mattd wrote:
Bin laden demolitions has authorised me to offer you a once in a lifetime deal. 1million dollars untracable digital cash will be paid to an account/s of your choice for enough intelligence to proceed with further superpower implosions. Insider info preffered but not essential,leave packet online in freenet transient node...
Is there any way to solve this transaction problem without a mutually-trusted third party? If BLD and the information supplier each trusted that the other actually possessed and was providing the information desired by the other, they could do a one-bit-at-a-time exchange. If the transaction were "legitimate", they could do an ordinary transfer with legal recourse if one party cheated. If they were able to find a third party they both trusted, he could examine both sides' materials and release them if both were satisfactory. Meeting face to face would be dangerous for both parties, but more so for the information supplier. But say the information supplier didn't really support the goals of BLD, but just wanted the money. He wouldn't trust the same kinds of people and institutions that BLD would. There used to be amoral bankers who would act as middlemen, no questions asked, but I get the impression they're pretty much all shut down. Assuming that the two parties were not able to find anyone they both trusted, and couldn't rely on the rule of law to punish dishonesty, and didn't want to meet face-to-face, how could the supplier and BLD conduct a mutually-secure transaction? Steve Furlong -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel 617-670-3793 "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato