"Nota Bene" Notary System

I'm happy to say that the Notary System will be installed in the Rathaus, in the larger room on the ground floor, this weekend.

Here's a simplified user's view of how it will work. For those who know it better than I, please add in what I've got muddled.

Two machines will be loacted in the Rathhaus, a Notarize machine on the right and a Verify machine on the left.

You and the other signer approach the "Notarize" machine with a notecard you would like to sign/notarize. One of you drops the notecard on the desk. You each touch the machine, which will give to both of you a copy of the card for confirming. When you have both confirmed, one of you says "Done". After a further confirmation, the machine churns away, and delivers a "Notary Receipt", which contains the document. This object is a copyable, no mod, prim.

Notarizing costs L$100 each.

If you need to verify the notarization, you approach the "Verify" machine and rez the Receipt prim on its desk. It will churn away and then indicate whether the receipt is valid or has been tampered with.

I defer to Gwyn and the other mathematical minds among us (hehe... theres really no $$ involved here, except the cost of the procedure) to certify that this works. My effort is towards operation and logistics.

Anyone can use this system, of course. There is a sign with basic info, which, when touched, provides complete info.

For NBurg deeds and other docs, I propose that we use the same boxes which are currently used for deed keys. The problem with the Notary Receipts is that the prim itself is replicated, so all the receipts will look identical. So, when the Receipt is generated, I'm hoping that we can simply put it into a deedkey box for easy identification and retrieval.

Still a few more details to be worked out... but, the system looks very exciting.


Sudane

Sudane thanks for the information.

Is there any way that businesses located in Neualtenburg would be able to use the notarization service automatically without having to go through the procedure involving manual intervention? I am thinking of a system where using a script from a vendor it would be possible to issue notarised receipts to customers that would function as contracts specifying what is to be delivered at a later date.

In cases where disagreement arises as to what was promised the contents of a valid, notarised receipt could then serve as the basis for adjudication or mediation by the SC between the parties?

I am currently researching a business opportunity to base in Neualtenburg for which such a feature would be useful. I imagine that builders would also like the ability to have contracts notarised although a building project usually requires a meeting between customer and client first anyway so for those an automatic interface to the notary service may not be as important.

It is probably possible to read up on this somewhere. If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd be grateful

Diderot, contact Zarf Vantongerloo, who created and operates the system. Also, Gwyn has studied the system rather closely, and may be able to answer those questions.


Sudane

Do these machines have nice interesting noises?

Not too interesting, Garnet, I'm afraid

I'm glad to see Nota Bene finally working in Neualtenburg

Somehow, though, I was compared to a "mathematical genius", and I wish to correct that statement of Claude, which, while flattering, is absolutely incorrect To be honest, I flunked simple math-related classes like statistics thrice at college level and was a much-below-average student on the other math classes, just barely managing to scrape the necessary 50% on each to finish my studies — and quickly forget things afterwards

Also, I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand the basics of cryptography, which is a very advanced (from my point of view), obscure, and complex branch of maths. What I do know is that current programming languages implement those algorithms flawlessly, and the programmer doesn't need to understand the maths, just which functions to call. That is easy enough. However, all cryptographic functions are computationally very heavy, requiring lots of computer processing power (when compared to other mundane tasks).

Zarf's device is interesting because of the way he tackled with these issues. No cryptographic functions exist (yet) in LSL, but a few "preparatory" functions are already present. What Zarf's device does is "prepare" notecards to get digitally signed, send this "prepared" text to his back-end servers, and do the intense cryptographical 'magic' there. The end result is a solid, thrustworthy digital signature — that is impossible to forge or tamper with.

What the "machines" don't do for you — and that's the job for Neualtenburg's judicial system — is obviously providing an interpretation of a contract. Say, citizen X writes a notecard with "I promise to pay Y L$50,000 when Y finishes to build my home", and both digitally sign the notecard. Y claims that the house is finished and wants the money; X says that the house is not yet finished, some things have to be done yet, and won't pay until those things are ready. Now Y claims that X is acting on bad faith, because both have signed a valid contract, where Y ought to get payment after the house has been built, and X is defaulting on the payment claiming that Y hasn't finished his job.

In all those types of cases, a digitally signed notecard is pretty much worthless, since both parties claim they have a valid contract, and the other party is not fulfilling their obligations. A 'notarized' contract only helps to verify that both have, indeed, entered a verifiable and non-repudiable agreement; it doesn't help to find out who is 'right' on that issue. Under these types of situations, it's up to a judge in Neualtenburg to act as mediator...

Just to clarify, it was Sudane, not I, who so lauded your math skills.

IIRC, you mentioned a few weeks ago about citizens who almost came to a legal dispute and were disuaded from suing after they saw how the process would work. I assumed from this that someone had worked out how a non-impeachment court case would be handled. Has that framework been documented anywhere?

I'm happy to announce that the Neualtenburg branch office of Nota Bene, the notary, has been installed in the Rathaus. The office includes the notarization desk (on your right when you enter), the verify desk (on the left) and appropriate signage.

Touching any sign will offer you complete instructions in-world, or you can visit: http://www.notabene-sl.com/ for the same information.

Please feel free to contact me if you need any help, or have any questions. The notary performs periodic self tests (once an hour) and IM's me if there is any problems, so I usually find out pretty quickly if things get bork'd.

Looking forward to a long term relationship!

Dang - sorry all, a small hitch in the installation. The notary remains installed, but temporarily closed. I'll have it open by the evening.

- Zarf.

Okay - the notary is up and running.

But - I had a heck of a time getting things to work there and had to increase the timeouts in some scripts. The script lag in Neualtenburg is just awful: 4000 scripts and they are taking almost all the processing time available even when no one is about.

The notary takes very little when it isn't doing anyting (it runs a self diagnostic once and hour), but it needs alot when it runs. If Neualtenburg is normally this heavy in script usage, notarizations could take several minutes, and might fail... Contact me if it does and I'll see what I can do.

I'm so happy Neualtenburg has a notary. It makes our deeds binding and it is really useful. Last week I used the notary on Democracy Island to sign an NDA.

My apologies to Claude for my silly misquoting

And thanks a lot for your work in setting up the notary, Zarf I'll definitely test it later today