From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
hence, what I am suggesting is that one of the "stable attractors" that TM is always talking about may be a reality in which people pool most of their accomplishments under a single nym. furthermore, they will wish to avoid conflict with other nyms in respect to attribution. isn't this, functionally, the equivalent of the supposed anti-cypherpunk "true names"?
An interesting point. I have long wished that there would be a form of "credential certificates" which people could give as special signatures on other people's public keys. Then using Chaumian credential technology it would be possible to anonymously transfer these credentials from one pseudonym to another. This is not a perfect solution, of course. Much reputation is informal and simply resides in the opinions held in people's minds. But perhaps if a more structured solution like this became widespread it would help to prevent the "concentration of reputation" which Vlad describes. Along with the usual flames, I occasionally get messages saying nice things about postings I have made, and I sometimes save these in a file called "praise". Here are some excerpts:
Again, thanks for posting some useful information that actually has *direct relevance to crypto*.
I really enjoyed reading this. It was well written and comprehensive. Thanks for sharing it.
Nice post!
I certainly appreciate these kinds of comments, but it would be even more useful if such messages were expressed as the kinds of certificates I am describing. I wonder whether people would be willing to use a program which would let them issue such "reputation signatures" of various kinds, and display the signatures which were present on keys. Discussion of such schemes has often bogged down in considering the various categories or types of credentials people might want to give. This is somewhat analogous to the "rate-the-net" schemes we have talked about where a similar issue arises if we try to mark pages with a whole range of characteristics so people can judge whether they should let their kids read them. Perhaps the solution needs to be found in simplicity. SurfWatch (as I understand it) gives a simple "thumbs down" to selected web pages. Maybe a simple "endorsement" would be useful as a reputation credential without trying to identify exactly what it is about the person you are endorsing. I could see such a system initially being piggybacked on PGP keys (the signatures would not be understandable by PGP though), although for Chaumian credential transfers the keys have to be specially structured and that would require a new approach. Who would be willing and/or interested enough to use such a system if it existed? Hal