Trust Building List - Ron Gross

[ripper234]

In light of the last few crazy months, I wanted to share a list of all the people in the Bitcoin world that I trust to some degree. I will try to update this list sometimes (no promises) ... if you think I should trust you, pm/post and if I do, I'll add you to the list.

You are welcome to post your own message on this thread (or create another), with a list of people whom you personally trust.

Here are some trust flags:

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.
- RL - I have met this person in real life.
- ID - I believe I know who this person is.
- FT - I financially trust this person to honor his word.

(Sorry for overly complicating this, but I think it's important to break down trust into specific elements)

The list itself has now become a table, hosted at Google Docs

I will post when I updated this list.

Update 1:

If anyone whom I don't currently know/trust wants to try and get me to add him to my ID column, you can try sending me some of these to ron.gross@gmail.com (please don't send a pm, just email me):


1. Good quality scan of ID/passport
2. Facebook/LinkedIn account
3. Video chat via skype/Google Talk/whatever...
4. ebay account with good transaction history
5. Any other details you think can help

I will of course keep any details you wish confidential.
I am not promising to add you to my ID trust list ... I will consider the entire "evidence pile" and choose whether it's sufficient for me, or not.

Update 2:
Here are a few credentials that suggest you might want to trust me:

1. Most of my social media profiles are found on my blog.
2. I have already proven in the past that my blog (ripper234.com) is my own, and that I'm not an imposter.
3. I have done a 100 BTC bond via GLBSE (see link in 2), and paid it back in full.
4. A few well-known people who would vouch for me: Meni Rosenfeld, Patrick Harnett, Death & Taxes.

I won't post ID scans here, for obvious reasons.

[1715228604]

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[1715228604]

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[bracek]

modern "engineers" will be good guys until they become bad guys

so,
only if they submit ID scans to a trusted (by vote) forum member who will do skype session with them,
people can be considered trustworthy,
other categories are simply not enough for even 1 satoshi of trust
imo

I did a few transactions through this forum, never got burned, but maybe it was pure luck

[greyhawk]

People I trust to know what they are doing and not being completely evil/incompetent

- Andresen
- Gornick
- Marchenko

The end.

[LoweryCBS]

The list itself has now become a table, hosted at Google Docs

I will post when I updated this list.

This is quite handy - thanks for sharing.

I foresee a structured large-scale graphic web-of-trust wiki-style reference with history that's dynamic and distributed...

[mobodick]

In light of the last few crazy months, I wanted to share a list of all the people in the Bitcoin world that I trust to some degree. I will try to update this list sometimes (no promises) ... if you think I should trust you, pm/post and if I do, I'll add you to the list.

You are welcome to post your own message on this thread (or create another), with a list of people whom you personally trust.

Here are some trust flags:

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.
- RL - I have met this person in real life.
- ID - I believe I know who this person is.
- FT - I financially trust this person to honor his word.

(Sorry for overly complicating this, but I think it's important to break down trust into specific elements)

The list itself has now become a table, hosted at Google Docs

I will post when I updated this list.

Lists won't work for large communities.
It would become impractical to go through them in no time at all.
It would be much better if all things that rely on trust would move to a different location on the web which has facilities to deal with trust relations.
This board is already bogged down by impractical ammounts of impractical lists of stuff.

[ripper234]

I foresee a structured large-scale graphic web-of-trust wiki-style reference with history that's dynamic and distributed...

Indeed.

[ripper234]

Lists won't work for large communities.
It would become impractical to go through them in no time at all.
It would be much better if all things that rely on trust would move to a different location on the web which has facilities to deal with trust relations.
This board is already bogged down by impractical ammounts of impractical lists of stuff.

Indeed. Do you know of a better existing website to manage this list?
If not, it should be built (and will eventually be built).

Until the site exist, I posted the list here as a public service.

[ripper234]

Added Eli Sklar, author of Safebit

[mobodick]

Lists won't work for large communities.
It would become impractical to go through them in no time at all.
It would be much better if all things that rely on trust would move to a different location on the web which has facilities to deal with trust relations.
This board is already bogged down by impractical ammounts of impractical lists of stuff.

Indeed. Do you know of a better existing website to manage this list?
If not, it should be built (and will eventually be built).

Until the site exist, I posted the list here as a public service.

I'm not just talking about a website.
What's important is that there is a way to verify trust relations.
In all occurences of lists, what would prevent someone from injecting coherent false information of trust?
If you can't resolve this problem lists are just extentions of the current level of trust quality.
What could be used to realy strenghten trust relations (and i know people here won't like it, for various reasons) is real world accountability.

