The Evolution of Cooperation (Towards a mathematical theory of reputation?)

I highly recommend Axelrod's short book, The Evolution of Cooperation, for those (like me) who find it hard to think clearly about trust issues. You have probably heard about prisoner's dilemma, tit-for-tat etc. Axelrod is a very early worker in this field. He set up a tournament of programmed bugs that competed with each other in an artificial environment. They could survive only by cooperation with other bugs. The could also cheat. Axelrod does not use the term "reputation" but it what one bug gains or looses as it interacts with other bugs in iterated encounters. I read the book about two years ago. Only last night did I realize that those ideas helped me think about the MITM threat.