MojoNation has great promise. It's a nuts and bolts attempt to put the old cypherpunk ideas into action: micropayments for data transfers, reputation servers, all those ideas which we have bullshitted about for years. All open source. This is a project which cypherpunks should get behind. Don't the Mojo payment concepts beg to be married with the anonymous distribution system of Freenet? URLs to try: http://www.mojonation.net/ http://mojonation.sourceforge.net/ http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=8340 This one works today, and has pre-built binaries, for Linux, Debian and Win 98: ftp://ftp.mad-scientist.com/pub/mojonation/ Some comments from mojonation/evil/README, of cypherpunk relevance. : Core Technology : : Mojo Nation consists of a worldwide pool of agents performing various : functions: e.g., polling, tracking, publishing, or storage. Each agent : works on behalf of the user, trying to maximize value for the user and : responding to a standard set of messages depending on its role in the : system -- these roles will evolve to fit the needs of Mojo Nation users. : : Each interaction between agents across Mojo Nation involves some exchange : of Mojo. Every request, response, or action performed by one agent for : another has a cost -- since each transaction requires a trade of Mojo, : it makes the system resistant to "denial of service" vandalism (the : attackers have to pay the victims!). : : Mojo Payment System: The Mojo Nation barter system combines an : e-cash-like micropayment system with peer-to-peer microcredit. The : "bank" -- or comptroller agent -- maintains a record of each account : balance and mints "digital coins" as requested by the user's "broker" : (another agent). These digital coins are used to settle debt within the : Mojo Nation economy, but it is only necessary to mint coins when one party : in a peer-to-peer transaction exceeds his available credit with the other, : so bank involvement makes up just a small fraction of total Mojo dealings. : : The bank keeps a list of current accounts and their balances, but each : account is not directly linked to a single user identity. Users may open : multiple accounts at the bank that can be used for different purposes, : each held under a different public-key pseudonym. In addition to one's : bank accounts, the user who wishes to buy Mojo with -- or sell Mojo for : -- real dollars must establish an account with the AZI payment system : that is tied to a real-world identity. : : Reputations: One of the cornerstones of Mojo Nation is a flexible and : lightweight reputation system that is used for a variety of functions. An : agent's reputation -- digital certificates that describe the agent's : history -- will be assessed automatically in areas like quality of service : (for instance, latency and dropped packets), while users can rate content : downloaded from the agent according to criteria such as whether or not : the content was well described. : : The fundamental reputation in the Mojo Nation system is credit : rating. Every agent is associated with some bank account, with a credit : rating that expresses the average flow of Mojo through the account (that : is, how much business does this account transact through Mojo Nation) : and whether the account has ever tried to spend the same coin twice. This : credit rating, along with reputation information culled from third-party : reputation servers, will determine how much credit one Mojo Nation agent : may grant to another at the start of a conversation and even the cost : of services. : : Each agent in the system will maintain its own local database of : reputations, including a list of other agents with which it has : communicated and information about these conversations. For example, : if there was a failure sending a message within the system, or if one : agent tried to cheat another by not delivering information, the parties : should neither run a fraud detection protocol nor consult a third party : for resolution. Instead, the agent will lessen the local reputation of : the other, and complete the desired transaction with a different agent. : : Third-party agents working as "reputation servers" can poll subscribers : for their opinions on the reputation of a particular agent, then merge : the local reputation databases into global reputations which could be : sold. Several reputation servers will operate throughout Mojo Nation, : each keeping track of specific aspects of the service and passing : relevant information on to other agents. Eventually, those agents that : try to cheat their peers will find that few want to talk to them, and : those that will conduct a conversation with them take a higher toll in : Mojo. As in any informal social structure without central authority, : the only real punishment is banishment. : : By combining reputations with the payment system, Mojo Nation creates : alternatives for users about quality of service and privacy/anonymity. The : user might click the "faster" button on the client, after which the : brokering agent spends more Mojo to make multiple requests for the : desired data, or to increase the priority of those requests in the remote : queue. The broker might also pay more Mojo to retrieve the data from : servers with reputations for low latency (which therefore charge more : for the good reputation). To heighten privacy and anonymity, the user : may elect to have the broker spend more Mojo to chain requests through : several relay servers and obscure their source or destination.