[mobodick]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

You mean like Mathews bet, right?

I'm not sure when people are gonna realise that this is the internet and you can't trust text on the internet to be true all by itself.

[DeathAndTaxes]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

What is the incentive to do that?  Honest question.  I could see something like that working but there has to be an incentive for the person making the vouch.  Otherwise it is risk x to gain 0 which is always a bad decision.   Interesting concept to monetize trust.  It makes me thing some system is there I just can't see it through the coffee starved fog in my brain.

[mobodick]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

What is the incentive to do that?  Honest question.  I could see something like that working but there has to be an incentive for the person making the vouch.  Otherwise it is risk x to gain 0 which is always a bad decision.   Interesting concept to monetize trust.  It makes me thing some system is there I just can't see it through the coffee starved fog in my brain.

Isn't that how banking started?..

[DeathAndTaxes]

Thinking a little further really OTC is the answer BUT there needs to be a couple improvements:

a) there needs to be an OTC lite portal.  Getting GPG can be tough enough, then using IRC, authenticating, etc.  That can be overwhelming so people don't use it.  Some OTC lite portal (maybe with limits on # tx, etc) would allow more people to use it and that makes the system more powerful.

b) the big one.  There is no consequence for bad ratings.  If I give Pirate a rating 10 (I didn't) then I am staking my rep on Pirate rep.  If it turns out I am wrong (either through collusion or ignorance) there should be a penalty to my rep.   That might not seem very fair but think about it for a second.  If I am a horribly bad judge of character then there should be some discount for my ratings right?

Imagine I give a 10 to 3 known scammers and nobody else.
ripper234 gives a 10 to 3 people who show themselves to be trustworthy (by future good trades).
Obviously a 10 from ripper234 means more than a 10 from me right?

Anyways just throwing some random stuff out there maybe something sticks. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

What is the incentive to do that?  Honest question.  I could see something like that working but there has to be an incentive for the person making the vouch.  Otherwise it is risk x to gain 0 which is always a bad decision.   Interesting concept to monetize trust.  It makes me thing some system is there I just can't see it through the coffee starved fog in my brain.

Isn't that how banking started?..

Yeah it does have some parallels.  In making a "BTC-vouch" you are trusting the person you are vouching not to cause a financial loss much like when you deposit your money/gold/btc in a bank you are trusting the banker not to cause a financial loss/theft.


Just had a weird idea.  If a system like that ever developed (where people backed "vouches" with financial penalties) you could see professional "trust-bondsman".  Say some new trader has no rep or little rep and he needs rep to get rep.  So he goes to a "trust-bondsman" who collects some ID, makes some verifying phone calls, and requires the new trader to put up some funds into escrow (say 20 BTC).  The trust bondsman may then offer x BTC of rep (will pay x BTC for a busted trade).  The 20 BTC are just escrowed so later when the new trader has enough self earned rep he can collect his escrow back (minus a fee).  Higher level of guarantee may require more extensive dox (mail verifciation, public records search, etc) and a larger escrow.  In time the bondman may offer a higher x BTC on the same escrowed amount.

Anyways feel free to ignore just bouncing some unfinished ideas out there.

[mobodick]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

What is the incentive to do that?  Honest question.  I could see something like that working but there has to be an incentive for the person making the vouch.  Otherwise it is risk x to gain 0 which is always a bad decision.   Interesting concept to monetize trust.  It makes me thing some system is there I just can't see it through the coffee starved fog in my brain.

Isn't that how banking started?..

Yeah it does have some parallels.  In making a "BTC-vouch" you are trusting the person you are vouching not to cause a financial loss much like when you deposit your money/gold/btc in a bank you are trusting the banker not to cause a financial loss/theft.


Just had a weird idea.  If a system like that ever developed (where people backed "vouches" with financial penalties) you could see professional "trust-bondsman".  Say some new trader has no rep or little rep and he needs rep to get rep.  So he goes to a "trust-bondsman" who collects some ID, makes some verifying phone calls, and requires the new trader to put up some funds into escrow (say 20 BTC).  The trust bondsman may then offer x BTC of rep (will pay x BTC for a busted trade).  The 20 BTC are just escrowed so later when the new trader has enough self earned rep he can collect his escrow back (minus a fee).  Higher level of guarantee may require more extensive dox (mail verifciation, public records search, etc) and a larger escrow.  In time the bondman may offer a higher x BTC on the same escrowed amount.

Anyways feel free to ignore just bouncing some unfinished ideas out there.

Yes, i've been thinking about this.
You will just need a way to trust in the bondsman.
There needs to be absolute incentive for the bondsman (or even list-maker) to be neutral all the time.
Also, who will decide what is a busted trade and who to blame for it?
And how will you trust the person making this decision?

[ripper234]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

I am willing to sell insurance about certain people ... a subset of my FT list.
But why would you expect that I give such insurance for free?

[ripper234]

BTW, D&T - I think there is definitely room for an easy to use trust/insurance/debt platform, with optional connections to PGP signatures, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, BTC, USD, ...

Trust should be monitizable and tradeable.

It needs to be developed with strong UX principles, while still keeping security in mind as a top priority.

Of course we'll need to have some trust in the platform itself, audits, etc...

[DoogieHouser]

Shared.

[mobodick]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

I am willing to sell insurance about certain people ... a subset of my FT list.
But why would you expect that I give such insurance for free?

How would you even make sure your insurance will cover the case someone turns out to be a scammer anyway?
What will you bring to the table (in terms of trustability) to justify a fee?
If someone bought insurance from you and got scammed for BTC100.000 would you recoup that loss?
Is trust in trust more justified if it's paid for?
Or are you simply going by "If i paid for it it must be good"?

[jasinlee]

For the amounts over lets say 10 BTC I agree this would be a good measure, pay like .5 btc to a trusted party to perform a short interview where the person would have to take the webcam and show the outside of the home so it can be tracked down on google maps. Thats kinda difficult to fake.

[mobodick]

I am willing to sell insurance about certain people ... a subset of my FT list.
But why would you expect that I give such insurance for free?

I don't expect that you personally will give such insurance for free. But there are some situations where people might do this.

Two individuals might choose to mutually assure each other's performance. Or someone might agree to underwrite a retailer's performance in return for a discount at that retailer.

Mobodick thought that this kind of assurance was like Matthew's bet. It isn't. It's like how Matthew's bet would be if there was a whole web of assurance. Suppose Matthew's performance was underwritten by MagicalTux, Gavin Andresen and Vladimir, and furthermore that those guarantors' performance was underwritten by others. That would be enough to satisfy most people.

I don't get it.
Even if Mathews performance would have been underwritten in ths way, would there have been a reason to trust him in hindsight?
If not, then this system would have failed, and propably not only in this obvious case.

[mobodick]

For the amounts over lets say 10 BTC I agree this would be a good measure, pay like .5 btc to a trusted party to perform a short interview where the person would have to take the webcam and show the outside of the home so it can be tracked down on google maps. Thats kinda difficult to fake.

Yes, this is an example of the kind of ankering in the real world that is needed for extended trust relations.

[jasinlee]

I know not everyone here is willing to give out info as it is intended to be anonymous if they choose, but the random bum in a hoodie I cannot see the face of that walks up to me on the street and asks me to borrow (briefly) about $200 (20btc~) I think the chances are pretty slim unless he has a weapon.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I don't get it. Even if Mathews performance would have been underwritten in ths way, would there have been a reason to trust him in hindsight? If not, then this system would have failed, and propably not only in this obvious case.

Matts bet (as stupid as it was) does highlight that trust has limits.  Prior to the bet I would have trusted Matt with a couple BTC, maybe even a couple hundred BTC, but 10,000 BTC requires a lot of trust more than just someone's word.  80,000 BTC even with a signed promissory note is just silly, ask your bank if they will give you a $1,000,000 unsecured signature loan.

The issue is betteors looked at only THEIR tx not Matt's tx.  Bettors should have asked themselves this questions:
"Would I be willing to transfer 10,000 BTC to an address Matt controls and trust him to transfer it back?"

If the answer is no they shouldn't have placed the bet.  It indicates they didn't trust Matt to pay 10,000 BTC based only on his word.  Matt's bettors while individually placing small bets, were collectively (maybe unknowingly) trusting Matt to pay almost a million dollars. Someone betting 50 BTC wasn't trusting Matt to pay 50 BTC.  Why would Matt pay 50 BTC and default on the other 79,950 BTC?  Obviously he wouldn't.  Either everyone was going to get paid or nobody would.    I don't trust anyone that much and certainly not anyone online.


"Trust-bonds" could be setp with limits  (i.e. I pledge 5 BTC that ripper234 won't bust a trade of up to 100 BTC).  The cap could be set based on how much the person trusted the other person. Trust bonds should also be revocable with a delay.  I trust ripper234 (to use him as an example) but if opened a "magic investing biz offering 7% per week" I should be able to revoke that trust.  His actions make me trust him less (enough so that I would no longer want to back it with funds).  The fact that he hasn't scammed anyone yet (in this scenario) doesn't matter.  It is possible that someone's actions can reduce trust long before they commit fraud.

