Schrödinger’s Bucks
System Development
Plan
Chaosmaster
12-11-15
V 0.02
Change log, v 0.01 to v0.02
1)
Restructure the document to reflect a more
traditional SDLC format
2)
Minor wording changes throughout to improve
readability
3)
SubNet terminology identified
4)
“Overview” deleted, moved to “System Concept”
and substantially simplified
5)
“Reference Use Case” moved to new “Requirements”
section, wording clarified, terminology added
6)
All introductory comments and history moved to
“Notes and References” section and more clearly organized
I.
System Concept
Very Rich People (VRP) already have numerous avenues for
keeping their financial assets and transactions private, but most people don’t.
This project is oriented toward conceptually designing a system that could
extend the options currently available to VRPs to anyone (see Reference Use
Case below). The first stage of this project will be broad and conceptual,
identifying issues and problems, and clarifying objectives. The second stage
will be to develop an overall reference architecture for a Schrödinger’s Bucks system to allow simple
and routine access to financial privacy. The third stage will be to develop a
reference high level design for such a system. Obviously, these phases will
overlap and interact.
II.
Requirements
Definition
1)
Reference Use Case
The reference use case for this project is a man (Joe
Goodguy) and his family living in poverty under an oppressive regime (Badguyistan),
who wants to securely save enough money to move his family somewhere more civilized.
He needs to have the money available both when he’s ready to move, and when he
reaches his destination. Both the store of money and the transactions to build
and use it need to be secure, not traceable to him in any way, and not
accessible to anyone other than him (or someone he authorizes). For this
purpose, it will be assumed that he has occasional, but not continuous, access
to the internet.
III.
System
Architecture
SubNet
IV.
Development
V.
Test
VI.
Implementation
VII.
Notes and
References
1) Schrödinger’s Cat
If you want more information on the Tail of Schrödinger’s
Cat, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat
For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with the
concept, the very high level very over-simplified version is that one way to
interpret quantum mechanics says that under certain conditions, a cat can be
both alive and dead, at the same time,
in a sealed box. But, when you look in the box, it is either alive or dead.
This may sound really arcane (because it is!), but it gets more interesting.
Read on!
2) Schrödinger’s Bucks
With technology readily available today, it is possible
to construct such a “sealed box” for financial assets, but with a twist: you
determine the result of what’s in the box not based on some previous random
event, but based on who is trying to
look in the box. If you are authorized to look, you see the money. If you
aren’t, then poof! The money doesn’t
exist. At least, not in that box. The
scenario assumes the existence of multiple sealed boxes, and the money moves
around between them. If an unauthorized user attempts to even look in a box…never mind open it…then the money dies, and isn’t
in that box at all. But it’s elsewhere.
Probabilistic money!
3) Trigger Elements
There were five
things that led me to the concept of Schrödinger’s Bucks:
A)
Cosmology
and parallel universes (Through the
Wormhole, Science Channel)
B)
A digital
universe, separate from, but connected to, the physical (The Matrix)
C)
Secure,
reliable cloud back-up storage (various discussions)
D)
Steganography
(referenced in a Law & Order
episode)
At this point, this just gives a glimpse into my eclectic
set of interests. The final piece that made the idea of Schrödinger’s Bucks come together in my head was:
E) Probabilistic unique identifiers for people
(IT Project)
Our society
wastes literally hundreds of billions of dollars a year by not facing up to the
reality that people need to have a unique identifier for a wide range of
computer systems to work well, or to work at all. The SSN would be the obvious
choice, but it’s not allowed. So, individual systems make-up their own unique
identifiers. But then what do you do when you want to build a data warehouse,
and connect information from multiple systems? The traditional approach is some
elaborate field mapping, data cleansing, and data integration process, which is
always a pain, and frequently turns out badly. I discovered, in the course of a
project I was working on in 2011, that there are probabilistic methods for matching individual records across
different databases that are simpler, faster, and more accurate than the traditional approach. Not as good as a real unique identifier, but apparently,
pretty damned good.
So, the notion
occurred to me: If there can be a probabilistic unique identifier for people,
why not probabilistic money? Schrödinger’s
Bucks!
4) Process & Confidentiality
I maintain no copyright or proprietary interest of any
kind in the content of this document. I encourage you to distribute it to
anyone you think might find it interesting. If you want to make comments, ask a
question, or provide related material (under 1MB!), please send it to me
directly at Chaosrider@charter.net
. As I distribute updates to this document, I will attribute comments and such
to the submitter, or not, as the submitter prefers. In the absence of a request
for attribution, I will assume anonymity is preferred. If anyone would like to
send me something and/or have a discussion that they would like to keep
confidential, I will be happy to honor that desire for confidentially. Just
make sure you communicate your wishes in that regard clearly and unambiguously.
If someone sends me something in confidence, and I later receive or see it “in
the open” from another source, I will feel free to use it, although not with
attribution to the individual who requested confidentiality.
Think of it as an adventure! I certainly do!
J
