CDR: Re: Nyms and reputations.

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 11:03 AM -0700 on 10/28/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:


> Clearly, there is no such recourse when dealing with a Nym.

Unless, of course, you're selling bits on the wire (bearer-held asset
titles, information, software, wetware) for bits on the wire (bearer cash).

...and, of course, in a geodesic economy, where the plans to make something
are worth more than the materials to make it, bits on the wire are the only
things that really matters, right?

Hint: Financial assets constitute the majority of all asset classes, and,
of course, financial assets are already "dematerialized", albeit only in
book-entry form.

Remember, it's only *book-entry* transactions that require your, as Vinge
would say, true name, your biometric identity, physical coordinates,
whatever.

As Doug Barnes has noted, "...and then you go to jail" a bad terminating
step for an internet transaction protocol. Bearer transactions execute,
clear and settle instantaneously. Thus, jail is not the error-handler.

Finally, in a bearer protocol, you trust the reputation of the issuer of a
given financial instrument, not the people you're doing business with.

With the "jail" bit out of the way there's only the veracity of the
information good/service, or asset, at issue, and, with lots of crypto
stuff like zero knowlege proofs, anonymous escrow agents, and so on, that's
fairly testable in realtime.

It's going to get pretty wierd pretty soon, I think.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'