Adam Shostack writes: # Good question, but a quick modification allows for effective # bootstrapping. If I want to start consulting for Amalgameted # Consolodated, I can offer them a 10 free questions deal to bootstrap # things with. Mallet can only cheat if my offer was broadcast. Wei Dai writes:
This scheme doesn't quite work. (Let's call Amalgameted Bob, to keep names short.) Bob can create a new, unlinkable pseudonym and give the same offer to Carol under the new pseudonym. Then, Bob acts as Mallet and passes messages back and forth between Alice and Carol.
If all Alice's prospective customers are also resellers on the side, then I agree that she has a problem. But how realistic is a market scenario in which a new supplier cannot positively identify some legitimate end consumers of a product or service ? (I'm ignoring cases in which the market for the product or service is only just being forged.) This strikes me as rather implausible, although I don't claim to have devoted a great deal of thought to it. -Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>