Payee identity verification When reading the Bitcoin paper by Satoshi, I noticed that he didn't mention any protocol by which the payer can verify the payee's identity, i.e. he is indeed paying the intended recipient. I would be much obliged if somebody can give me an idea on how does it work in real-life transactions or point me towards some definitive article. Since as far as I know, bitcoin doesn't use any central trusted party, so basic digital signature can be vulnerable to MITM attack.

Thank you.
BIP 70 addresses the issue in merchant/customer use cases:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki

As to individuals I guess there's still room for improvement. Meanwhile check out the following website:

http://onename.io

It's worth noting that by using a single address anonymity is basically thrown away (e.g. everybody can see your balance).