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Meet the 'Assassination Market' Creator Who's Crowdfunding Murder With Bitcoins
schwit1 writes "As Silk Road emerged from the 'dark-web', other sites have appeared offering services that are frowned upon by most. As Forbes reports, perhaps the most-disturbing is 'The Assassination Market' run by a pseudonymous Kuwabatake Sanjuro. The site, remarkably, is a crowdfunding service that lets anyone anonymously contribute bitcoins towards a bounty on the head of any government official–a kind of Kickstarter for political assassinations. As Forbes reports, NSA Director Alexander and President Obama have a BTC40 bounty (~$24,000) but the highest bounty — perhaps not entirely surprising — is BTC 124.14 (~$75,000) for none other than Ben Bernanke."
Odds are you're going to be dead immediately after, so what good does the money do you?
guaranteed to get the whole government in on breaking the Bitcoin chain, as well as getting your ass parked in a Federal prison for a whole lot of years. it's so idiotic that it has to be a government operation to suck in idiots who are looking for jail time.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It is pretty straight forward how it will work.
1) People send in money.
2) After a while the site closes down.
3) Person that put up the site earns a nice profit.
The only disturbing part is the guy did it so early, someone with real planning would of waited for the US Presidential election and then really brought in the money.
I feel like I have been put on the list just for reading this. But then I realize I'm already on the list for everything else I read on the internet.
I would be expecting the NSA to be cracking Bitcoin / TOR as we speak to prosecute people for material support of terrorism.
I'm fairly sure they don't charge agents running a honeypot...
Who was the US politician who openly called for Assange to be assassinated? They've not collected him from Washington and shipped him to Guantanamo yet I see!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Political violence doesn't work to actually implement social change. It only plays into the hands of authoritarians who rule by fear, in this case fear of you. Kill Bernanke, and they have a great propaganda tool against your cause. And they can replace Bernanke with no trouble. And you haven't actually done anything to harm the people whose interests Bernanke is protecting.
There is an excellent essay on the topic, dating from the 1970s, titled You Can't Blow up a Social Relationship. From the preamble:
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Seems to me that the creator of that site is shortsighted in how he or she confirms who the assassin is. Namely, that the assassin has to be able to specify the date of death prior to the death. That task if fairly easy for a large number of ways of committing murder. But not always possible. For instance.
1. Poison
2. Opportunity - Assassin may be in a position where he or she has multiple chances of contact with the target, but is unable to predict exactly when the contact would be suitable for the actual assassination.
Frankly, the motive of the site creator is rather foolish and childish. Given this paragraph in the original article:
Sanjuro's grisly ambitions go beyond raising the funds to bankroll a few political killings. He believes that if Assassination Market can persist and gain enough users, it will eventually enable the assassinations of enough politicians that no one would dare to hold office. He says he intends Assassination Market to destroy "all governments, everywhere."
it seems to me that Sanjuro is advocating world wide anarchy.
I personally, don't like most governments, however total anarchy is worse than the government we currently have. Frankly, we need something to hold in check the various sociopathic assholes that from time to time attack other people. We need public services such as fire, police, sanitation, sewers, water, etc. There's a lot of infrastructure that frankly needs a government. And even well balanced, social people from time to time will disagree with each other. And said disagreements will from time to time get quite acrimonious. Hence the courts.
Frankly, Sanjuro is either a nutcase, or a honeypot. In either case, it would be best to avoid him.
But compared to these people, the worst in American government are like boy scouts
Not really. One example you gave was "anyone from a Mexican drug cartel". But mexican drug cartels are only dangerous because drugs are illegal. Those who vote to keep drugs illegal are just as responsible for those deaths as the cartels are. Further, they're responsible for every death caused by impure drugs, or drugs of unknown concentration.
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For every assassination bounty hosted they should also host a corresponding anti-assassination bounty. The assassin would be paid the net pro-assassination value, that is, the difference between the two bounties, and the bounty hosting site would keep the remainder. For opposing interests of equal magnitude in a bidding war this would be hugely profitable for the bounty hosting site and also result in nobody actually getting assassinated. It would also be more equitable because it represents the opinions of both pro-assassination and anti-assassination sides, not just the pro-assassination side.
Though seriously, the entire subject is revolting. Almost every American, love Obama or hate Obama, love Bush or hate Bush, agrees that they do not want their President to be assassinated. Despite disagreements in American politics, there are essential fundamental core values which unite us all, and that we do not assassinate our leaders is one of them.
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If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. - Cardinal Richelieu
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