Re: [RFC] GNU/Weeb Financial Transaction Record Design

[Ammar Faizi <ammarfaizi2@gnuweeb.org>]

On 6/15/22 4:21 PM, Alviro Iskandar Setiawan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In order to keep the transaction record consistent, we can use a
> chaining hash system that generates the transaction ID by using its
> parent ID and the current transaction details.
> 
> For example, to create a new transaction, we have several things to note, like:
> 
>    1. date
>    2. description
>    3. commiter
>    4. amount
> 
>    [ other metadata stuff may be included ]
> 
> We can then generate the transaction id by using a hash function,
> let's say SHA1:
> 
>   trx_info = date . description . commiter . amount . parent_trx_id
>   trx_id   = SHA1(info)
>   SAVE(trx_id, date, description, commiter, amount, parent_trx_id)
> 
> Note that since the current trx ID uses its parent trx ID to generate
> itself, it makes the situation impossible to rewrite the history
> without breaking the whole chain. That's the point of the consistency
> in this design. We can verify that the data is consistent by just
> re-hashing the transaction info together with its parent trx id.
> 
> Also note that, for the first transaction, it doesn't have a parent
> trx id. So only the first transaction doesn't use a parent trx id to
> generate itself. Let's call it the genesis transaction.
> 
> Please comment!

Hi Al,

I like the idea of chaining the transaction ID to make the history
consistent and immutable. Overall it looks good to me, let's discuss
this further.

Several questions below:

  1) What are the exact fields we are going to save?

  2) How do we maintain a new field in the future if we ever add more?

  3) How do we distribute the trusted chains to public?

For no (2), you must not break the old records that don't have the new
field.

For no (3), I think it's quite simple, just post the transaction
history record periodically to the group. We can use a Telegram bot
for that.

Comment?

[ Anyway, you can start writing the code. ]

-- 
Ammar Faizi