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bluesky - Re: Think cash

bluesky AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems

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  • From: Oskar Sandberg <md98-osa AT nada.kth.se>
  • To: Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems <bluesky AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Think cash
  • Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 14:30:56 +0100


On Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 05:53:36PM -0800, Ian Clarke wrote:
<>
> Well, you need to decide, the things that can be automated can be
> spammed. One issue is how this could be achieved in a system like
> Freenet, when you are forwarding a message around, you don't want it to
> cost thinkcash every time it is transmitted from one node to another.
> The thinkcash would need to be tied to the CHK of the data being
> inserted.

Humans can spam too. If answering one of these questions takes one second
(and it can't take much more for somebody who knows the kind of questions
if it's not going to be annoying to normal (stupid) people), than ten
people working 16 hours could generate 576,000 such answers. This may be
smaller than what a completely automated computer attack could do - but I
still wouldn't want 576,000 emails in my box one morning.

These sort of systems may shift the financial scale of spamming systems
for profit, but a system has to resist even nutty people. And remember -
just like the amount of processor power you can have working for you is
proportional to your wallet, so is the amount of brain power (my
commercial spam operation will outsource the "thinkcash" part to
Indonesia).

In general, the reason I don't find any type of POW appealing is I don't
see the parrallels to the way things happen in meatspace. One of the
things that has drawn me to P2P architectures is that they have so many
parallels to how things happen in real social systems - and we know such
systems have been in the trial and error phase a lot longer than
computers. But POW is not how things work in the real world - you don't
make a swingset where you have to wind up a spring (uselessly) every
couple of swings, just to make sure that some kid doesn't hog the swings
all day. It's stupid, and it would take the fun out of swinging. Instead,
the other kids gang up, beat up the guy who won't get off, and make him
eat sand. That is a sound system for dealing with someone who is abusing
resources.

I also don't like the wetware bias of the whole thinkcash thing. I would
like to see computer agents as welcome as people and Marsians in any
system I design, as long as they are good citizens like everybody else.

--
'DeCSS would be fine. Where is it?'
'Here,' Montag touched his head.
'Ah,' Granger smiled and nodded.

Oskar Sandberg
md98-osa AT nada.kth.se




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