However C&TOs currently handle their finances will lead to the answer.

Perhaps they'll buy insurance.

splitting the key - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing
might be one way to spread that risk, or start a tontine,
if you're that worried about amnesia.

I'd been considering this as well -- along the lines of everyone using PGP (and making that as painless as possible) and then assuring trust / security by posting the backend DB.

Seems to me the way to handle it is to push the trust thing down to a geographic area, if possible.

This:
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3143.msg50460#msg50460

Had some really good ideas in that vein.

These are far better milestones than my nebulous:
1)
2) BTC are accepted by the general populace.
3) We win.
Business plan.

It looks to me like you're setting up a cross between Craigslist and Ebay...

A few things that come to mind:

• Separating the social from the business aspects - ie managing a blog/forum/PM system seems like a lot of b*tchy political user overhead to me.
• On that same note, that implies a system of moderators...  Not a huge deal but there may be a cleverer way of setting up both a hierarchy of goods and anti-troll/spam measures with some sort of community policing.  Maybe that's just my militant laissez-faire speaking.
• Though this thread is (nominally) about a "local economy" - I don't see a reason that geographic tags can't be added to items, or sellers, or whatever, rather than limiting the scope of users by design.
• Leveraging anonymity - something else not to throw away would be the privacy BTC facilitates.  There are plenty of grey market items that might want to be traded.  There is also the possibility that BTC will attract unwanted attention from the powers that be, and being ahead of the game by allowing people to "go dark" is something that can be provided without too much overhead, if it's designed in from the start.[/i]
  

With caveats, this is a manageable project.  You have a "business" plan and what looks like the beginnings of some example use cases.

It's certainly something I'd entertain working on for fame, and release the code under some threshold pledge setup for BTC.  Just don't let me near the presentation layer. 

I'm currently considering a local BTC -> USD business, as a first step to getting the community involved.

If anyone running a local exchange can put in their .02BTC worth on their experiences, that'd be awesome!

First off - I want to thank someone in the field for answering.  It's valuable to find out the concerns of someone that's actually *in* the market for anonymous courier services.

I also want to point out that my interest here is in creating a framework for people, not a fully packaged product of framework AND trusted couriers.

I'm trying to delegate as much as possible things like shipping speed, number of cutouts in the chain, amount of trust in any particular link in the chain, etc - this should be up to the shipper.

The point of the framework is to create an anonymous trust network - let me ask you this: how do you measure trust within your network?  Obviously you're trusting shady folk with valuable items - what are your thresholds?  How does someone enter this network?  Are they free to leave it?  Is the network centralized?

These are questions I am attempting to address here.

Again, thanks for your perspective!

Trust in a courier could be measured through some sort of fair (within an AO) local voting scheme - whether that courier gets kicked off the network or voted in.

...was trying to think of a way to use secret sharing, came up with that.

+1

Sounds like an excellent mall kiosk business - cash only, and the ATMs are right there...

I'll take payment in BTC to run security.   

That's why I'm soliciting for alternatives - but I'm not going to hamstring adoption by counting it out, either.

I'm interested in uptake and taking BTC to the streets - if it comes to it - by any means necessary.

That makes really good sense.

So, Phase II needs to be broken out into three parts.

Looks like what I need to round up is folk that are willing to be 'ambassadors' of BTC, that will take payment in BTC.

Then, we send them out towards the three legs.

Local college can have bulletin board postings put up.  Check.

Paying wages...  Maybe lawn care services?  Other small shops that would _like_ to pay under minimum wage or under the table...

Goods...  All I've been able to come up with here is gift cards for small local shops, and black markets.

Anyone have any insights for other 'vulnerable' market segments?

Seems to me isolating a complete supply chain loop locally would also yield benefits.

Apologies.  Swear I looked it up.   

We were just talking past each other.  All good.


That's an excellent point - I think I've been thinking about the problem backwards (not unusual for me) - if someone puts up a local exchange BTN for cash in the area they want to "take over" with BTN, that incentivizes initial buy-in.  Sounds like that's possibly Phase I.


But if I view my time in economic terms: I only have a limited supply of time - so I want the highest return on investment.  I can't possibly do everything at once, so I need to prioritize.  Who do I "infect" with the idea of BTN in my community in order to get the most people trading in them?  Identifying the "high value" people would appear to be Phase II...

The whole idea behind making the data / code public is to decentralize as much as possible, should the worst happen.

If this were to move into production, it will likely go the way of the silk road and live on an eepsite / hidden tor node.

For now, s'just talk.

It's just an RFC - what could go wrong?   

