~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, I'm stymied. I keep arguing the real world, and everyone responds as though this were a MUD game. David Merriman wrote: If the escrow agent has a reputation for reliability, honesty, integrity, etc, then the nature of the transaction is irrelevant.... I'm sorry, but this is patently ludicrous. This is not a MUD or MOO. We're not talking about game theory and the "iterated prisoner's dilemma." This is about the real world. I could cite hundreds of examples where folks don't think "the nature of the transaction is irrelevant." Tree huggers won't buy from McDonalds, irrespective of quality, because Mickey D's "encourage the destruction of the rain forests." Gun nuts won't do business with Taco Bell because it's owned by Pepsico, and they've supported gun control. There are "green" shoppers and "investors of conscience." Hell, Duncan won't even buy the fine chickens produced by Foster farms because Foster is in bed with the Klintones (well not literally... well maybe). The burden of proof is on those who would tell us that human nature will change over-night when crypto-anarchy comes on line. People *do* care about the morality of those with whom they do business. I see no reason to believe that will change. Anonymous murder for hire, is not easy. It isn't going to be any more a threat under crypto-anarchy than it is now. Please, let's get out of this Tabloid, the-sky-will-fall mind set. It's going to be okay. S a n d y Who is signing off this thread. What's coming is coming, no matter what we do or say. History will have the last word. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sandy Sandfort writes:
I'm stymied. I keep arguing the real world, and everyone responds as though this were a MUD game.
Who is signing off this thread. What's coming is coming, no matter what we do or say. History will have the last word.
I'm sorry that you're signing off this thread, particularly since it was you that challenged others to "disprove" your scenarios. After considerable struggle, I have finally succeeded in coming up with a mechanism through which the hiring party and the murderer-for-hire can make a contract through the escrow service in such a way that the escrow service doesn't know that the contract is for murder. Of course, it requires some additional assumptions -- none of them outrageous IMO. Since you have lost patience with the thread, I won't bother to post the details. This much I will say: I believe that *IF* there is a way to prove to the satisfaction of an unbiased third party that the intended victim is in fact dead [I'm not at all sure of this -- and this is where my additional assumptions come in], *THEN* the contract can be structured in such a way that the knowledge of the contract details are hidden from the escrow service who's overseeing the performance of the contract. So, in your scenario ONE, the escrow service would not know the contract is a hit, and therefore would not cheat. And, it would be completely vulnerable to the accusation if it did so. You say you are arguing the real world. Yet you are proposing or discussing scenarios which are clearly not possible today. So in some sense, you are asking the rest of us to assume some set of future conditions which are predicted to hold -- without any assurance that they will. I did in fact view this as a game which is why I felt free to invent other pieces of infrastructure which didn't seem outrageously improbable. You and Tim (and others) have argued over whether or to what extent an ordinary escrow service will tolerate contracts for illegal and immoral services. My own opinion is closer to yours, but if, as I believe, the knowledge of the contract details can be kept from the escrow service, this all becomes academic anyway. As you say, history will judge. To me, it seems that the hard problem here is how (or whether) a real world event, such as the death of an individual, could ever be "proved" to an impartial observer via the net. As you pointed out, digitized images alone will not fill the bill, which is why I invented the on-line coroner's service. Anyway, it was fun. -- Jeff
I'm sorry, but this is patently ludicrous. This is not a MUD or MOO. We're not talking about game theory and the "iterated prisoner's dilemma." This is about the real world. Game theory _does_ make a distinction between activities that make victims and those that don't. Gambling is victimless. All parties consent to the transaction. The end result is a rearrangement of economic power. There is a small indirect loss to the extent that the two bettors make effort conducting this transaction, but this effort is not freely usable by other parties. Murder has victims. The dead did not consent to their death. There is a direct economic loss in the now unavailable abilities of the dead and indirect economic loss in the process of disposing the dead's affairs. It is not, however, the direct parties to the "transaction" where the game theory applies, but rather in the relation of other parties. If I know that two people are betting with each other, that doesn't affect me, because their activity is completely consensual. If I don't want to gamble, I don't have to. I can't deny my gambling debts if I've never used an opportunity to get any. On the other hand, everyone has enemies and everyone has different enemies at different times. Each person has some risk of being murdered, be it large or small. The relationship between a murderer, their agent, and the victim is _not_ separable from my own interest, because I stand some non-negligible possibility of being the victim in the future. Therefore it is in my own best interest to take action against a structure of murder for hire if the cost of that action is less than the marginal cost of my risk against murder. In other words, the cheaper murder for hire is, the more people there will be who will be interested in making sure it doesn't exist. Risk is a subjective entity. The less able one feels able to identify and analyze potentially harmful events, the higher the risk is. A major change in situation, for example, the existence of a truly anonymous murder market, greatly increases risk, because nobody has experience in how such might behave. Do not be surprised if many, many people take it upon themselves to quash the building blocks for a murder market. Ironically, if it seen that the limiting factor in deployment of these markets is the creative thought of the designers, it will be in the best interest of many people to use these incipient markets to prevent their further growth. Eric
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- (I just want to see how long a thread with the subject "End of ... thread" can keep going.) Jeff Barber writes:
After considerable struggle, I have finally succeeded in coming up with a mechanism through which the hiring party and the murderer-for-hire can make a contract through the escrow service in such a way that the escrow service doesn't know that the contract is for murder.
I'm interested in your solution. Mine is to set up the escrow payment seperately from the verification. The escrow agent would release the funds when instructed to do so by a specified verification agent. This eliminates the risk of the escrow agent keeping the money without losing reputation. Now, the verification agent knows that it is certifying that a murder took place and could collude with the escrow agent to split the money, or with the victim's insurer to get a reward, etc. This agent would have to be paid by both the contractor and contractee, regardless of outcome, to remove incentive to collude with the person paying the fee. Therefore, the profit from collusion must be less than the cost of the loss of reputation. If one makes the assumption that such agencies will not care about reputation, such arrangements are impossible. I question this assumption. Also, escrow agents will not deal with known hit verifiers, so the entity that runs such a service must also run a legitimate verification service or have a method for funneling verifications through a legitimate service.
