which Linden:	On the chttp front, I made a commit earlier this week that has the bare bones of an implementation
[11:50]	Rex Cronon:	or, it could be only one token that has the current state of the transaction?
[11:50]	Which Linden:	we're also in the process of moving our JIRA tasks to the PJIRA
[11:51]	Which Linden:	Rex: we considered that, but then it seemed that there was too much risk of a party maliciously modifying the token
[11:51]	Which Linden:	At least this way the escrow is the only trusted party, not every party has to be fully trustworthy
[11:52]	Morgaine Dinova:	Yeah, that's what Zero said too. I preferred the token passing method as it's more stateless, but there is an issue with remote agent trust.
[11:52]	Rex Cronon:	so the escrow can be the only one that knows how to encrypt/decrypt the token?
[11:53]	Which Linden:	Not necessarily, Rex, actually I wasn't even considering these things to be encrypted at any level other than link level
[11:53]	Which Linden:	Yeah I prefer stateless stuff too, but we kinda need crap-tons of state, logs, copies of data, etc.
[11:54]	Ciaran Laval:	Surely one day you'll need an encrypted version for cross world transactions?
[11:54]	Which Linden:	Yeah, I think so, but then all you do is just use SSL to wrap the chttp sessions
[11:55]	Which Linden:	All you have to do is hide the data from an eavesdropper
[11:55]	Morgaine Dinova:	Ciaran's right. These transactions might not even be end to end circuits, but travelling contracts. Not now, but eventually :-)
[11:55]	Ciaran Laval:	Yup cool sticking to standards to make people secure, that makes sense
[11:56]	Which Linden:	travelling contracts?
[11:56]	Which Linden:	What are those?
[11:56]	Morgaine Dinova:	Just try this kind of virtual circuit approach on a transaction with an agent on Mars. :-)))
[11:57]	Which Linden:	Oh, uh, hmmm....
[11:57]	Morgaine Dinova:	It's going to have to be a sent transaction eventually :-)
[11:57]	Which Linden:	I'mm pretty sure that interplanetary communication counts as "scope creep"
[11:57]	Morgaine Dinova:	Sorry, thinking ahead a bit there :-)
[11:57]	Ciaran Laval:	haha
[11:57]	Morgaine Dinova:	Hahahaha
[11:57]	Which Linden:	Ha ha ha, I love it though
[11:58]	Which Linden:	"Mars sim hella laggin'. Takes 4 minutes for my avatar to move!"
[11:58]	Morgaine Dinova:	Blame Ciaran ... I just extrapolate the principle :-)
[11:58]	Ciaran Laval:	Hey I just came to observe :P
[11:59]	Saijanai Kuhn thinks people should look at the link patterns that were originally used by OpenDoc to handle live updating of objecgts between compound documents
[11:59]	Which Linden:	Well, we're almost out of time, but I think that I have a clear idea of what to talk about nextt time
[11:59]	Rex Cronon:	observation can interfere with the results of an experiment:)
[11:59]	Morgaine Dinova:	Sai: link?
[11:59]	Ciaran Laval:	lol
[12:00]	Which Linden:	Yeah, I'm interested in that Saijanai
[12:00]	Morgaine Dinova:	Lot to think about in this, thanks Which.
[12:00]	Saijanai Kuhn:	http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.13/13.06/LinksinOpenDocParts/index.html
[12:00]	Morgaine Dinova:	Thanks Sai
[12:01]	Which Linden:	I'll check that out
[12:01]	Saijanai Kuhn:	theyassumed that all sources and destinations were "trusted" but otherwise they covered just about every conceivable kind of link issue, I think
[12:01]	Which Linden:	OK everyone, I gotta go see a lawyer about some code, so I'll catch you all next week!
[12:01]	Which Linden:	Ride 'em up!
[12:01]	Saijanai Kuhn:	take care
[12:02]	Rex Cronon:	bye witch
[12:02]	Which Linden:	Appreciate you all coming, BTW, thanks for being a great group
[12:02]	Morgaine Dinova:	Bye Which :-)