Wasn't trying to put words in your mouth - just trying to figure out the relevance to the post topic.

Forgive my economic ignorance - are you saying that BTN has more speculative potential right now than potential for use as a new/shadow currency?

I can completely agree with that viewpoint - it does appear that BTN are still finding their level vs other currencies.

Does that invalidate or count as a huge demerit towards using it as a currency at the moment?

It seems like that provides a lot of incentive for the people at the edge of the network (BTN / real world) to speculate and trade back and forth - which will be needed at first.

If it's too early to bring BTN to the 'real world' - will there be an accurate indicator when it's finally 'safe'?  How far into 'early adopter' until I'm in 'hare-brained risk' territory?

Honesty through publicity
=========================

Since essentially this network will be about building trust, I believe that opening the data as well as the mechanism will be the best way to proceed.

The plan is that the courier network database is available at any time - since the only identifiers will be the GPG public key, a BTN account, and an area of operations (AO) code.  The source code will also be made available, though that may be through some sort of threshold pledge system.  :)

The idea is that if anyone wants to fork the courier network (due to loss of faith, or because they have a better UI, or what have you), they can.  This keeps the central database honest and competative, as well as providing some security.

The goal is widespread uptake, not earning a percentage.  By keeping the data open, it is more profitable (in the form of donations, or esteem, or what have you) to maintain the network's trust than abuse it by levying fees.


Proposed database architecture
==============================

Courier { Username, GPG Public key, BTN Account, AO code, ... (probably a backup dead-drop email address or other contact method) }

Handoff { GPG Signature by recipient on Courier's public key, ... (probably a 'comments' field, postage involved in this handoff, etc - all signed by the recipient's key) }

There is a many-to-one relationship of Handoffs to Couriers.


Thoughts on risk mitigation for handoffs
========================================

If each courier is required (perhaps by only recieving a fraction of the postage due them) to 'sign off' on receipt as well as delivery of a package, we set up a chain of trust that we can then test.

If the courier network dictates the place the trade will take place (think geohashing [1]) - we can also send "null packages" to test the courier's reliability rating.  Other nodes in the local AO can also be elected 'auditors' to send test packages as well.

Having these network audits happen randomly as a percentage of packages will help convince couriers to stay honest.


Penalties
=========

Couriers failing an audit will lose their entry in the database, with its accumulated network trust.  As postage fees will scale based on the level of trust, there will be a lot to lose by failing an audit.  Please note that this in no way obligates a courier to take a job - it's failing an audit that drops them from the network.

Couriers that repeatedly try to game the system by dropping their persona and creating a new one can either be punished through charging an entrance fee to become a new courier in an AO, and/or an AO can take up a collection for an audit majure [2].

In future, 'taxes' on couriers in the AO could be gathered for maintenance of an audit/enforcement squad whose job is protecting the network and resolving disputes.

'Taxes' might also be levied in order to provide insurance on packages - though this will likely presuppose the existance of audit squads, as it doesn't appear that there is a way to provide insurance programatically that can't be gamed.


Indoctrination
==============

Couriers just starting out are going to have a trust threshold to cross - there are ways to handle this outside of just scaling postage alongside number of successful trades.

Sponsors are one idea.

Public webcams set up in advance at a location for pickup, and then sending a null package can verify that someone did in fact show up.

Having the courier take a picture of the dropoff location with the package?  This would prove a time/place/package/courier relationship, though not prove that the package was not tampered with or stolen outright.  May be useful for disputation with the local audit squad.

Street view could be used to choose a remote location in advance.  Coupled with the above pictorial evidence and time constraints, we can increase the amount of work it will take to intercept a package.


Uptake
======

I've already gotten PMs from several interested parties, and started making local contacts aware of BTN.  Any commentary on this is welcome - _especially_ any glaring security holes that haven't been addressed, or additional things that should be tracked in the database.


Bibliography
============

1. Geohashing  http://irc.peeron.com/xkcd/map/
             http://www.xkcd.com/426/

2. Audit Majure  http://tinyurl.com/yh5jdd/

The gist of my question is which merchants, rather than how.  How can get hashed out by the market once there's some buy-in.

And to directly answer your question - perhaps by having a display screen that shows inbound payments to the merchant's BTC account?

Client steps up, says what account the BTC will be coming from, and then makes their order.

Wait a minute - what would this offer above and beyond https://www.mybitcoin.com/?

For the demand for software, do we have a centralized threshold pledge system set up? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system

If we had a trusted agent for source code escrow, I would imagine that the rate of development would increase.

I know that I would immediately start looking into writing an Android client (which I would in turn open source) if someone escrowed >100 BTC.