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It's an unfortunate side effect of free currency; we have to accept it in order to be free ourselves.
It's a neutral side effect of free currency; we can choose to accept it in order to be free ourselves.
Topic: I could just kill for some Bitcoins - page 3. (Read 8155 times)
It's a neutral side effect of free currency; we can choose to accept it in order to be free ourselves.
At least on such market the potential victims would see that someone wants to kill them.
Which is exactly why no-one with half a brain would use such markets, unless maybe to intimidate.
At least on such market the potential victims would see that someone wants to kill them.
As I said in my openmarket.org post here:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12978.0
The "what if bitcoin is used for" argument or hypothetical scenario exists for any action that can be financed by cash. The reason of course, is that bitcoin is the same as cash - with some nice crypto improvements, for starters.
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12978.0
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Circling back to bitcoin, I submit to you that any objection you can come up with equally applies to
cash, since both exist in digital and physical form (bitbills) and have the same problems (used for legal
and illegal transactions).
cash, since both exist in digital and physical form (bitbills) and have the same problems (used for legal
and illegal transactions).
The "what if bitcoin is used for
If you want to kill someone with bitcoins, you first need to get those bitcoins, normally through money laundering. For examplo you could create or use a webpage like http://spendbitcoins.com/ to spend the money on bitcoins. Now you have clean bitcoins to pay. You use tor so they can't trace you, of course. You pay the assasin in bitcoins through clearcoin, the job is done and you are a happy bastard 
that isnt how assassination markets work at all. 
I've named my description an "assassination bounty" because I think it's the best approximation of what's likely to be implemented using existing technology.
I'm not proposing assassination as a state policy, rather a democratic version that could be used to punish corrupt leaders and noisy neighbours.
For anyone not familiar with this concept, please read Assassination Politics (in its entirety).
An assassination market such as this requires a few things: Blinded digital currency, public key cryptography, and preferably an anonymizing network such as Tor. Though this latter is optional; in theory this market could be run completely above board, out in the open, on a .com with a Las Vegas storefront, even. With a secretary who moonlights at the Bunny Ranch. But the anonymous currency is not optional.
An assassination market such as this requires a few things: Blinded digital currency, public key cryptography, and preferably an anonymizing network such as Tor. Though this latter is optional; in theory this market could be run completely above board, out in the open, on a .com with a Las Vegas storefront, even. With a secretary who moonlights at the Bunny Ranch. But the anonymous currency is not optional.
that isnt how assassination markets work at all.
In light of the recent Silk Road controversy, I'd like to up the ante and go a bit further via a thought experiment.
A Tor onion site could be created that would trade assassination bounties instead of home made meth. The idea is clearly enabled by cryptocurency and was anticipated and even embraced by early cryptoanarchists such as Tim May.
This it how it could work:
I'm not passing any moral judgements yet and I've tried to describe the topic in an objective manner. What's is your opinion ?
A Tor onion site could be created that would trade assassination bounties instead of home made meth. The idea is clearly enabled by cryptocurency and was anticipated and even embraced by early cryptoanarchists such as Tim May.
This it how it could work:
- Killing bids are accepted for well defined people, for example POTUS or your neighbour
- Bids are cumulated by the market software in a public wallet that can be audited via the blockchain; if many people pledge money, the pot could grow considerably
- Would-be-assassins would write a .txt description of the intended assassination plan that should be as detailed as possible, including date, method etc.
- They would hash this .txt and, before the assassination, publish the hash signed with their wallet private key; the onion site would list all hashes published
- After a successful whack the killer publishes the original .txt description which can be hashed by anyone thus proving that the owner of the wallet is the killer (no other party could have known the details of the murder in advance)
- The bidders would vote if the killer's description is considered adequate, and if the funds are to be released to his wallet; this can be automated via Bitcoin's transaction scripting support
- Alternatively, the onion site could perform the arbitration, while retaining a fee; after a few successful kills it would become a steady revenue stream, thus incentivizing the onion site to do good job during arbitration and protect it's business from competitors
I'm not passing any moral judgements yet and I've tried to describe the topic in an objective manner. What's is your opinion ?
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