Illusional delusions

[Adam Shostack]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2001 at 12:53:18AM -0600, someone claiming to be Black Unicorn wrote:
| > Thinking aloud ... this may be silly:
| >
| > Let's start from something that works - secret key message exchange,
| > maybe enhanced with PK key exchange for the carefree. A person, by
| > defintion, trusts itself, so currency known only to the two parties
| > should be reasonably safe. Every pair of traders have their own
| > currency. A disbalance (A owes B but C owes A) is resolved by creating
| > new B-C currency. There is no anonymity, but the network is hardly
| > connected and therefore reasonably safe. The system is hardly new but it
| > was never done in software AFAIK. You never do business with someone
| > whose reputation you can't instrument. But someone can start a business
| > for reputation building. Again, hardly new.
| 
| Not new?  Name 5 prominent reputation brokers.  Reputation services?
| Reputation clearing agents?  What manner of reputation do they measure?
| Trustworthiness?  Identity?  Creditworthiness?  One?  None?  All?  (I can
| only think of two, neither of which approach the level of sophistication you
| propose here).

Dun and Bradstreet
Standard and Poors 
Consumers Union
Visa
Experian
The Food and Drug Administration (interesting because you'll sometimes 
see "Approved by the US FDA" on not-for-the-US packaging, but they're
number 6 on my list.)

Just had to pick that nit.

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume