From: jthomas@kolanut.mitre.org (Joe Thomas)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: b3e0a84418e9568ac28f6f116b548038bd705ae84a93f392b3d9d545b5963c43
Message ID: <9212182019.AA00438@kolanut>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1992-12-18 20:20:39 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 12:20:39 PST
From: jthomas@kolanut.mitre.org (Joe Thomas)
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 12:20:39 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: The Need for Positive Repuations
Message-ID: <9212182019.AA00438@kolanut>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
> 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
Return to December 1992
Return to “tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)”