[Noise] Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)

[The Deviant <deviant@pooh-corner.com>]

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On Fri, 26 Jul 1996, Bill Stewart wrote:

> Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:52:43 -0700
> From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
> To: cypherpunks@toad.com
> Subject: Re: Twenty Bank Robbers -- Game theory:)
> 
> At 11:35 PM 7/25/96 -0500, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) wrote:
> >In my initial post that caused all the turmoil I said (literally) this:
> >``Twenty cypherpunks robbed a bank.''
> >        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >I was careful choosing words.
> 
> That was my reaction as well.  I'd assume that if twenty cypherpunks
> rob a bank, either it's one of Eric's party games (:-), or else 
> they probably conspired over the net to rob a bank by computer.
> 
> 1) The bank probably knows which bank got robbed.

But not how much money was taken, or from which accounts.

> 2) The public probably won't hear about it.
> 3) The cypherpunks might or might not.

Not all of them anyway.

> 4) The number and identity of the cypherpunks is unknown,
>         both to each other and to the bank.

Although, the cypherpunks probably know how many, just not who.  That or
they know some of the names, but can't prove it, and don't know if there
are more.

> 5) If all twenty bank-robbing cypherpunks do conspire to
>         get together in a room to split up the loot,
>         it's probably a chat-room or mud-room;
>         it's not likely to be physical space.

Definatly.

> 6) It's very hard to kill people whose identities you don't know
>         across a net that obscures their physical location as well.

True.

> 7) I suppose you could kill-file them, which does cut them out
>         of the voting process, and therefore probably out of the money,
>         but is certainly less drastic than shooting them.

But that doesn't, unless _everybody_ did it.

> 8) Besides, how do you tell who's first on the list when they're
>         all nyms anyway?
> 9) Who's got the money, anyway?  Was there some sort of secret-sharing
>         protocol to make sure that the one cypherpunk holding the loot
>         doesn't just telnet to Argentina.com with it?

The money is in a numbered account, and will be transfered equaly to other
numbered accounts.

> 10) Money? What money?

heh.

> 11) How do they conduct the voting?  Merely arguing over the voting
>         protocols could occupy megabytes of list bandwidth.

Sence nobody knows who's involved anyway, its really a matter of who
controls the numbered account.

> 12) They could just decide to use the money to pay the winner of
>         a lottery to predict when somebody shoots Jim Bell.
> 13) But that wouldn't really take much, so there's still a lot left over.
> 14) N>10 of the twenty are really all Tentacles, so they can all
>         vote to shoot any non-Tentacle and then vote to split the
>         cash between themselves.  
> 15) They could even killfile one or two Tentacles just to make it look
>         like a fair process.
> 16) I _knew_ we shouldn't have killfiled Lieutenant Niedermeyer!
> 17) Seventeen is the mystical number.
> 18) If the public _does_ hear about it, the bank's stock will drop
>         like a rock, and they can use the money to buy out the bank.
> 19) It's mine, mine, all mine!
> 20) Bang!
> 

Hrmmm....

 --Deviant
The Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best.


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