Re: [Taler] minor changes

[Jeff Burdges]

On Wed, 2015-10-14 at 10:13 +0200, Christian Grothoff wrote:
> Jeff, if you "make" (by force or suggestion) users "wait" before
> spending for some 'fixed' time, you achieve nothing as the adversary
> can just deduct that amount of time.

That's exactly what I said.

> Now, we could generate a random number, say between 0 and 3600s and
> "force" a delay in that range.  But this will limit usability and
> complicate implementations --- and possibly for little benefit as the
> users may still in practice hold the cash for days or weeks, 
> especially with withdrawals happening in the background (which is 
> likely our initial deployment model).

That's a bad idea too.  We should not force anything, not even
randomly.   We want Taler to be usable as a payment system and not
annoying.

> IMO, the only real safety there will be is safety in numbers, i.e. 
> many users

No.  It's clearly bad to take money out and immediately spend it, so
that should be discouraged.  The question is how.

It'd be nice if the mint to earns interest on the money in people's
wallet too, not sure if that's realistic.

> Anyway, my central conclusion has been: yes, we may want to try to
> educate users about the importance of "carrying" a balance (don't
> withdraw and spend immediately), but we shouldn't bother to enforce
> it.

Yes, but this education should appear in the interface, not merely in
some documentation that nobody reads.  

Jeff

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