Futplex writes:
Eric Murray writes:
The other problem (tying the nym to RealName) for employers is more severe. A nym is only good when no one can tie it to your real name. If I have to tell everyone I do work for what my real name and nym is, soon enough people will be able to tie the two that the nym becomes nearly useless.
Maybe Lucky would be willing to share some wisdom from his experiences consulting for various companies. (I don't know how much his reputation as "Lucky Green" has come into play in securing those contracts, and of course perhaps he really is an Irishman whose parents (the Greens) named him "Lucky"....)
[..]
I'm still not sure whether it makes sense to have "reputation capital" denominated in an actual currency that can be traded, for the above reason. We might use something like a nym-independent(*) credential statement signed by a certifier and encrypted to the subject of the credential. Pseudonyms and verinyms belonging to various persons/agents/etc. could freely swap around these "rep rupees" with potentially very confusing results.
Since credentials need to be backed up by actual performance when it comes to a job, such a system might actually be acceptable. I could buy a lion taming credential with some e$, but everyone would realize that I wouldn't last long on the job if it didn't describe me fairly accurately. ;) Presumably a trustable-with-enormous-sums-of-cash credential would command quite a high price on the open market.
This is all well and good, but highly theoretical. It might happen someday, but right now reputations don't work that way. If I gave a reputation certificate to a prospective client they'd just look at it and say "huh?". Some groups do indeed deal well with nym's reputations. If Emmanuel Goldstein shows up at a hacker's convention, everyone knows who he is and what he's done. Alas, most regular businessmen don't want to deal with someone named "Agent Steal"[*], at least not to the point of signing checks to him. Perhaps a partial solution is to pick a nym that sounds like a real name, like "Tim May" or "Jeff Weinstein". There's still a problem of proving that I am the same "Tim Weinstein" that the prospective client has exchanged email with. But to be honest, they don't know if I'm the same "Eric Murray" they have been emailing either... *- to pick a random hacker's nym. -- Eric Murray ericm@lne.com ericm@motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF