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Diffstat (limited to 'articles/ui/ui.tex')
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1 files changed, 11 insertions, 11 deletions
diff --git a/articles/ui/ui.tex b/articles/ui/ui.tex index 4715983c8..5659414c7 100644 --- a/articles/ui/ui.tex +++ b/articles/ui/ui.tex @@ -1022,19 +1022,19 @@ similar risks of losing cash in a physical wallet. Unlike physical wallets, Taler's wallet could be backed up to secure against loss of a device. -Taler's contracts do provide a degree of protection for customers -because they are signed by the merchant and retained by the wallet: -while they mirror the paper receipts that customers may receive in +Taler's contracts provide a degree of protection for customers, +because they are signed by the merchant and retained by the wallet. +While they mirror the paper receipts that customers receive in physical stores, Taler's cryptographically signed contracts ought to carry more weight in courts than typical paper receipts. Point-of-sale systems providing printed receipts have been compromised in the past by merchants to embezzle sales taxes.~\cite{munichicecream} With Taler, the merchant still generates -a receipt for the customer; however, the record for the tax +a receipt for the customer, however, the record for the tax authorities ultimately is anchored with the exchange's wire transfer to the merchant. Using the subject of the wire transfer, the state -can trace the payments and request the merchant to provide +can trace the payments and request the merchant provide cryptographically matching contracts. Thus, this type of tax fraud is no longer possible, which is why we call Taler {\em taxable}. The mere threat of the state sometimes tracing transactions @@ -1051,7 +1051,7 @@ real money on their bank accounts}. To ensure that the exchange operator does not embezzle these funds, Taler expects exchange operators to be regularly audited by an independent auditor\footnote{Auditors are typically run by financial regulatory bodies of states}. The auditor can then verify that the incoming and outgoing -transactions and the current balance of the exchange match the logs +transactions, and the current balance of the exchange matches the logs with the cryptographically secured transaction records. @@ -1069,16 +1069,16 @@ coins from. We mitigate this problem by allowing merchants to support all exchanges audited by a particular auditor. We believe this a reasonable approach, because auditors and merchants must operate with a particular legal and financial framework anyways. We -note that a similar failure mode exists with credit cards, where not -all merchants accept all issuers, especially internationally. +note that a similar failure mode exists with credit cards where not +all merchants accept all issuers, which is often the case internationally. \item Restoring the Taler wallet state from previous backups, or copying the -wallet state to a new machine, may cause honest users to attempt to +wallet state to a new machine may cause honest users to attempt to double spend coins, as the wallet does not know when coins are spent between backup and recovery. In this case, the exchange provides -cryptographic proof that the coins were previously spent, so the -wallet can verify that the exchange and merchant are behaving honestly. +cryptographic proof to the wallet that the coins were previously spent so the +wallet can verify that the exchange and the merchant are behaving honestly. % FIXME FIXME: the following paragraph seems to describe a scenario where the % wallet lost coins due to a restore from backup and then ask for refresh |