This much I will say: I believe that *IF* there is a way to prove to the satisfaction of an unbiased third party that the intended victim is in fact dead [I'm not at all sure of this -- and this is where my additional assumptions come in], *THEN* the contract can be structured in such a way that the knowledge of the contract details are hidden from the escrow service who's overseeing the performance of the contract.
I agree (please punch holes in my proposed scenario). I don't know how to provide such a proof. The hit verification agent will have to attend a lot of autopsies and funerals. Regards, Patrick May pjm@gasco.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAwUBLoHebxByYwhWPvz1AQEd9wP+PaxvOdYbRFJ5AN+RwPT3xNJCf/LBAYXB zeV7/eqjmXQGj9U55FIenw0aIft4si95h3aauB+9/n+PZOtJI7VOoz3igGMTiXX2 0OGqrO2RCrpruH+hc2g8o/xUL/aFsqIVlEJuDmadBeulHTj+Fr16BfTUJ5YjX1rQ scDNLGnR9DA= =wtty -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Patrick J. May writes:
(I just want to see how long a thread with the subject "End of ... thread" can keep going.)
I admit, not a very good title with which to continue the thread.
Jeff Barber writes:
After considerable struggle, I have finally succeeded in coming up with a mechanism through which the hiring party and the murderer-for-hire can make a contract through the escrow service in such a way that the escrow service doesn't know that the contract is for murder.
I'm interested in your solution. Mine is to set up the escrow payment seperately from the verification. The escrow agent would release the funds when instructed to do so by a specified verification agent. This eliminates the risk of the escrow agent keeping the money without losing reputation.
I simply took it one step farther and did away with the need for verification of a "hit" (of course it's replaced by a step which verifies the "death" but does not require that it appear to be a hit). I did this by assuming into existence an on-line coroner's "clearinghouse" to which ALL the coroners belong and to which all death certificates are filed. This way, no one other than the killer and the hiring party need ever know that a hit has taken place. If the clearinghouse provides an automated e-mail server (or functional equivalent) which will answer the question "Is <named individual> dead?" with a response message in a standard format and encrypted with a key provided in the request, then the killer and the employer can cooperate in the creation of a request packet and an "expected response" packet. In my scheme, another trusted agent is required during the setup phase -- his only function is to ensure that the employer doesn't cheat in the preparation of these packets. Then, the employer simply gives the encrypted expected response packet to the escrow service with instructions to pay the killer when he can produce a copy of the packet. The killer will only be able to obtain this when the coroner's clearinghouse responds to a query with the "victim is dead" response encrypted in the key prepared by the employer. This key is known only by the employer but was also used in the preparation of the expected response packet. So, the steps are: 1 Employer creates a key P (which he does *NOT* disclose to Killer). 2 The two now cooperate in a set of transactions with Trent using P and C (where C is the public key of the clearinghouse). 3 First, Killer provides plaintext of the request, plaintext of the expected response and the public key of the clearinghouse to Trent. 4 Then, Employer provides P, the plaintext of the expected response and the public key of the clearinghouse to Trent. 5 Trent verifies that both copies of the plaintext of the expected response and both copies of the public key are the same (so that neither of the parties can cheat the other). 6 Now, Trent takes the plaintext of the request, appends P and encrypts the results with the public key of the clearinghouse. This he gives to Killer (doesn't matter if Employer sees it too). 7 And, Trent takes the plaintext of the expected response, encrypts it with P and gives the result to Employer (only). (He also gives a hash of it to Killer so that Killer can verify that Employer gives the same packet to the escrow service below.) 8 Employer gives the encrypted expected-results packet (along with the money, etc.) to the Escrow service with the instructions that Killer can have the money when he produces an exact copy of the packet. 9 After verifying that the escrow service has the money, and that the hash of the packet held by the escrow service matches what Trent gave him, Killer whacks the victim. 10 Within a few days, the victim's death is is duly filed in the clearinghouse. Now, Killer can send the encrypted request packet produced by Trent to the clearinghouse. 11 The clearinghouse uses its private key to decrypt the request producing the plaintext request along with a key (P) in which to encrypt the response. 12 Since the victim really is dead, the clearinghouse produces a plaintext equivalent to the original expected-response plaintext, then encrypts it with P, producing the magic cookie Killer needs to get his money. 13 The clearinghouse returns the results to Killer who forwards a copy to the escrow service along with his demand for the money. 14 The escrow service pays off -- end of contract. Probably, this could be modified so that Trent doesn't need to see the plaintext request and response, but I'd have to get out Schneier and spend all night thinking about that. Also, it doesn't seem that important since the request and response are small snippets of text that Trent operates on a hundred thousand times every day. Furthermore, all Trent can do is refuse to perform the transaction -- neither of the parties to the contract will be out a dime if he won't.
I agree (please punch holes in my proposed scenario). I don't know how to provide such a proof. The hit verification agent will have to attend a lot of autopsies and funerals.
Avoiding this is the primary reason I have the coroner's association. In essence, all that is needed is a trusted source of information about the real world. It could just be an ordinary general purpose information retrieval service, except that it has to know about deaths of particular individuals and I don't see any route other than the on-line coroner for the information to make it into "cyberspace". OK, now that that's done with... Unless goaded into another response, I too will shut up about this thread. -- Jeff
participants (4)
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hughes＠ah.com -
Jeff Barber -
pjm＠gasco.com -
Sandy Sandfort