Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)

[Declan McCullagh]

At 02:06 PM 4/15/01 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>When you talk about a one-time transaction, it pretty much has to
>involve something whose value can be ascertained ON THE SPOT.
>otherwise, there is either a continuing relationship that can't
>be unilaterally broken (ie, they know where you live) or there is

I think this is a bit short-sighted.

Assume there is an anonymous seller who has established reputation capital 
over time for small transactions on the order of pennies. I may be willing 
to risk a ten-cent transaction (to purchase an illicit MP3 or somesuch) if 
the perceived reward is sufficient. If I am successful and word spreads 
that the seller is to be trusted, the amount people will be willing to risk 
larger amounts will presumably increase.

Obviously there is the possibility for the seller to cut and run when the 
trust factor gets sufficiently high and transactions increase accordingly, 
but buyers aren't entirely dumb, so a rational buyer will take that into 
account. One factor is how many people at once are entering into 
transactions with the seller -- and that may not be knowable. If the seller 
goes bad, what is the time delay before the bad actor status can be known 
and published?

Escrow agents and bonds posted by the seller can accelerate this process 
substantially.

In order to grow an anonymous economy, you'd need literally decades
>of time during which there were few conflicts with any part of the
>established infrastructure, and so that the emerging system could

Not so. You can grow it quickly, organically, in a much shorter time. You'd 
be right if you're talking about an entirely new economy, but not if you're 
talking about the more likely prospect: a system that gradually supplements 
the existing economy. It won't replace it, of course.

Remember, one still buys a loaf of bread in meatspace.

-Declan