For large transaction escrow is the only way to go.  Vlad made a 5,000 BTC bet but it was escrowed.  Neither party had to trust the other (although they did need to trust the escrow agent).  Where "trust-bonds" could be useful is smaller tx where the incentive to scam is less and the complexity and cost of an escrow is not worthwhile.  The only bad thing is I can't see how this can be done completely decentralized.  Semi-decentralized maybe ...

[mobodick]

I don't get it.
Even if Mathews performance would have been underwritten in ths way, would there have been a reason to trust him in hindsight?

The underwriting doesn't affect how much you trust Matthew. It affects how risky the transaction is, because if Matthew doesn't pay then the underwriters can be asked to pay.

Then the underwriting should happen on a per-deal basis (i interpreted your idea as a general 'trust underwriting' at first).
Otherwise the underwriters have no idea of knowing how much risk they take.

[mobodick]

I don't get it. Even if Mathews performance would have been underwritten in ths way, would there have been a reason to trust him in hindsight? If not, then this system would have failed, and propably not only in this obvious case.

Matts bet (as stupid as it was) does highlight that trust has limits.  Prior to the bet I would have trusted Matt with a couple BTC, maybe even a couple hundred BTC but 10,000 BTC requires a lot of trust (and 80,000 BTC even with a signed promissary note is just silly.  Think your bank will give you a $1,000,000 promissory note).   

If the bettors stopped and looked at it this way:
"Would I transfer my 10,000 BTC to an address Matt controls and trust him to transfer it back?"

Most probably would have said no.  If they said no then they logically shouldn't have placed an unescrowed wager.   Matt's bettors while individually bet small sums collectively were trusting Matt to pay almost a million dollars.  Someone betting 20 BTC wasn't trusting Matt to pay 20 BTC (why would he pay 20 BTC and default on the 79,980 BTC) they were trusting him to pay 80,000 BTC.   I don't trust anyone that much.  Period. 



"Trust-bonds" could have limits.  They wouldn't need to be open ended.  i.e. I pledge 5 BTC that ripper234 won't bust a trade of up to 100 BTC.  I trust ripper234 moderately well but if he pulled a "open bet 10,000 BTC with no escrow" obviously that goes beyond how much I trust him.  Obviously trust bonds would need to be revokable (maybe with a delay).  I trust ripper234 (to use him as an example) but if opened a "magic investing biz offering 7% per week" I should be able to revoke that trust.

For large transaction escrow is the only way to go.  Vlad made a 5,000 BTC bet but it was escrowed.  Neither party had to trust the other (although they did need to trust the escrow agent).  Where "trust-bonds" could be useful is smaller tx where the incentive to scam is less and the complexity and cost of an escrow is not worthwhile.  For example if I buy a Steam game from some seller for 2 BTC I am not going to escrow that.  Still if there are two sellers and one has a significant amount of trust-bonds pledged towards him well I probably would pick the more trusted one.

The issue still remains how do you handle disputes.  Still just kinda thinking out loud here but I could see a system of decentralized arbiters. Maybe people that are trusted enough can opt-in as an arbiter (collecting a fee for arbitration) and the system randomly selects arbiter in the case of a dispute.  If an arbiter acts in bad faith well there is a consequence, people could pull their trust-bonds and the bad arbiter not only is not longer an arbiter but also no longer is trusted by other traders.

The only bad thing is I can't see how this can be done completely decentralized.  Semi-decentralized maybe ...

Let's condese this:
Trust needs accountability.

[mobodick]

OP, in case you go through with the list i would suggest (with stress) to also collect data on the amount of BTC involved in the successfull transactions and present a mean.
That way you can know for what sum that person is generally trusted.

[Rassah]

[Evolvex]

Thanks for list, I'm glad I can look at that and at least see who "other" people are trusting at the moment.

On the note of insurance - I think thats possible, if it was underwriten correctly with the correct premium for the size of risk... why not - thats what insurance companies do today (I have worked as an insurance broker a long long time ago so do have a basic understanding of mechinisms involved... not that I can remember any of the specific's nowdays ).

I'd like to make that list one day, but there's time for that.

[mobodick]

Thanks for list, I'm glad I can look at that and at least see who "other" people are trusting at the moment.

