[Cryptography] Anonymous rendezvous (was Business opportunities in crypto)

[Bill Frantz]

On 5/2/21 at 1:06 PM, leichter at lrw.com (Jerry Leichter) wrote:

>What exactly is "reputation" if not (a) an implicit 
>communication through intermediaries to deliver information 
>about the party involved; (b) trusted third parties:  You are 
>trusting their evaluations.  Zero for two.

There is another form of reputation which comes from repeated 
contact over time. If I place orders for goods or services with 
an anonymous party, and I get good service, that party builds a 
good reputation. Let's say I know this anonymous party by 
demonstrations that is holds the private key associated with a 
public key I know.

I can share that public key with a group that can pool its 
experiences to build trust in this anonymous party. After a 
while, the anonymous party may achieve quite a high reputation.

Where this system falls down is in the temptation for the 
anonymous party to cash in its reputation capital. There is an 
actual example of this behaviour from the 1960s.

In those days, the importers of Japanese cameras used trademark 
and exclusive imports agreements to maintain their pricing 
margins. As as result, Hong Kong prices for cameras were much 
lower than US prices.

There was a company in Hong Kong -- the name I remember was 
T.M.Chang -- which operated an international mail-order 
operation for cameras. When I ordered a Nikon F body, the body 
arrived without a nameplate -- avoiding the trademark issue -- 
and the nameplate arrived in a normal letter envelope, arriving 
"under the radar".

T.M.Chan developed a very favorable reputation. Then, while it 
still accepted orders and payments, it stopped shipping. After 
1/2 to 3/4 of a year, people tried to track it down and it had 
disappeared. They cashed in their reputation capital.

Cheers - Bill

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