Re: anonymous postings and trust

Black Unicorn writes:
>You would have preferred that I quote the entire thread and then
>add my comment?  Or is it the lack of accompanying detail in
>the comment that you resent?

It's mainly the lack of detail.  As you and others point out, any "Fred
Jones" might be a covert pseudonym, and even if it isn't, I may know
equally little about its holder as abut a "Black Unicorn".  So yes, it's a
matter of reputations rather than true names.  Obvious anonymity just makes
it more noticeable.

>[further details about Black Unicorn]

Somehow, this makes your posting about the existence of Liechtenstein
numbered accounts much more plausible, even though I have no practical way
of verifying any of the circumstantial detail which (to coin a phrase) adds
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.  I can't
put my finger on why this is.

>Should you be more interested 
>in detail, I would be happy to discuss what I can in person, by 
>telephone, or in encrypted E-Mail, in descending order of the 
>detail I would be willing to disclose.

Even though you don't really know who I am?  I mostly lurk here, but
although I'm moderately active on a couple of other mailing lists and
newsgroups, even if you looked at what I write there and verified the info
in my .sig, it seems to me you'd need to do some further investigation to
be safe in making potentially job-threatening disclosures to me over any of
these media.

This raises the question of how we come to trust people in RL situations
where obvious anonymity is not present.  In short, why should we believe
anything that anyone says at all?  If we don't check their claims by
personal observation, why believe them?  If we can check them, why not do
so instead?  How is a reputation for trustworthiness built in the first
place?

I'm just rambling, so I'll shut up for now.

--                                  ____
Richard Kennaway                  __\_ /    School of Information Systems
Internet:  jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk      \  X/     University of East Anglia
uucp:  ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk    \/       Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

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