On the note of insurance - I think thats possible, if it was underwriten correctly with the correct premium for the size of risk... why not - thats what insurance companies do today (I have worked as an insurance broker a long long time ago so do have a basic understanding of mechinisms involved... not that I can remember any of the specific's nowdays ).

I'd like to make that list one day, but there's time for that.

No, you will see which people ripper234 is trusting.
Then you'll have to consider whether you trust ripper234.

[Rassah]

There needs to be a "I know where you live" rating.  I suggest "IWKYL."

"I will kill you, later?"

[ripper234]

If anyone whom I don't currently know/trust wants to try and get me to add him to my ID column, you can try sending me some of these to ron.gross@gmail.com:


1. Good quality scan of ID/passport
2. Facebook/LinkedIn account
3. Any other details you think can help

I will of course keep any details you wish confidential.
I am not promising to add you to my ID trust list ... I will consider the entire "evidence pile" and choose whether it's sufficient for me, or not.

Adding this to the op.

[ripper234]

I am willing to sell insurance about certain people ... a subset of my FT list.
But why would you expect that I give such insurance for free?

I don't expect that you personally will give such insurance for free. But there are some situations where people might do this.

Two individuals might choose to mutually assure each other's performance. Or someone might agree to underwrite a retailer's performance in return for a discount at that retailer.

Mobodick thought that this kind of assurance was like Matthew's bet. It isn't. It's like how Matthew's bet would be if there was a whole web of assurance. Suppose Matthew's performance was underwritten by MagicalTux, Gavin Andresen and Vladimir, and furthermore that those guarantors' performance was underwritten by others. That would be enough to satisfy most people.

This. I want.

[ripper234]

OP, in case you go through with the list i would suggest (with stress) to also collect data on the amount of BTC involved in the successfull transactions and present a mean.
That way you can know for what sum that person is generally trusted.

What do you mean "in case"? The list is posted.

I am not currently comfortable with publicly exposing specific details like amount of BTC or other specific tx details. Even a mean tx amount is too much for my privacy needs.

Also, those parties have some privacy needs of their owns, which should be accounted for.

[ripper234]

There needs to be a "I know where you live" rating.  I suggest "IWKYL."

That list is currently too short ... I don't want to complicate things too much.

[mobodick]

If anyone whom I don't currently know/trust wants to try and get me to add him to my ID column, you can try sending me some of these to ron.gross@gmail.com:


1. Good quality scan of ID/passport
2. Facebook/LinkedIn account
3. Any other details you think can help

I will of course keep any details you wish confidential.
I am not promising to add you to my ID trust list ... I will consider the entire "evidence pile" and choose whether it's sufficient for me, or not.

Adding this to the op.

This way, you're creating a trust issue with yourself.

Why would you trust ID's and facebook accounts? They can be faked.
And as an extention to this, why would other people trust you trusting potentially fake ID's or facebook pages?
Can you actually check ID's and passports? If not they are worthless to you.

And why should people trust you with such information?
Because you said so in a forum post?
That's a pretty poor base for trust.

[mobodick]

OP, in case you go through with the list i would suggest (with stress) to also collect data on the amount of BTC involved in the successfull transactions and present a mean.
That way you can know for what sum that person is generally trusted.

What do you mean "in case"? The list is posted.

I am not currently comfortable with publicly exposing specific details like amount of BTC or other specific tx details. Even a mean tx amount is too much for my privacy needs.

Also, those parties have some privacy needs of their owns, which should be accounted for.

Yet such information is essential for assessing risk.
Such info is no good to me if i want to make a BTC3000 deal and the info is based on BTC0.5 deals.

[ripper234]

If anyone whom I don't currently know/trust wants to try and get me to add him to my ID column, you can try sending me some of these to ron.gross@gmail.com:


1. Good quality scan of ID/passport
2. Facebook/LinkedIn account
3. Any other details you think can help

I will of course keep any details you wish confidential.
I am not promising to add you to my ID trust list ... I will consider the entire "evidence pile" and choose whether it's sufficient for me, or not.

Adding this to the op.

Also, 4. Video chatting with me is another way to increase ID trust.

[Evolvex]

Thanks for list, I'm glad I can look at that and at least see who "other" people are trusting at the moment.

On the note of insurance - I think thats possible, if it was underwriten correctly with the correct premium for the size of risk... why not - thats what insurance companies do today (I have worked as an insurance broker a long long time ago so do have a basic understanding of mechinisms involved... not that I can remember any of the specific's nowdays ).

I'd like to make that list one day, but there's time for that.

No, you will see which people ripper234 is trusting.
Then you'll have to consider whether you trust ripper234.

