Re: Payments and Trust

On 23 September 2012 18:40, Andrew Miller <amiller@cs.ucf.edu> wrote:

> The relationship between Trust, the Web, and Payments is profound and
> deep, and Ripple is the clearest expression of this idea. The
> important thing to realize is that trust is inherently a weblike
> structure. Trust is subjective and indirect. I'm going to describe the
> general structure of the social graph, and explain how you get
> different forms by choosing the semantics of the edges.
>
> Consider a family of directed weighted graphs sharing the same nodes,
> where each node represents a persona - either a 'real identity' or a
> pseudonym. Since the graphs share the same nodes, they differ only by
> the edges. So by a 'family of graphs', I mean that each graph is like
> an overlay of links between the same set of nodes. In each case, an
> edge between a pair of personas represents some kind of direct
> relationship between the two. Given one of these graphs, and a pair of
> nodes/personas, what we are usually interested is observing a 'flow'
> of some kind, the sum of all weighted paths from A to B.
>
> In one overlay, each edge represents a credit line, where the weight
> is the credit limit. The flow from one person to another represents
> the total available credit to use as a payment. In another overlay,
> each edge represents an 'outstanding balance', or a debt - credit
> limits that have been exercised. These two overlays together are
> Ripple, which allows payment through indirect credit on a web. Also
> see "Liquidity in Credit Networks" http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.0515
>
> In another overlay, each edge represents that one person has
> diligently validated the identity of another. In another overlay, each
> edge represents an assessment that a persona is trustworthy to perform
> such diligent checks. These two overlays together are the PGP web of
> trust, which is useful for validating identities with no central
> administration.
>
> In a slight variation of this, the edges represent trust in the
> responsible trading behavior of each person. Now we are talking about
> a reputation graph like Bitcoin-OTC. For an illustration, see
>
> http://serajewelks.bitcoin-otc.com/trustgraph.php?source=nanotube&dest=amiller
>
> In another overlay, each edge represents an 'insurance bond' where one
> person vouches for the other. The flow from A to B represents the
> amount of insurance payout that A could collect if B misbehaves. This
> graph is TrustDavis.
> http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~defigued/index_files/trustdavis.pdf
>
> Do you see that these are all inherently the same kind of weblike
> structure? It's disappointing that OpenTabs, for example, scopes
> itself out of the potential to express indirect relationships, since
> the credits are strictly limited to the two people who initially
> interacted with each other. As another example, eBay has a seller
> reputation, but it is global rather than weblike, and therefore also
> cannot express indirect trust. Bicoin-OTC is weblike, eBay ratings are
> not. Ripple is weblike, OpenTabs is not. Let us build more weblike
> things!
>

I've been reading through trust davis and it remind me of network theory.
In particular min flow, max cut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max-flow_min-cut_theorem

The overlay idea is exactly what I have in mind.  Additive information can
only be a good thing.

So you have two ideas.

1. Reputation Footprint

2. Trust Inferences

I think it makes sense to decouple the two?


>
> On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 8:28 AM, Melvin Carvalho
> <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm starting to think more and more that payments and trust go hand in
> hand.
> >
> > This is especially true when you are establishing credit limits for
> issuing
> > new money.
> >
> > Has anyone had thoughts on this topic?
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Andrew Miller
>