4 ms·

What's stopping someone putting a lot of money on an insurance policy then calling in a fake bomb threat on the plane? Pretty low risk way to make money from a

What's stopping someone putting a lot of money on an insurance policy then calling in a fake bomb threat on the plane? Pretty low risk way to make money from anywhere in the world.

kpi 10y ago
the total amount of payouts per flight is limited as well as premiums and individual payouts. there is a non-negligible legal risk of such action and the payout limits in the end will converge to the price of the risk someone is going to take.
- Scirra_Tom 10y ago
  The legal risk is zero for someone who is out of the jurisdiction of the US completely (eg in some developing country). Ironically, your system is meant to help compensate people when delays to flights occur yet to me it looks like you've built something that strongly incentivises people to cause more disruption to flights.
  - kpi 10y ago
    Finding the right balance of incentives needs some trial and error. The discussions are not new and well known e.g. with generic prediction markets like Augur or Gnosis. I think we will find a way to deal with those issues. Experiments like these will help us (and society in general) to come to the right conclusions. Of course we should be careful not to cause too much harm on the way. Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/529o5p/flightdelay_dapp_one_of_the_first_fullfledged/d7jis7t https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/529o5p/flightdela... and the discussion there.
  - kpi 10y ago
    also note that there is an easy workaround to limit this which essentially is the difference between a bet and an insurance: check if the user has a valid ticket for the flight.
    - Scirra_Tom 10y ago
      I'm not well versed in Ethereum, but this sounds like creep towards the solutions we already have today.
      - kpi 10y ago
        I think the design space is much larger than what we have today, and blockchain applications surely have interesting features it might be worth exploring in that space.
cmussenbr 10y ago
Interesting discussion! 1. Indeed, we already have many incentives to stop planes by fake threats, and it does not happen. 2. The problem of moral hazard is present in all insurance economies. Of course, this has to be solved. 3. Part of the solution will be a P2P approach, limiting the payout to people who themselves have "skin in the game". We will elaborate on these topics in the next time (disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of the FlightDelay DApp)

What's stopping someone putting a lot of money on an insurance policy then calling in a fake bomb threat on the plane? Pretty low risk way to make money from anywhere in the world.

kpi 10y ago

the total amount of payouts per flight is limited as well as premiums and individual payouts. there is a non-negligible legal risk of such action and the payout limits in the end will converge to the price of the risk someone is going to take.

Scirra_Tom 10y ago
The legal risk is zero for someone who is out of the jurisdiction of the US completely (eg in some developing country). Ironically, your system is meant to help compensate people when delays to flights occur yet to me it looks like you've built something that strongly incentivises people to cause more disruption to flights.
- kpi 10y ago
  Finding the right balance of incentives needs some trial and error. The discussions are not new and well known e.g. with generic prediction markets like Augur or Gnosis. I think we will find a way to deal with those issues. Experiments like these will help us (and society in general) to come to the right conclusions. Of course we should be careful not to cause too much harm on the way. Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/529o5p/flightdelay_dapp_one_of_the_first_fullfledged/d7jis7t https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/529o5p/flightdela... and the discussion there.
- kpi 10y ago
  also note that there is an easy workaround to limit this which essentially is the difference between a bet and an insurance: check if the user has a valid ticket for the flight.
  - Scirra_Tom 10y ago
    I'm not well versed in Ethereum, but this sounds like creep towards the solutions we already have today.
    - kpi 10y ago
      I think the design space is much larger than what we have today, and blockchain applications surely have interesting features it might be worth exploring in that space.

cmussenbr 10y ago

Interesting discussion! 1. Indeed, we already have many incentives to stop planes by fake threats, and it does not happen. 2. The problem of moral hazard is present in all insurance economies. Of course, this has to be solved. 3. Part of the solution will be a P2P approach, limiting the payout to people who themselves have "skin in the game". We will elaborate on these topics in the next time (disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of the FlightDelay DApp)