Neualtenburg Notary

Has everyone read the New World Notes article titled The Notary Public of Thyris?

Zarf Vantongerloo has created an authentic notary using digital signatures and it's fantastic. He walked me through it, and it's great! I'm a bit of a security nut and I love it. Zarf has offered to install one in Neualtenburg so we can legally sign our documents and deeds.

The desk would be donated to Neualtenburg and he would charge us $1000L for the installation (a special rate for Neualtenburg). After that he currently charges $100/doc + $50/signature over two. It's likely that after the introductory period the rates will raise to a maximum of L$200L/doc + L$75/signature over two.

I would be a huge proponent of placing this system in Neualtenburg. If we are going to take ourselves seriously we should have a seroius, legally binding notary process. This adds teeth to our deeds and gaurantees no one tampers with the documents.

What does everyone think? Should I propose this bill at our next meeting?

I think it's an absolute must for the new Rathaus.

Satch, could you get the discussion started by showing how our current system (designed by Gwyn) is vulnerable?

I'm not suggesting that it's not, only that the impetus to put a system like this in place, and spend this kind of money, ought to be a determination of need. If such a need is there, lets examine it, and show how this system would meet it.

The current system is that Rudeen Edo drafts a deed "form", based on the Deed Template in the founding documents, and tailored to the specifics of the land the citizen will own. The citizen then clips that form and pastes it into a new notecard, which they are "creator" of. They then mark that notecard to be freely copied, but not modified. Then they send it back to Rudeen.

Rudeen cannot modify it because of its "no-mod" status. She can only approve it, or send it back to the new citizen, who is the only one who can modify it.

If she approves it, she inserts it into the "Deed Repository" in the Rathaus. She is the only person with access to that box, so only she can take in and out "Non-Modifiable" deeds. However, anyone can walk into the Rathaus and inspect any deed, because of the system of DeedKeys, mounted above the Repository box. Clicking on the appropriate DeedKey delivers a copy of the deed in the box to the person clicking.

Its a rather good system. I'm sure it has "holes". Could you point them out, and show how this "notary" system would prevent them?


Sudane

I will do a full analysis of the system over the next week. To put it short, Zarf's digital signature notary gaurantees a document is tamper proof from even the Lindens or a godmode like hack (we've seen that in the recent past). If the permissions systems are some how circumvented our system fails... I also believe Zarf's method is legally binding.

But anyway... I've already started pregaming for SLCC... I'll write more when the rum leaves my system...

I'm in favor of formalizing roles such as a notary within our city and I'm also in favor of seeking external companies to provide this service until we're able to do it ourselves.

As for the current system of proving that deeds have been signed in a virtual world, it's good but it could be generalized further (beyond deeds) to encompass the notarization of all documents (what this service provides). The question is whether we want to do this ourselves or have an external company do it for us.


Additionally, I'm also concerned by the way some policies and procedures have been instituted on the fly without ratification and when those policies and procedures are questioned we have to go through an enormous amount of work to undo them. Examples are:

1. Locking our finances to L$. We just undid that recently.
   
2. Loosely defined city investments. We're in the process of fixing that now.
   
3. Procedures for notarizing documents. Will this also take weeks of work?

All these issues have been implemented without ratification by the RA to quickly solve a problem (usually by one person), yet efforts to replace these ad-hoc decisions have been met with great resistance. I think it's time to institute an ad-hoc policy and procedure (P&P) expiration mechanism, where unratified P&P must be voted upon along with competing alternatives. If a decision can't be made by the RA, then the Guild should implement what it thinks is best as opposed to leaving the ad-hoc solution in place by default.

~Ulrika~

I certainly think this matter should be brought up at the next RA meeting after a full analysis.

I am concerned to know what attempts have been made to interfere with our deeds; if there have been none is it worth the expense? Are we going to be locked into an agreement with an outside agency even after we are capable of performing this function ourselves (if proven to be necessary)?

What other services could a notary provide?

I think it appropriate to clarify what the nefarious-sounding acts are on the part of "one person". These are serious accusations and need more than what could be taken as a panic-engendering rumour.

FUD is an integral part of the political process. Didn't you read the RA transcripts last week where the bond measure was compared to a "pyramid scheme"? I'm still chuckling about that one.

~Ulrika~

That's a poor excuse and an insufficient answer.

That makes sense, given that I was neither providing an excuse nor answering a question. Instead, I was replying to a statement you made, in an attempt to be humorous. I apologize for the confusion.

~Ulrika~

Don't be facetious, Ulrika. I deserve a better answer than that piddling attempt. At least learn how to be funny if you can't take me seriously.

I am really confused by your hostility.

It's hard to tell but I'm guessing that you asked me a question and I just happened to reply to statement of yours by chance not realizing that you had asked me a question and you became offended because it wasn't what you were looking for. Is this the case?

Going back to your thread to look at the questions, I don't believe that there has been any attempt to interfere with our deeds, I'm not sure if we'd be locked into an agreement with a notary, and I'm not sure what other services they could provide. It's not really my idea, it's Satchmo's. I was just tossing in my two cents. Again, I apologize if my posts have been misinterpreted.

Because this is devolving into a personal conflict, I'm going to have ask you to take it offline. Please send me an email so we can clear this up without taking this thread off topic. Given that we're in the middle of a misunderstanding, please be as clear as possible. I apologize a second time, if I've said anything that has inadvertently contributed to this.

~Ulrika~

Hiho all, I'm the notary himself! Hope you don't mind my stepping in here.

There would be no lock in with the notary at all. The L$1000 up front is because I have to install and initialize the desk myself in person (security reasons). If you ever decided to stop using the notary, anything you had already notarized would still be valid, and verifiable forever. (In fact, it is verifiable even if I go out of business!)

The notary can be used for many sorts of documents. Whenever you want to make sure that agreement to a particular text is verifiable, notarize it. It ensures anyone you present the notary receipt to exactly which text was signed, when it was signed and by who. Especially cases where there can be multiple copies and versions (transcripts by different people, different drafts of a bill), notarizing ensures everyone knows which version is considered official.

As for your current system and its vulnerabilities - I've only read about it in this thread, so I can't do as good an analysis as Satchmo can. But, it's security rests entirely in the SL permission system. Any chink in that system, even temporarily, could render your deeds uncertain. This could easily include human error or lapse. On the other hand, the notary uses well known and tested cryptographic methods (MD5 and RSA) that can be verified externally and once signed, unrefutable. I can explain in more techincal detail if you wish.

Of course, you'll have asses the level of threat and concern your deeds need.