From: IN%"blancw@accessone.com" "blanc" 15-MAY-1996 03:52:18.03

. What if someone, hired on one occasion but fired at another, decides = in anger to "turn coat" and report everyone to the IRS (or other fine = government agency)?

Well, full anonymnity should stop this one from being a problem, although one should still consider topics such as forensic stylometry - if someone squeals and starts keeping messages (plus any earlier kept innocently), it may be possible to figure out who's who from these. I'm currently checking into forensic stylometry; I can see the possibility of programs to run stylometry on one's own email/posting, with suggestions for alternative vocabulary, etcetera when you fall into too much of a pattern. A related problem is that of government agents signing on. Both of the above are made more acute by the possibility that some information, if revealed, might enable the government to disrupt activities - even if it doesn't enable prosecution. Making sure that the participants have a strong stake in behaving properly - e.g., shares in the outcome, ecash deposits, and - most importantly in dissuading governmental intervention - reputation riding on it. The last is most important in dissuading governmental intervetion because of the reserves of wealth the government is likely to have for some time; they can afford to pay (using your and my tax dollars) for the short-term costs to a subject. Paying for longer-term costs (e.g., the loss of the ability to work due to reputational diminishment) is not as practical, and is usually only done for very important cases (e.g., the Witness Protection Program). An additional aspect of the last is that if someone has a poor (or no) reputation, you shouldn't trust them with much damaging information or responsibility. If government agents keep blowing various covers, none of their covers will have much reputation capital.

. What if a company does not pay as expected - other than adopting = Assassination Politics, what method could an employee use towards = getting their expected remuneration for work done?

A combination of escrow agencies and reputation capital appears to work here. It does have the problem for escrow agencies that they will either have to be above-board - and thus subject to governmental pressure - or anonymous - and thus not particularly trustworthy until they've built up reputation capital. But how do they build up reputation capital in the first place? Hmm.... what one needs is a way to transfer reputation from a public, identifiable source to a new pseudonymous source. Some cryptographic thought on this idea has been had; I will leave it up to the experts to discuss it.

. Wouldn't everyone need to have two jobs (or source of regularly = accepted cash), in order to be able to pay for services where suppliers = do not accept virtual cash transactions? (TCM has mentioned before about = the need to pay for some things in tiny quantities - like quarters for a = phone call, etc.)

Intersections between the virtual and regularly accepted cash economies are an interesting subject; Sasha has written about this before on here. Essentially, money-changing is likely to be a significant enough source of profit that someone will be willing to do it. Now, regularly accepted cash will have the limit that the IRS et al will want to know its source. Thus, one should probably use as little of it as possible, and that only in untraceable ways - investments et al should be done via virtual cash. There is the problem of that one has a certain minimal reasonable spending, for the source of which the IRS is likely to look. -Allen