On Tue, Dec 25, 2001 at 12:53:18AM -0600, someone claiming to be Black Unicorn wrote: | > Thinking aloud ... this may be silly: | > | > Let's start from something that works - secret key message exchange, | > maybe enhanced with PK key exchange for the carefree. A person, by | > defintion, trusts itself, so currency known only to the two parties | > should be reasonably safe. Every pair of traders have their own | > currency. A disbalance (A owes B but C owes A) is resolved by creating | > new B-C currency. There is no anonymity, but the network is hardly | > connected and therefore reasonably safe. The system is hardly new but it | > was never done in software AFAIK. You never do business with someone | > whose reputation you can't instrument. But someone can start a business | > for reputation building. Again, hardly new. | | Not new? Name 5 prominent reputation brokers. Reputation services? | Reputation clearing agents? What manner of reputation do they measure? | Trustworthiness? Identity? Creditworthiness? One? None? All? (I can | only think of two, neither of which approach the level of sophistication you | propose here). Dun and Bradstreet Standard and Poors Consumers Union Visa Experian The Food and Drug Administration (interesting because you'll sometimes see "Approved by the US FDA" on not-for-the-US packaging, but they're number 6 on my list.) Just had to pick that nit. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume