[EM] Delegable proxy/cascade and killer apps

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Raph Frank wrote:

> This needs to be formalised.  It could be as simple as an ebay
> reputation system, or just allowing reputation to flow through the
> proxy links.  If I vouch for someone and he doesn't come through, I
> should take a reputation hit too (and also probably reduce my trust in
> the person who vouched for him to me).

If computers are permitted, then to keep sock puppets away and formalize 
trust networks, you might use a trust metric. When given direct trust (A 
trusts B to this extent), they extrapolate indirect trust (A trusts C 
because A trusts B and B trusts C). Some of the trust metrics also aim 
to be hard to manipulate, so that, for instance, if a user makes 1000 
clones, all of these clones are bottlenecked through that user and so 
trust adjustments against the user affects all the clones as well.

Here's one example of a trust metric for P2P networks: 
http://www.stanford.edu/~sdkamvar/papers/eigentrust.pdf

And here's another, that's claimed to be manipulation resistant: 
http://www.advogato.org/trust-metric.html