question about reputa

[DAMION FURI]

F|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.
F|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.
F|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.

        Hey, Wei, you overlooked something rather simple: suppose
        Alice wasn't any good?  Or suppose she was good, in general,
        but came up wrong at a bad time?  Whereas she might have
        corrected it in time if it had been her client and she had
        direct access, Mallet gets hit broadside out of ignorance--
        and the resulting delay from the extra link in the chain
        could easily be enough to ruin him.


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