If that's not a "Sybil attack", I don't know what is.
Agreed.
So to help you with that regrettable shortcoming, I stopped by Wikipedia and snagged this:
Quote
In a Sybil attack the attacker subverts the reputation system of a peer-to-peer network by creating a large number of pseudonymous identities, using them to gain a disproportionately large influence. A reputation system's vulnerability to a Sybil attack depends on how cheaply identities can be generated, the degree to which the reputation system accepts inputs from entities that do not have a chain of trust linking them to a trusted entity, and whether the reputation system treats all entities identically.
BitShares delegates are known to the community and produce services or products of value. They work with others in the community who know them. They publish original thinking where it can be reviewed under their own name. They reveal their own public identities.
"Vulnerability to a Sybil attack depends on how cheaply identities can be generated"
There is nothing cheap about earning the trust of the BitShares community. Even the number one delegate, Toast, took many days to get voted in.
Thus, over time, the reputations of the Top 101 will become uncounterfeitable. Before long, most slots will be held by small businesses who have established business level reputations.
Not that we trust opaque businesses any further than we can drop kick one of their executives, but the role of a delegate is so extremely limited and transparent that it is not possible to deviate from proper behavior without detection. There is no dark place where a delegate can hide bad behavior. Yet we can hold them accountable because of the size of their footprint in the real world.
You cannot hold an anonymous sock puppet accountable. You cannot fire one that is easy to recreate. But you can fire one that took a long time to create and fight its way into the top 101.
And that makes all the difference.
I think I could make a pretty good argument that delegates' "real world" identities being known by the community doesn't really matter or prevent a "Sybil attack". Imo, what would constitute a "Sybil attack" is the collusion of delegates' motives. I'm also pretty positive that the colluding delegates wouldn't "harm" the Bitshares' ecosystem, but instead use their power to manipulate delegate elections to capitalize on the delegate positions. Everybody can know everyones' name, but it's impossible to know their true intentions.