On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Tim May wrote:
But the "paving stone," or touch stone, I want to bring up is this: the role of third party escrow agents.
Escrow is practically useless unless Esther can verify that both parties have kept to their promise. If the data Esther keeps is encrypted, this will not, barring ZKPs, be possible. In an anonymous economy, having the data in a usable form will give Esther an incentive to use up the tradeable goods escrowed by Bob. Anonymity also gives her a real possibility to do that, unlike with traditional escrow. Of course there are a host of nasty complications, like how different sorts of tradeable items might be protected from this sort of conduct (e.g. anonymous cash probably could be protected from Esther, while sensitive corporate memos being sold to a competitor perhaps couldn't), and the possibility of linking Esther to the damage done to Bob in different kinds of transactions. Nevertheless, I think this is a valid objection. Bonds are a different thing, though. Offhand, the only problem I have with them is the protocols one would use to ensure that the bond is never collected unfairly. If the information passed is such that its value cannot be ascertained without human intervention, one would need an arbitrator, perhaps even one with the resources and knowledge of the contracting parties (I'm thinking sale of information whose value depends on factors not known to the public). But on the other hand, this might well be a circumstance rare enough to warrant little attention. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front