Yes I stand corrected - very true indeed. I'd have more trust in someone that others show trust towards however, as supposed to a random that no one has any trust for - but ultimately yes, its down to who I actually trust (no one yet, I must admit lol).

[ripper234]

This way, you're creating a trust issue with yourself.

Why would you trust ID's and facebook accounts? They can be faked.
And as an extention to this, why would other people trust you trusting potentially fake ID's or facebook pages?
Can you actually check ID's and passports? If not they are worthless to you.

And why should people trust you with such information?
Because you said so in a forum post?
That's a pretty poor base for trust.

I said trust will be built on various types of evidence ... and I will be the final judge.
Forum posting history is also a strong indicator for me.

You are completely free not to trust my judgement.

As to why I consider the above as valid evidence, please check out Why I Trust Patrick Harnett. So far this trust has paid off for me.

[mobodick]

This way, you're creating a trust issue with yourself.

Why would you trust ID's and facebook accounts? They can be faked.
And as an extention to this, why would other people trust you trusting potentially fake ID's or facebook pages?
Can you actually check ID's and passports? If not they are worthless to you.

And why should people trust you with such information?
Because you said so in a forum post?
That's a pretty poor base for trust.

I said trust will be built on various types of evidence ... and I will be the final judge.
Forum posting history is also a strong indicator for me.

You are completely free not to trust my judgement.

As to why I consider the above as valid evidence, please check out Why I Trust Patrick Harnett. So far this trust has paid off for me.

Ok, but to the outside world it will all hinge on trusting you.
Can you take such a responsibility (or is it even reasonable to ask such a thing from someone) ?

[mobodick]

If anyone whom I don't currently know/trust wants to try and get me to add him to my ID column, you can try sending me some of these to ron.gross@gmail.com:


1. Good quality scan of ID/passport
2. Facebook/LinkedIn account
3. Any other details you think can help

You should at the very least provide this information about yourself to your users before you can put claim on any other persons information.
You use ID as a tool for ensuring a trust relation with the people on your list.
But how can users of the list ensure a trust relation between then and you without using the same tools on you?

[LoweryCBS]

There needs to be a "I know where you live" rating.  I suggest "IWKYL."

"I will kill you, later?"

Thread over. We have a winner.

[ripper234]

Ok, but to the outside world it will all hinge on trusting you.
Can you take such a responsibility (or is it even reasonable to ask such a thing from someone) ?

There is no responsibility being taken here - I am simply doing a public service by outing my views here.
Be an adult, and do your own homework.

You should at the very least provide this information about yourself to your users before you can put claim on any other persons information.
You use ID as a tool for ensuring a trust relation with the people on your list.
But how can users of the list ensure a trust relation between then and you without using the same tools on you?

Good idea, added to OP, except for photo ID scans ... it's not something I won't public, for obvious reasons.
People who don't know me can ask my references (I added some on the OP).

You can also email me (email >> pm) at ron.gross@gmail.com and ask for more clarifications ... I'm not saying I'll provide any, but you can ask

[ripper234]

Updated the list of possible evidence to include an ebay account in good standing.

[ripper234]

Added Ben Reeves AKA piuk, developer of blockchain.info and My Wallet (ID + FT)

[ripper234]

Added LoweryCBS with the ID flag.


I've also added this note to the doc:

Please note that trust is relative. E.g., ID means that I _think_ I know who this person is ... I am not giving any guarantees here, and I can make mistakes.
Use your own judgement!

[Monster Tent]

It would be nice if all the people who gave pirate a rating on #bitcoin-otc had their own level of trust downgraded when he defaulted.

There should be some consequence to rating someone who later turns out to be a scammer. Unfortunately the people who gave him 10 ratings had no consequence to those ratings at all.

[the_thing]

This

[ripper234]

Added an obvious omission - Jeff Garzik, a Bitcoin developer (ID + FT)

[cbeast]

http://www.mememaker.net/static/images/memes/707490.jpg
lol

[datafish]

What would be useful here is some form of zero-knowledge proof, where a person could prove that they are someone who has a real-life reputation in good standing without revealing their identity, unless they default on a contract.  Nothing against ripper234 (I applaud his efforts), but it seems to me that trusting someone to safeguard our ID in a centralized location takes us a step backwards.  That's what we already have in the existing banking system.  Can Ripple and Open Transactions be of benefit to us?

[ripper234]

Removed Patrick Harnett from the list for the time being - he owes people money for too long, and is considered to be in default.

[hazek]

Removed Patrick Harnett from the list for the time being - he owes people money for too long, and is considered to be in default.

