Re: anonymous postings and trust

[szabo@netcom.com (Nick Szabo)]

Richard Kenneway raises some interesting points about reputation,
asks why we should believe nyms (or otherwise relatively unknown new
posters), and even to what extent we should believe people we have
more experience with.  Indeed, the world is filled with strangers 
who want to sell me things, who threaten me with violence unless I follow
often obscure or completely unknown laws they have generated, etc. 

In a typical election, the difference between the candidates and 
total strangers is typically the narrow bottleneck of a few TV reports 
and ads, and an entry in the Voter's Guide.  Yet we trust these people
to be our leaders!  Based on Black Unicorn's posts to cypherpunks, I'd 
say our level of knowledge about him is slightly better than the
typical voter's knowledge of a typical political candidate.
I call this the Voter Test.

The good news is that Black Unicorn isn't threatening violence (as
contrasted with the implicit violence threatened by politicians,
and the both implicit and explicit violence threatened by
our own voluminous contributor, Detweiler/S.Boxx/Zen Master), 
nor even trying to sell something.  B.U.'s simply arguing that 
numbered accounts exist in Liechtenstein.  I agree that the mere statement 
of a nym doesn't satisfy the case.  The nym can greatly bolster the 
case by giving us "mutual information" that could be cross-referenced 
with what he says to resolve the issue.  This does _not_ have to be personal
info, and I urge B.U. to avoid the tempatation of posting where he
went to college, etc. in the future.  One good piece of info would
be to post phone number(s) in Liectenstein, unrelated to B.U.'s own
employer, that we could call to verify his claim.  (For example,
the number of a librarian who would know, or best of all the phone
numbers of the bank(s) who offer these accounts).  The side claim,
that B.U. once worked in Liechtenstein, could be strengenthed by
telling a trustworthy list member who has lived in Liechtenstein,
info that would probably be known only by somebody who his lived for a 
while in Liechtenstein.  (Finding such a person might be unlikely, but 
who knows).  Perhaps there is are easier ways B.U. can demonstrate 
his case along these lines, if the above are too inonvenient for 
what may be to B.U. a fairly unimportant argument.  There must be an 
entire artform already developed o n this kind of credentialling, 
selective revelation of information, etc., I'd love to hear more 
comments from people with insight, epxerience, etc. in the matter.

Nick Szabo					szabo@netcom.com