question about reputation

[Futplex]

Adam Shostack writes:
# Good question, but a quick modification allows for effective
# bootstrapping.  If I want to start consulting for Amalgameted
# Consolodated, I can offer them a 10 free questions deal to bootstrap
# things with.  Mallet can only cheat if my offer was broadcast.

Wei Dai writes:
> This scheme doesn't quite work.  (Let's call Amalgameted Bob, to keep
> names short.)  Bob can create a new, unlinkable pseudonym and give the same
> offer to Carol under the new pseudonym.  Then, Bob acts as Mallet and
> passes messages back and forth between Alice and Carol.  

If all Alice's prospective customers are also resellers on the side, then I
agree that she has a problem. But how realistic is a market scenario in which
a new supplier cannot positively identify some legitimate end consumers of a
product or service ?  (I'm ignoring cases in which the market for the
product or service is only just being forged.)  This strikes me as rather
implausible, although I don't claim to have devoted a great deal of thought
to it.

-Futplex <futplex at pseudonym.com>