Assassination market
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An assassination market is a prediction market or dead pool where any party can place a bet (using anonymous electronic money, and pseudonymous remailers) on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. This would incentivise assassination of individuals because the assassin, knowing when the action would take place, could profit by making an accurate bet on the time of the subject's death. Because the payoff is for knowing the date rather than performing the action of the assassin, it is substantially more difficult to assign criminal liability for the assassination.[1]
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[edit] Origin of the concept
An early use of the term can be found in the Cyphernomicon by Timothy C. May, published around[vague] October 1994.[2] Timothy C. May, Carl Johnson and Matthew Taylor later developed the protocols[citation needed] to implement the concept online to the point that the IRS, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service investigated their motives for doing so.[citation needed] The US Secret Service circulated copies of 'Assassination Politics' and the relevant Wired articles in 2002.[citation needed] During investigations authorities pretended to be sympathizers in emails,[citation needed] and posed as ISP representatives.[citation needed]
[edit] Theoretical objections
It has been argued[3] that the feasibility of an assassination market precludes the development of any form of anonymous electronic money. Nation-states are capable either of arresting and prosecuting those underwriting such hypothetical payment systems as accessories to these crimes, or where the underwriters' assets are offshore, of attacking underwriters or underwriting assets using military options[original research?]. This follows from the fact that anonymous digital cash requires publicly known underwriters, e.g. banks participating in guaranteeing and forwarding payments made using a hypothetical digital cash.[original research?] Potential underwriters are very unlikely to be interested in participating under these circumstances.[original research?] Therefore digital cash systems offering the required degree of anonymity are equally unlikely to arise in practice[original research?] because the existence of an open assassination market conflicts with a primary purpose of the nation-state, i.e. to provide military security to its government.[citation needed]
With the help of anonymizing software and anonymous digital banks such as eCache, it is possible to circumvent the problem with a publicly known underwriter.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ James Harkin (2009), Lost in Cyburbia, p. 239
- ^ Re: Cyphernomicon
- ^ http://packetstormsecurity.org/papers/contest/Richard_Kay.txt
- Hess, Patrick (2002). Cyberterrorism and Information War. Anmol Publications PVT. LTD.. ISBN 9788126111619. http://books.google.com/books?id=v9NSYnE3G_sC&pg=PA89&dq=%22Assassination+politics%22+Timothy.
- Thomas, Douglas; Brian Loader (2000). Cybercrime: Law Enforcement, Security and Surveillance in the Information Age. Routledge. ISBN 9780415213264. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZlkOcTP6A_AC&pg=PA126&dq=%22Assassination+politics%22+Timothy&lr=.
- Sukumaran, R (2004). "Cryptology, digital assassination and the terrorism futures markets". Strategic Analysis 28 (2): 219 – 236. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface?content=a791916793&rt=0&format=pdf.
- Clarke, R; Dempsey G, Ooi CN, O'Connor RF (1998). "Technological Aspects of Internet Crime Prevention'" in Proc. Conf. "Internet Crime" Australian Institute for Criminology, Melbourne University, 16-17 February 1998.. (note: this reference needs to be confirmed)
