Re: MUD anyone?

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 4:27 PM 8/30/96, Jon Leonard wrote:
>Tim May wrote:
>> I second many of the comments about the difficulties in coding a reasonably
>> plausible game or MUD for exploring list ideas.
>
>["Crypto Anarchy Game." value and difficulties stuff snipped]
>
>> Coding nearly any of the core cryptographic concepts for use in an online
>> game, even without a real crypto core (e.g., using other trust mechanisms)
>> is likely to be almost as big a job as actually coding the concepts for
>> real-world use. Could be very educational, and a useful dry run for later
>> real-world reification of concepts, but by no means easy.
>
>I don't think it's quite that hard, so I tried to implement asymetric key
>cryptography:
>
>20 minutes, to write and debug:

Well, cryptography (per se) is the most basic, and in some sense simplest,
part of the whole thing: the "semantics" of crypto are well-understood
(even if not to the snake oil salesmen and repeated inventors of one time
pads).

Consider that PGP was basically a realization (others existed, natch) of
ideas that were almost 20 years old.

Some much harder (to me) protocols: fair coin tosses, blinded coins,
oblivious transfers, digital cash in all its many forms (and issues),
DC-Nets, and so on. Sure, bits and pieces are codable--and have been--but a
comprehensive package is tough to write. Wei Dai's and Matt Blaze's
libraries are excellent, I hear, but are not targetted at creating these
building blocks for crypto anarchy.

And the social and organization assumptions coded into software is a major
issue to think about. Some Scheme or C code doing part of these things will
likely not be real useful.

Your code is admirable. I did the same thing in Mathematica, a few years
ago when I was still interested in the innards of RSA. (It took me longer
than 20 minutes to write, though...but I also got to play around with big
primes, the basic number theory stuff, etc. A useful learning experience.)

But implementing more recent cryptographic building blocks seems more than
an order of magnitude harder. (If you can implement a reasonably robust
bank-digicash system in 10 x 20 minutes = 3.5 hours, I'll be impressed.
Merely speccing what it should do and how it should behave in various
situations would take far, far longer than this. Just my view. Maybe I'm
wrong.)



>It is a big project, but the big part is writing the MUD, not adding the
>crypto-anarchy stuff to it.  I'm writing a MUD anyway, and have been off
>and on for over a year.  Mark Grant's message made me think about what it
>would take to add the features I wasn't already planning on.

Depends on what you mean by "crypto-anarchy stuff." As I see it, it means
building a reasonably robust economic system, a market or agora with
various transaction mechanisms built in. Sort of a cross between "SimCity"
and Vinge's "True Names."

>I'm still interested in ideas as to what primitives I should fake.
>
>> And as Jim Bell noted, there are all sorts of costs which are not properly
>> accounted for. I would not, for example, expect anything interesting to
>> emerge out of the simulation of "assassination politics" in such a game, as
>> the costs, dangers, moral issues, and whatnot are not properly
>> accounted-for in such a MUD-type simulation. (No more so than in a fantasy
>> role-playing game, where characters die routinely...)
>
>After I think about it more, I realize that a MUD simulation can't show
>that something like "assassination politics" wouldn't work.  At best it
>can show that it does or doesn't work in that particular environment,
>leaving open the question of what key difference between MUD and reality
>might change the result.  Still, it would be interesting to see how it
>worked, or why it didn't.

Even if well-implemented (a _lot_ of effort), I doubt it would say anything
more about the real-world aspects of some future crypto-anarchic world
than, say, playing "Risk" or "Diplomacy" has meaningful things to say about
how nations form alliances and go to war with other nations. Or as much as
playing "Monopoly" teaches one about actual business and economic
interactions.

(Before defenders of these games jump in with comments about how useful and
enjoyable these games are, sure, some knowledge is gained. But huge
differences are obvious. A conclusion drawn from playing these games will
not hold up in the real world. I expect the same is true of "assassination
politics.")

--Tim May

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."