the Pseudospoofer Game

["L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

Hey guys, you are so clever with the cyberspatial software tricks.
Here's something I think you should come up with. 

THE PSEUDOSPOOFING GAME

I haven't got all the details of this worked out yet, but bear with me.
The scenario is that this would be a game you play on a machine that is
a lot like a mail server, except that it is dedicated to the game and
everyone knows it (I know you guys won't like that idea, but bear with
me.) The object of the game is to uncover each other's true identities.
When you start the game, there are a certain number of other real
people out there. They all get a fixed number of `pseudoanonyms' (of
course, names that look real but aren't).

There would be both public and private postings. You have to try to
determine who everyone is by analyzing their style and subjects (and of
course, evade detection with ingenious cypherpunk techniques). You
could use any of your tentacles in any way, public or private, just
like on this list (which is a great inspiration for the game, BTW).

Every once in awhile, you might make accusations on true reputations,
after you have built up enough certainty. The points of the game would
depend on how correct you are. You might `bet' different points on
various identities. You might be able to bargain with others to collude
with you by trading points or something. Maybe there is some kind of
mechanisms whereby tentacles are weakened after a lot of accusations or
something. Obviously, the possibilities are really endless. All the
agent provacateur, double agent, etc. gimmicks you inflicted on me
(your white lab rat) could be used there.

Maybe `credit' could be synonymous with `reputation' -- when you flame
someone successfully others can transfer points between the two, rate
your reputations explicitly. You could always rate other people at any
time. There might be `public ratings' that are the averages of all the
private ratings that everyone knows about. These ratings might tend to
fluctuate based on behavior. For example, when somebody lies their
rating would go down if other's suspected it. If someone was a
hypocrite, it would come back to haunt them in the `bottom line'.

The more confused and insane you drive someone with disinformation and
lies (dishonesty is the name of the game, after all!) the better. Who
knows, you might be able to *really* upset someone over nothing but
meaningless ASCII text! Nothing but messages. That would be their own
fault for taking it seriously. These `pseudospoofed virgins' should be
raped for great sport and satisfaction. You could get together
afterwards and drink a few beers and brag about your scores and
conquests, and how they wailed or cried at the end. I suppose you could
even figure out how to have imaginary postmasters that can censor
various real identities if their reputations drop too low, or some
other capricious criteria. Maybe you could even design in mail bombs.

I'm sure you guys could bang this whole thing together pretty fast,
with all your skill, ambition, and practice. But you might have
difficulty attracting players if you want to keep it secret and all to
yourselves. Another thing, is that everyone would learn about
pseudospoofing. That is what you want, right? Since it's their
stupidity if they fall for this kind of puerile fantasy, it's an ideal
situation if *everyone* knows about it. The Cypherpunk Way.