Subject: End-to-end principle in ledger relations? Newsgroups: alt.accounting Date: 2002-06-10 |
Does the end-to-end principle have implications for ledgers? http://www.google.com/search?q=end-to-end+principle Economic events involve transfers of ownership of real things, such as inventory, and obligations owed one party by another. In both cases it makes no sense to have the books of the two parties in disagreement. My hypothesis is that every person and business entity has, at an abstract level, a ledger. Regardless whether they actually bother to maintain one, there is a discrete point in time when title to goods is transferred, and mutual payable and receivable obligations are created or reduced. Achieving privacy and security over all aspects of interparty obligations (and the business information surrounding transaction events) is a universally goal in business systems.
Nobody has ever delegated their private ledger (which is exactly the same thing as your wallet) to custody of another person, unless incapacitated or something. We don't even do that with a family member. Delegating your wallet to a telecom or software company is laughable. Accordingly no system lower than the ledger can ever suffice to provide end-to-end communication between ledgers. Ledgers need, universally, to have a complete and robust capability to connect with other ledgers securely and robustly to communicate notifications of economic events and synchronize outstanding balances. This communication cannot be entirely delegated to application platforms, operating systems, or network layers. I guess what I'm saying is not entirely new, since we have never trusted computers blindly, and always maintained control totals and independent checks. However, do the accountants on this list disagree with the hypothesis that interparty balances in ledgers might someday be engineered to be technically accurate, to the same degree that our totals in Excel spreadsheets are accurate, if we make the effort? Todd Boyle 9745-128th Ave NE Kirkland WA International Accounting Services, LLC www.ledgerism.net 425-827-3107 editor, AR/AP everywhere www.arapxml.net
(more stuff, possibly helpful.)
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ediint-as2-11.txt http://www.ledgerism.net/IETFaccounting.htm
http://www.ledgerism.net/devices.htm http://www.ledgerism.net/IETFaccounting.htm http://www.arapxml.net/submission.htm http://www.ledgerism.net/arapcloud.htm http://www.ledgerism.net/inter-ledger-requirementsVer0p23.htm