Yes, TankGirl, I see what you are getting at. But you are still describing what ultimately is a hot list. Basically, people who know you (in the cryptographic sense), know who you are when they see you, is what it boils down to. I never said THAT was difficult or impossible or impractical, and has been done for content in the form of FreeNet. There only two tricky things here: uniquely and permanently idenfifying users so there are no collisions, and doing it securely so you can't be impersonated, via some private/public key scheme. And second, actually finding users on the network in an efficient way. I think it just hasn't been done on a large scale yet because there was no demand for it (and I'd say, still isn't).
But expanding this idea to identities, where ANYONE (not just people who know you) can determine and verify your identity. I'm sure there is much research and development going on in that area.
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