At 08:24 PM 3/9/99 GMT, you wrote:
>On Tue, 09 Mar 1999 19:36:24 +0000 Ian Clarke <I.Clarke nospam at ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>> In the initial discussions I suggested that the first person to submit a
>> CD entry has their email address stored. If someone else attempts to
>> change this entry then the first person gets sent an email and is
>> invited to reject the new entry if it is not serious. A person can also
>> elect to resign as the "guardian" of particular database entries.
>This is open to abuse too---what if the first person is up to no good?
>And I'm not sure I would want my email address publicised in quite
>this way. Remember that the data in the servers must be public, so you
>couldn't keep the addresses secret. Spammers' heaven!
>
>But having the ability to trace entries is useful. With something like
>a public key signature, well-respected contributors could unforgably
>sign their entries. Clients could then give preference to those entries
>whose contributors they have been instructed to trust over ``competing''
>entries. The assignment of trust has to be up to the individual user,
>but the process can be almost transparent: whenever you download an
>entry, you have the option of saying whether you think the quality of
>this entry is especially good or bad. Gradually, your client builds
>up a list of people you think write good entries. Then if a new query
>returns multiple entries, your client may be better able to pick the
>one you will think best.
>
>To automate the trust mechanism further, when you see a good entry,
>you could ``second'' it, adding your signature to the original author's
>(or vote against it). People who trust you will then be able to benefit
>from your judgement of others. I imagine that a few well-known groups
>would evolve to act as database police---but rememeber that they can't
>throw out entries; merely say that they think the entries are no good.
>If no-one listens to them, they are ineffective. Unfortunately, this does
>not protect the servers from a malicious flooding attack, but it does
>go some way to protecting the clients.
>
>To take it even further (and imitate another good idea from PGP) users
>could submit their own trust lists to the database. Then, when you find
>someone who you think is reliable and (transitively) you trust to make
>reliability judgements, you can merge their trust list with your own.
>A web of trust is quickly established. But this issue is rather beyond
>the realm of current discussion and more like the subject for a PhD:-)
>
>I presume the existing cddb solves this by having what amounts to a
>moderator? Is this another single point of failure? If so, we definitely
>need to come up with a workable alternative.
>
>Robin.
>--
>R.M.O'Leary <robin nospam at acm.org> +44 7010 7070 44, PO Box 20, Swansea SA2 8YB, UK
>
>
-----
Jason Dufair
funne nospam at iquest.net
http://www.iquest.net/~funne
http://www.iquest.net/~funne/jdufair.asc for PGP public key.
"A laugh for the newsprint nightmare, a world that never was
Where the questions are all 'why' and the answers are all 'because'"
-Bruce Cockburn