Quote from: JoelKatz on October 03, 2012, 03:35:39 AM

Quote from: Maged on October 03, 2012, 02:36:57 AM

Message sent to Nefario:

Quote

Ok, one last thing. If you don't want a scammer tag, you need to agree to do/implement one of the following:

1) Publicly agree to accept ALL liability for double-spent codes and codes that Goat may not have, but were issued anyway.
2) Recall all of the codes and reissue some kind of private keys, giving the public key list (with their corresponding claim codes from before) to Goat. Personally, I suggest using Bitcoin private keys:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112551.msg1240911#msg1240911
3) Come to an agreement with Goat to relist his assets.

You have one week to announce one of these options or similar, and one month to implement it. If you need more time than that, let me know along with the reason why.

1) The problem with this solution is that accepting liability may not mean he actually makes good on that liability. Goat would actually have to pay out funds relying on Nefario to make good on his acceptance of liability. It's not clear that this acceptance would be binding on the asset holders either, so if Nefario reneges, Goat could still be left with liability. So Goat can only redeem based on this acceptance of liability if he believes Nefario will make good on it. (And how would this even work? Someone goes to Goat with a code, Goat sends them to Nefario saying the code is not on his list. Nefario says "that's a made up code that I never issued". They now go back to Goat and complain that Nefario lied and they were in fact issued that code. Does Nefario have to make good on this? If not, how does Goat know Nefario didn't steal the asset? If so, an unlimited number of people can scam Nefario and he'd have no choice but to renege on his acceptance.)

2) The problem with this solution is that that's just another unilateral imposition of a broken redemption scheme on Goat, just a slightly less broken one. It still causes substantially the same problems. Two people can still come to Goat with possession of the same private key. Goat still has to decide whether to redeem twice or once. If twice, he's still getting massive liability crammed down his throat that he never agreed to accept. If once, then he's still taking the risk of being branded a scammer if Nefario issues the same code to two people, and he'll never even know whether it was Nefario or the claimant is lying. (Consider the same scenario as in 1 above.)

So two of your proposed solutions can't work. I don't think anyone has any business trying to coerce either side into accepting specific solutions and there's no sense in pressuring one side to agree to a solution the other side won't agree to -- how does that help? If they can't *agree* on a solution, we need to evaluate whether that's because either of them is scamming. (Unless Goat agreed to 1 and 2 above, in which case, he's a fool, but congrats on brilliant mediating. But if he didn't, what good is getting Nefario to agree to things Goat will, and should, never agree to?)

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was just a bad decision on your part. But several people have already told me privately that they believe you are conspiring with Nefario to appear to pressure him into an agreement that we all know Goat won't accept to shift the blame to Goat. I hope that's not true and that this was just an honest lapse in judgment.

Honestly I just think he got carried away by perceived "technical brilliance" in his solution. Because he's a geek. For some reason people have a lot of difficulty with the simple notion that finance is not for geeks, it's for finance people. Even in a new, technologically brilliant, geeky new currency.

And guess what, if tomorrow we colonize Venus the law of the land up on Venus will still be some derivation of Roman law. Even if the Romans never marched to Venus.