"Dark Web" Exposes $75,000 Bitcoin-Based Bounty For Bernanke's Assassination

[Lucille]

Oh boy.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-...-bitcoin-based-bounty-bernankes-assassination

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 pseudnymous Kuwabatake Sanjuro. The site, remarkably, 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. Sanjuro's raison d'etre is chilling, "as a few politicians gets offed and they realize they’ve lost the war on privacy, the killings can stop and we can transition to a phase of peace, privacy and laissez-faire."

As Bitcoin becomes an increasingly popular form of digital cash, the cryptocurrency is being accepted in exchange for everything from socks to sushi to heroin. If one anarchist has his way, it’ll soon be used to buy murder, too.



...



For now, the site’s rewards are small but not insignificant. In the four months that Assassination Market has been online, six targets have been submitted by users, and bounties have been collected ranging from ten bitcoins for the murder of NSA director Keith Alexander and 40 bitcoins for the assassination of President Barack Obama to 124.14 bitcoins–the largest current bounty on the site–targeting Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve and public enemy number one for many of Bitcoin’s anti-banking-system users. At Bitcoin’s current rapidly rising exchanges rate, that’s nearly $75,000 for Bernanke’s would-be killer.



...



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.”



“I believe it will change the world for the better,” writes Sanjuro, who shares his handle with the nameless samurai protagonist in the Akira Kurosawa film “Yojimbo.” (He tells me he chose it in homage to creator of the online black market Silk Road, who called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts, as well Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.) ”Thanks to this system, a world without wars, dragnet panopticon-style surveillance, nuclear weapons, armies, repression, money manipulation, and limits to trade is firmly within our grasp for but a few bitcoins per person. I also believe that as soon as a few politicians gets offed and they realize they’ve lost the war on privacy, the killings can stop and we can transition to a phase of peace, privacy and laissez-faire.”

Read more here...

Of course - this will likely be another reason for TPTB to ban bitcoin...

The reporter contacted the Secret Service and the FBI to ask if they’re investigating Assassination Market, and both declined to comment.

 

[Nic]

I'm not saying its right, but people have been offed for stealing less.

 

[Christian Liberty]

I'm not saying its right either, but maybe finally something will actually b e done. If I became President I'd definitely pardon anyone who was proven to have participated in this.

That said, wouldn't accepting the reward basically be admitting guilt?

 

[Petar]

I'm calling shenanigans. How would the assassin possibly prove that he was the one who did it in order to collect his bounty? The whole thing makes no sense and only really works to promote the narrative that BTC is for crime and nothing else.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Just noticed the link says bitcoin will be used to buy "murder." That isn't the case. Juistice is whart is being bought, not murder.

I don't honestly really know what to do at this point. No, I'm not going to participate in this. But, I think stealing trillions of dollars from millions of people (Bernake and the FED), spying on millions of people with legal protection (NSA), or droning little children overseas who never did anything to us (Obama) are all crimes that are worthy of death. Now, I understand a trial is ideal, but we're talking about the people that own the courts here. What else are we supposed to do? Convince everyone that government is bad? Vote in the right people? Yeah, right.

As I said, I don't want anything to do with this personally. I'm not sure when, if ever, violence is truly "right" in the moral sense of that word. That's still something I'm working through. As sickening as the followers make me, as little compassion as I have on them, I definitely don't advocate killing them. So I definitely think the TSA shooter or the like was misguided. But this? You're talking about the masterminds here. If they aren't culpable to a level that they deserve to die, I don't know who is.

And even if ultimately this is immoral, it could potentially nonetheless be a blessing. You're talking about something that could undermine the foundations of statism here.

I do have two concerns though. First of all, this is going to be made into a "libertarians are terrorists" meme, even though I can't imagine how killing a terrorist could be "terrorism" in any meaningful sense. Second of all, I could imagine it being used to one-off someone who actually is helping. Rand Paul might not be an anarchist like this guy is, or Amash, or Massie, or those like them, but they are helping liberty. I seriously, seriously hope they have the common sense never to use it on candidates like that, people who might not be "100% pure" and who certainly deserve criticsm at times, but are nonetheless helping.

I'm honestly curious what Ron Paul's take here would be. I know he wouldn't endorse it, but I'm curious if he'd categorically condemn it or not. I know Walter Block has already said things to the effect of certain politicians committing crimes to the point where they warrant execution and I think he'd probably agree that these types of people would qualify. So I think the consistent libertarian position here would be at least to say, you know what, regardless of the morality of this thing, government shot first and this is retalitation, not an NAP violation.

 

[Christian Liberty]

I'm calling shenanigans. How would the assassin possibly prove that he was the one who did it in order to collect his bounty? The whole thing makes no sense and only really works to promote the narrative that BTC is for crime and nothing else.

Yeah, I said that too, I'm not sure how that would work. Maybe he could prove it, but if he could, so is law enforcement.

That said, I'm glad some people are angry enough to do SOMETHING. And frankly, the Founders revolted, and killed common soldiers (let alone politicians) for far less than what we suffer under now. So I really can't write this off as "extreme" either.

 

[dannno]

I'm calling shenanigans. How would the assassin possibly prove that he was the one who did it in order to collect his bounty? The whole thing makes no sense and only really works to promote the narrative that BTC is for crime and nothing else.

Ya you would almost have to give them your wallet address and the approximate time and location where you intend to do it beforehand, then if you succeed they could put the coin in the wallet that you specified.

However at that point if they are the feds, then you basically just told them about your plot and they are about to turn you into the next gun control patsy.

 

[muh_roads]

OMG we must ban this! Bounties were never possible with dollars before!

derp

 

[kpitcher]

Ben Bernanke has a 124 BTC bounty on his head

a new dark net assassin for hire website has sprung up.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygre...eator-whos-crowdfunding-murder-with-bitcoins/

Obama has a 40 btc bounty
Bernanke is the highest with 124

I hope this is some twisted joke website.

 

[Reason]

Great PR for Bitcoins...

 

[kpitcher]

I'm calling shenanigans. How would the assassin possibly prove that he was the one who did it in order to collect his bounty? The whole thing makes no sense and only really works to promote the narrative that BTC is for crime and nothing else.

I read the report - the directions are you

- write a text with date and how a person dies
- Then you encrypt text with a type of crypt and send the site a hash of the file along with your 1BTC. The site doesn't know the text file just that one was made with your bet
- If/when the person dies how you said, you send the site the clear text that can be verified how the crypt was made. If it was how you said you get the reward.


Oddly enough two intel engineers published papers on this before. Weird stuff.

 

[FindLiberty]

No.

 

[Petar]

I read the report - the directions are you

- write a text with date and how a person dies
- Then you encrypt text with a type of crypt and send the site a hash of the file along with your 1BTC. The site doesn't know the text file just that one was made with your bet
- If/when the person dies how you said, you send the site the clear text that can be verified how the crypt was made. If it was how you said you get the reward.


Oddly enough two intel engineers published papers on this before. Weird stuff.

Oh shit, I guess that sounds like it would actually work.

Damn, may God help us all I guess...