Bitcoin Forum

you build connections with people you trust

like if you know them in real life or traded frequently

you get the rating of someone based on following through the connections

example:

you trust bob trusts mike trusts alice who rated Crock -100 for scamming 100 BTC
you trust steve who rated Crock -50 for scamming 50 BTC

the value of those ratings decrease per hop

alice's rating is only worth 0.7^3 = 34.3% = -34
but steve's rating is worth 0.7^1 = 70% = -35

you also give positive ratings for trade -- 10 btc trade is worth one positive point
this means scamming will quickly reduce your positive points, and your PositiveToNegative ratio will be suspicious

but what about people who leave false ratings?

you don't trust them.

Extort charges people a bitcoin otherwise he'll leave a -100 rating.

you have to have a connection to exort in your chain of trust.

and people can communicate peer to peer, say a new thread on bitcointalk

if any person you trust is trusting Exort, you stop trusting them and remove the connection.

and if you have a guy 30 jumps away following a loooong circle of trust.. that -100 isn't even worth half a negative one.