# kaal:claim:3266953-033

**Claim.** Sockpuppet accounts grow their reputation value much faster than honest users can in a Web of Trust, because sockpuppets validate each other, and the system is therefore flawed and should not be used where fungible currency is at stake.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- web of trust style reputation used by many distributed ledger startups

**Source quote.**

> However, sockpuppet accounts can grow their value much quicker in the web of trust by validating each other. Honest users are much slower than the sockpuppets validating each other. Hence, the system is flawed.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Gopinath Sivalingam, *Reputation Protocol for the Internet of Trust - Conceptual Whitepaper* (2018), Sockpuppet Protocol, page 21

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Gopinath Sivalingam, Reputation Protocol for the Internet of Trust - Conceptual Whitepaper (2018). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3266953

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `781758dea356e55d79c73ad7f1debe7c83de398bd1cd9e0a9a6c2802f276b4c0` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20et%20al.%20-%202018%20-%20Reputation%20Protocol%20for%20the%20Internet%20of%20Trust%20-%20Conceptual%20Whitepaper.pdf

**Failure mode.** sockpuppets outpace honest validation  (family: sybil-and-identity-attack)

**Topics.** reputation, tokenomics, decentralization, blockchain

**Keywords.** web-of-trust, sockpuppet, reputation-inflation, distributed-ledger

**Related claims.**

- restated_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782210-008
- extended_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782210-026
- restated_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3405401-028
- restated_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3411897-035

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.