Escrow agents

[Sampo Syreeni]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Tim May wrote:

>But the "paving stone," or touch stone, I want to bring up is this:
>the role of third party escrow agents.

Escrow is practically useless unless Esther can verify that both parties
have kept to their promise. If the data Esther keeps is encrypted, this will
not, barring ZKPs, be possible. In an anonymous economy, having the data in
a usable form will give Esther an incentive to use up the tradeable goods
escrowed by Bob. Anonymity also gives her a real possibility to do that,
unlike with traditional escrow. Of course there are a host of nasty
complications, like how different sorts of tradeable items might be
protected from this sort of conduct (e.g. anonymous cash probably could be
protected from Esther, while sensitive corporate memos being sold to a
competitor perhaps couldn't), and the possibility of linking Esther to the
damage done to Bob in different kinds of transactions. Nevertheless, I think
this is a valid objection.

Bonds are a different thing, though. Offhand, the only problem I have with
them is the protocols one would use to ensure that the bond is never
collected unfairly. If the information passed is such that its value cannot
be ascertained without human intervention, one would need an arbitrator,
perhaps even one with the resources and knowledge of the contracting parties
(I'm thinking sale of information whose value depends on factors not known
to the public). But on the other hand, this might well be a circumstance
rare enough to warrant little attention.

Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy at iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front