I don't know if your list is a good idea. You giving your own opinion without any guarantees might mislead some people into trusting the individuals on your list causing them serious losses as it happened with Patrick Harnett. I think if you will vouch for others you should so so by offering an insurance. A simple list of who you think is trustworthy is at best worthless.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Removed Patrick Harnett from the list for the time being - he owes people money for too long, and is considered to be in default.

I don't know if your list is a good idea. You giving your own opinion without any guarantees might mislead some people into trusting the individuals on your list causing them serious losses as it happened with Patrick Harnett. I think if you will vouch for others you should so so by offering an insurance. A simple list of who you think is trustworthy is at best worthless.

The thing that many people don't seem to understand (and that I understood but failed to act upon) is that trust isn't a boolean thing. An FT for, say, Jeff Garzik means that if he has no liabilities and is requested to be an escrow for 100 BTC, the chances of a problem are close to 0, and for that the list is useful.

It does not mean that if the person borrows myriads of BTC for a suspicious purpose then the money is safe (the greater the total amount, the more the person has to gain by defaulting, and the crazier the offer, the worse the likelihood ratio for originating in a legitimate purpose). No trust table is enough to justify putting money into that. If someone would do that based on such a table, he'll lose his money somehow anyway, probably in an equal amount - and in this light the table doesn't really do any harm.

[cunicula]

- WD - I believe this person is a man of his word.

Pirate had plenty of "WD"-type trust. How about a trust metric that really means something:

BTCBTC - I believe this person is trustworthy and reliable, and I will reimburse anyone up to xxx BTC if this person is shown to be untrustworthy or unreliable.

What is the incentive to do that?  Honest question.  I could see something like that working but there has to be an incentive for the person making the vouch.  Otherwise it is risk x to gain 0 which is always a bad decision.   Interesting concept to monetize trust.  It makes me thing some system is there I just can't see it through the coffee starved fog in my brain.

The classic incentive in these types of systems is associative ostracism. See for example work by Avner Greif on Jewish trading communities in Europe.

The group maintains a list of people who are trustworthy. Anyone who is shown to violate that trust is ostracized. Anyone who does business with ostracized individuals is also ostracized.

This last issue is the new wrinkle. Strict guilt by association makes a web of trust much more powerful as an enforcement mechanism. Essentially you are giving up your own judgement to the community.
This makes unenforced community judgement powerful.

[stochastic]

I love how the wheel is constantly re-invented.

It is called a surety.  Say Alice wants to contract something with Bob, but Bob does not have any reputation.  Alice goes to Zack who guarantees that Bob will do what the contract says.  Alice transfers the risk of Bob not honoring the contract to Zack, whom charges a small fee for the accepting of that risk.

[ripper234]

Removed Patrick Harnett from the list for the time being - he owes people money for too long, and is considered to be in default.

I don't know if your list is a good idea. You giving your own opinion without any guarantees might mislead some people into trusting the individuals on your list causing them serious losses as it happened with Patrick Harnett. I think if you will vouch for others you should so so by offering an insurance. A simple list of who you think is trustworthy is at best worthless.

I might be interested in selling insurance regarding some of the people that have Financial Trust on my list, if anyone is interested.

The list, as it stands, is just my opinion, and of course should not be taken as the sole reason to trust these individuals.

Do your homework. Caveat Emptor.

[franky1]

wow de ja vu of how pirate began.

as soon as i read the first post talking about gaining trust, i thought. hmmm whats he going to sell me next.. a dozen posts later there it was..... insurance.

show a list of who he trusts.. then suddenly gets a big idea of how to make money out of the idea.. but this time not a bank. but insurance........

just a shame you done all of it in one single thread.

nice forum avatar of not a real face. along with the only other picture of you being in a skii mask only showing your eyes on your other links including your youtube.

you wont be in my circle of trust even if you do tweet about bitcoin in march 2011 to show you known about it longer then some others.

i trawled the internet and found other websites not listed on your links and found you have been removing pictures and replacing them all with your skii mask pic.
eg http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-il/members/14443048/ there were 4 pictures.. but now just 2 one is a birthday cake and the other 3 are the skii mask. even your youtube is limited to the skii mask pic.

may i suggest if your even considering becoming a business requesting money in exchange for trust then do a inaba, gavin andersen thing and show your full face atleast.

answer me this Ron Gross what is your real isreali name?

