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Yes, it does work in the world of building reputations associated with (anonymous or claimed-not-anonymous) keys, but not when you need meatspace credit --give the meat named "Prof Joe" tenure credit for work X.
James A. Donald:
It is common for real world authors to publish under nom de plumes. Adding a key to a nom de plume gives added advantages to the nom de plume.
David Honig wrote:
A nom de plume which cannot be revealed to the folks one wants credit from (because you go to meatspace jail when the association is leaked) is useless for getting credit in meatspace. Yes the nym gets credit; but it doesn't help you get tenure, or a raise, or invitations to speak.
The advantage of a nom de plume is that it can be selectively revealed, revealed to some people and not others, or revealed to everyone at a later date depending on how things turned out. Adding a public key to a nom de plume improves that advantage, The same is true of a nom de guerre, only even more so. To inopportunely reveal a nom de guerre is likely to be fatal. To be unable ot prove a nom de guerre may well result in the loss an personal gains resulting from victory. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG mkF3vClVh1ADZdWMKCRDtSJboD5GxB++yr8Wh4f1 4hd66T9IGIrYcT9RAm+JsBR1bEipLxfgpibdVoOpv