[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       cap-talk
Subject:    [cap-talk] [Fwd: Re: Granovetter Diagram - where?]
From:       Mark Miller <markm () cs ! jhu ! edu>
Date:       2005-05-27 11:06:40
Message-ID: 4296FF40.6000103 () cs ! jhu ! edu
[Download RAW message or body]

[Forwarded with permission. --MarkM]

Hendrik Levsen wrote:
 > in case you haven't read it already, you might find this paper interesting:
 > http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/identifiers/
 > it goes into detail about what you were saying here:

> Hendrik Levsen wrote:
>>> and how to build a marketplace for information tidbits along trust-lines 
>>> established by real-world interactions.
> 
> I wrote:
>> You are asking exactly the right question! Only connectivity begets 
>> connectivity. Trusted connectivity in the electronic marketplace *must* be 
>> bootstrapped from existing "real world" trusted relationships and 
>> interactions


The paper Hendrik cites is "The Social Cost of Cheap Pseudonyms"

Abstract:

On the Internet it is easy for someone to obtain a new identity.  This
introduces opportunities to misbehave without paying reputational
consequences. A large degree of cooperation can still emerge, through
a convention in which newcomers ``pay their dues'' by accepting
poor treatment from players who have established positive
reputations. One might hope for an open society where newcomers are
treated well, but there is an inherent social cost in making the
spread of reputations optional. We prove that no equilibrium can
sustain significantly more cooperation than the dues-paying
equilibrium in a repeated random matching game in which players have
finite lives and the ability to change their identities, and there is
a small but nonvanishing probability of mistakes and a large number of
players.

Although one could remove this inefficiency by disallowing anonymity,
this is not practical or desirable in a wide variety of
transactions. We discuss the use of entry fees, which permit newcomers
to be trusted but exclude some players with low payoffs, thus
introducing a different inefficiency. We also discuss the use of
unchangeable pseudonyms, and describe a mechanism which implements
them using standard encryption techniques.

-- 
Text by me above is hereby placed in the public domain

     Cheers,
     --MarkM

_______________________________________________
cap-talk mailing list
cap-talk@mail.eros-os.org
http://www.eros-os.org/mailman/listinfo/cap-talk
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]