[ripper234]

FYI, here is a public photo of me:

http://excellence.technion.ac.il/Excellence/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&TMID=610&LNGID=1&FID=513&PID=870&IID=979

And my "real" name is very similar to the name I use on this forums.
Hint, it starts with "Ron" and ends with "Gross", and has nothing in between.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

as soon as i read the first post talking about gaining trust, i thought. hmmm whats he going to sell me next.. a dozen posts later there it was..... insurance.

You'll notice that ripper234 only mentioned insurance after it was pointed out it was expected of him. I don't think monetization was the purpose of starting this thread, but even if it was - so what? Is it wrong to do business anymore?

I agree though that if in fact monetization was the purpose, it should have been clarified from the start.

show a list of who he trusts.. then suddenly gets a big idea of how to make money out of the idea.. but this time not a bank. but insurance........

As someone who has sold Bitcoin-related sureties and lost from it, I can tell you it's not as profitable as you seem to think.

As stochastic mentioned sureties are hardly a new thing so a priori there's no reason to bash someone just for offering it, any more than if he were to sell, say, apples. One difference is that the insurer himself needs to enjoy a great deal of trust, as if the worst happens he needs to be able and willing to pay up the entire insured amount.

I trust ripper234 and I say he's definitely good for an insurance of, say, 100 BTC - and I'd be willing to offer second-level surety (Oh noes! I offered a service!). But if he were to have a total insurance liability of 10000 BTC I wouldn't recommend insuring with him, wouldn't give 2nd-level insurance, and wouldn't trust him myself with more money. Not yet, anyway.

nice forum avatar of not a real face. along with the only other picture of you being in a skii mask only showing your eyes on your other links including your youtube.

you wont be in my circle of trust even if you do tweet about bitcoin in march 2011 to show you known about it longer then some others.

i trawled the internet and found other websites not listed on your links and found you have been removing pictures and replacing them all with your skii mask pic.
eg http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-il/members/14443048/ there were 4 pictures.. but now just 2 one is a birthday cake and the other 3 are the skii mask. even your youtube is limited to the skii mask pic.

may i suggest if your even considering becoming a business requesting money in exchange for trust then do a inaba, gavin andersen thing and show your full face atleast.

answer me this Ron Gross what is your real isreali name?

Search harder.

He has a Facebook account. I have met him several times and can verify that the linked photo is of him. There are also videos online, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zIbbA8GrL4&playnext=1&list=PLs2y5QtCoQ9q4738Rti3O8AqoJ_DhnNm4&feature=results_video (it's in Hebrew, and due to bad camera positioning he's invisible through most of it).

I cannot say I am 100% certain his real name is Ron Gross, but the sign on the door of his apartment includes the name "Ron", and I have some evidence his last name is Gross (which I will not currently disclose due to privacy concerns)

Of course, if you believe we have a secret agenda you have no reason to listen to us both saying we trust each other. But if you trust one of us you should trust the other - within reason.

you wont be in my circle of trust even if you do tweet about bitcoin in march 2011 to show you known about it longer then some others.

How about the volume of his high-quality activity on the forum and bitcoin.stackexchange?

Anyway, shunning him for no apparent reason is your loss.

[franky1]

im not shunning anyone i just see too much of pirates story line.

nothing wrong with doing a business but hopefully he atleast read some isreali laws on the matter.

and its not my loss at all. i have done well getting bitcoins and litecoins without his insurance, never been scammed yet. So there is no loss to me by not using his service.

i agree with the first part of the post about their needing to be a proper credit rating/reputation system for some people to go by. as the bitcoin -otc is flawed with people gaining rep by buying rep points at 1btc a time, making it not true rep. even btc-jam can get a 8/10 with false information.

a new, better and less flawed rating system is needed... that i agree on. even if i don't trade with individuals.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

So there is no loss to me by not using his service.

I still think it's funny you refer to something he mentioned in passing after being called on it as "his service".

i agree with the first part of the post about their needing to be a proper credit rating/reputation system for some people to go by. as the bitcoin -otc is flawed with people gaining rep by buying rep points at 1btc a time, making it not true rep. even btc-jam can get a 8/10 with false information.

a new, better and less flawed rating system is needed... that i agree on. even if i don't trade with individuals.

I agree that bitcoin-otc WoT is powerless against true con artists. But the reason we don't have a proper rating system - not just in Bitcoin, but at all - is that doing such a thing is fundamentally hard. Even the rating system of established markets such as eBay is a joke (and even if you try to fix it in the obvious ways you still don't have something very good). You have to rely on approximations such as ripper234's list, read up on the person in question, and use your own judgement taking into account his total liabilities and the legitimacy of his offer.