--- begin forwarded text Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 09:16:56 -0800 From: "Daniel J. Boone" <djb@alaska.net> Organization: ROMEA MIME-Version: 1.0 To: rah@shipwright.com Subject: Reputations for Sale Hi, Robert! Given your interest in reputation capital, I thought you would be amused to know that right now (9:11 AM Alaska time, 1:11 PM Eastern) there is a discussion going on at Http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewBoard&name=qa regarding the sale of an online commercial reputation. Messages on this board scroll away in about two hours, so if you actually want to look, be quick. eBay, as you may know, is an online auction site where one can build a reputation through a numerical feedback mechanism. Someone is suggesting building up accounts until they have a respectable feedback level and then auctioning them off to new sellers who lack the patience to earn feedback the old-fashioned way. These are not folks who are clueful, for the most part, about such issues; it's just a business idea to this guy. I think it's fascinating. Take care -- Daniel P.S. If you think this would be of interest to any of your lists, feel free to repost it. I'd post it to Cypherpunks, but I'm not currently subscribed there. ================================================================= Daniel J. Boone | "No man's life, liberty, Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, P.C. | or property is safe when P.O. Box 21211 | the Legislature is in Juneau, Alaska 99802 | session." | (907) 586-3340 | --Judge Gideon J. Tucker Fax: 586-6818 | New York, 1866 ================================================================= --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'