The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot

[Jim Choate]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:

> RATIONAL ACTORS
> 
> The obvious point is that rational actors never pay more for 
> untraceability than they get back in perceived benefits. Someone will 
> not pay $1000 for privacy/untraceability technology or tools that only 
> nets them $500 in perceived benefits.
> 
> They won't spend $1.00 in tools to net them 10 cents in perceived 
> benefits.

If it's restricted to a single opportunity, yes. If one adds the boundary
condition of repeatability your thesis comes apart. Consider the cost of
using an anonymizing layer which is for almost all players equal. The
point to be gained here is there are different anonymizing layers. Each
with their own specific characteristics. A mouse doesn't look like an
elephant for a reason. Now if the anonymizing layer is digital, for
example, the cost is about the same across the board, irrespective of
other source/sink magnitudes. In those cases for example, assuming a
higher resourced player was involved would mean the cost of enforcement
would go up. They would have resources to spend on additional, and
distinct, anonymizing layers that lower layered players wouldn't have
available.

Most rational actors, instead of measuring 'perceived benefits', will only
pay a certain percentage of their gains to reap those gains. One can then
break the various layers (eg 10%, 20%, 30%, ...) into characteristic
behaviours. It's also worth noting that a specific relation between the
selection of that percentage and how much the player already has is
present.

A Markov Chain of behaviours would be a more apt model. Not everyone faced
with the same numbers will make the same choice. There is a limit to
'rationality'.


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