16.16.2. This topic came up several times on then Extropians mailing list, where David Friedman (author of "The Machinery of Freedom" and son of Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman) and Robin Hanson debated this with me.
16.16.3. Doug Cutrell summarized the concerns of many when he wrote:
- "...the
availability of truly secure anonymity, strong encryption, and untraceable digital
cash could allow contract killing to be an openly conducted business. For example,
an anonymous news post announces a public key which is to be used to encode
a contract kill order, along with a digital cash payment. The person placing
the contract need only anonymously place the encrypted message in alt.test.
Perhaps it is even possible to make it impossible to tell that the message was
encrypted with the contract killer's public key (the killer would have to attempt
decryption of all similarly encoded messages on alt.test, but that might be
quite feasible). Thus it could be completely risk free for anyone to place a
contract on anyone else." [Doug Cutrell, 1994-09-09]
16.16.4. Abhorrent markets
- contract
killings
- can collect
money anonymously to have someone whacked...nearly anyone who is controversial
can generate enough "contributions"
- kidnapping,
extortion
16.16.5. Dealing with Such Things:
+ never link
physical ID with pseudonyms! (they won't kill you if they don't know who you
are) - and even if one pseudonym is linked, make sure your financial records
are not linkable
- trust no
one
- increased
physical security...make the effort of killing much more potentially dangerous
- flooding
attacks..tell extortionists to "get in line" behind all the other extortionists
+ announce
to world that one does not pay extortionists...set up protocol to ensure this
- yes, some will die as a result of this
- console
yourself with the fact that though some may die, fewer are dying as a result
of state-sponsored wars and terrorism (historically a bigger killer than contract
killings!)