Re: The Need for Positive Repuations

> From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
> The longterm solution is to use "positive reputations" and not just
> "negative reputations" (as in Kill files). This is something Dean
> Tribble just talked about at our last physical meeting of the
> Cypherpunks ("Bay Area Branch" :-} ).
> 

> Think of like a credit rating. People _earn_ trust, they don't just
> get assigned a credit rating until they do something bad. 


>From: pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
>Indeed, in the long run, when there are billions of people in the  
>nets, even UseNet newsgroups devoted to people who use musical  
>instruments as sex toys would have thousands of posts a day because  
>given billions of possible subscribers, finding a few tens of  
>thousands with a particularly obscure interest wouldn't be hard.  
>Thus, in the long run, the nets will move to "closed" newsgroups and  
>mailing lists in which to be a subscriber one will have to be  
>explicitly subscribed to a list and will only be able to read with  
>one's private key and post by digitally signing messages. In such
>an environment, anonymous abusers will simply be incapable of  
>annoying people.

Yes, but there will still need to be a way for new people to join the  
lists, (and the net in general) before they've had a chance to "prove  
themselves."  Allowing all new id's to post to the whole group on a  
probationary basis is unacceptable;  as soon as someone proves  
obnoxious enough to kick off they could just start over with a new  
id.  The obvious answer is that a moderator will be necessary for all  
closed lists that require a positive rep for posting and that don't  
wish to be forever limited to their founding members.  After a few  
lucid posts passed by the moderator, an individual would gain enough  
of a reputation not to be filtered out any longer.

Of course, anyone who's heard Howard Stern fans invade political  
call-in shows will realize there's not much that can be done with  
those weird people who will spend a lot of time and energy to appear  
credible, only to annoy people.

Joe

A conscious being, Joe Thomas, wrote in a previous message:
> Yes, but there will still need to be a way for new people to join the  
> lists, (and the net in general) before they've had a chance to "prove  
> themselves." 

There will always be the Sear credit cards of news groups. Those
that will let almost anyone in - just so they can prove themselves.


-- 
habs@acf3.NYU.EDU
habs@gnu.ai.mit.edu
habs@well.sf.ca.us
habs@panix.com

Go read Ender's Game.  They had a seriously electronic society.  There
were public message boards, and positive-reputation-based boards.
Basically, if you demonstrated a clue on the public boards, then
someone already reputable could recommend you for "membership" in the
reputation-based boards.  One of the characters did so anonymously.
She even got paid for writing editorials, etc.  Anybody could watch
the proceeedings of the reputeable boards.  In time, she was competing
in debates with major politicians, et. al.  Sci-fi?  or Reality?  I
believe we could move from the former to the latter.  (And I just
avoided any sort of spoiler about the plot ;-)

Imagine a system where spaf distributed the public key of the
moderator(s) of a moderated newgroup.  News servers would make sure
that the message was signed by the moderator, or that the poster
included some sort of certificate, signed by the moderator, indicating
that he could post without having to go through the moderator first.
Expirations and/or revocation lists would be needed to do things
right, but these are problems with fairly good solutions.

		Marc

Marc writes:

> Go read Ender's Game.  They had a seriously electronic society.  There
> were public message boards, and positive-reputation-based boards.
> Basically, if you demonstrated a clue on the public boards, then
> someone already reputable could recommend you for "membership" in the
> reputation-based boards.  One of the characters did so anonymously.
> She even got paid for writing editorials, etc.  Anybody could watch
> the proceeedings of the reputeable boards.  In time, she was competing
> in debates with major politicians, et. al.  Sci-fi?  or Reality?  I
> believe we could move from the former to the latter.  (And I just
> avoided any sort of spoiler about the plot ;-)

Exactly! "Ender's Game," by Orson Scott Card, and "True Names," by
Vernor Vinge, are the two books I've been recommending since I coined
the term "crypto anarchy" in 1987. I held these books up in a couple
of talks I gave at BayCon (SF convention) and the Hackers Conference
and said "Read these books!"

A couple of folks have said that newcomers will never be listened to,
will never "get in" to positive reputation systems. This simply isn't
true, even with today's "manual" reputation management systems. On the
two main lists I subscribe to, this list and the Extropians list (send
request to Extropians-request@gnu.ai,mit.edu if interested in future
stuff, anarchocapitalism, nanotech, cryonics, etc....about a dozen
folks on this list are also on Extropians, I would guess), newcomers
start making posts and gradually the list gets to know their name,
what to expect of them, etc. This is their "rep." Serious flamers or
abusers see their rep torn down.

(A list I just joined is the Pynchon list...actually, one of them saw
my "W.A.S.T.E. line in my .sig and _invited_ me to join. As a newcomer
to that list, I have no reputation. What I say and how reasonably I
say it will establish my rep. This is as it should be.)

If people want to see the posts and comments of newcomers, even those
without extensive history on the list or glowing reps, then they will
likely set their "agents" to allow the new stuff through. Lots of
variations are possible and will be tried.

Think about positive reputations and you'll see them in action all
around you...where you shop, what you read, who you associate with,
etc. The Net will ultimately be no different.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | PGP Public Key: by arrangement.