15.8.1. "Are there any actual examples of software-mediated
reputation systems?"
- credit databases...positive and negative reputations
15.8.2. Absent laws which ban strong crypto (and such laws are
themselves nearly unenforceable), it will be essentially
impossible to stop anonymous transactions and purely
reputation-based systems.
- For example, Pr0duct Cypher and Sue D. Nym will be able to
use private channels of their own choosing (possibly using
anonymous pools, etc.) to communicate and arrange deals. If
some form of digital cash exists, they will even be able to
transfer this cash. (If not, barter of informations,
whatever.)
- So, the issues raised by Hal Finney and others, expressing
doubts about the adequacy of reputation capital as a
building block (and good concerns they are, by the way),
become moot. Society cannot stop willing participants from
using reputation and anonymity. This is a major theme of
crypto anarchy: the bypassing of convention by willing
participants.
+ If Alice and Bob don't care that their physical identies
are unknown to each other, why should we care? That is, why
should society step in and try to ban this arrangement?
- they won't be using "our" court systems, so that's not an
issue (and longer term, PPLs will take the place of
courts, many of us feel)
- only if Alice and Bob are counting on society, on third
parties to the transaction, to do certain things, can
society make a claim to be involved
- (A main reason to try to ban anonymity will be to stop
"bad" activities, which is a separate issue; banning of
"bad" activity is usually pointless, and leads to
repressive states. But I digress.)
15.8.3. Part of the "phase change": people opt out of the permission-
slip society via strong crypto, making their own decisions on
who to trust, who to deal with, who to make financial
arrangements with
+ example: credit rating agencies that are not traceable, not
prosecutable in any court...people deal with them only if
they think they are getting value for their money
- no silly rules that credit rating data can "only" go back
some arbitrary number of years (7, in U.S.)...no silly
rules about how certain bankruptcies "can't" be
considered, how one's record is to be "cleared" if
conditions are met, etc.
- rather, all data are considered....customer decides how
to weight the data...(if a customer is too persnickety
about past lapsed bills, or a bad debt many years in the
past, he'll find himself never lending any money, so the
"invisible hand" of the free market will tend to correct
such overzealousnesses)
+ data havens, credit havens, etc. (often called "offshore
data havens," as the current way to do this would be to
locate in Caymans, Isle of Man, etc.)
- but clearly they can be "offshore in cyberspace"
(anonymous links, etc.)
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind