Meet the 'Assassination Market' Creator Who's Crowdfunding Murder With Bitcoins 291
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."
So what if... (Score:4, Interesting)
...someone starts a bounty on the site for "Kuwabatake Sanjuro"?
Yaz
Re:absolutely the dumbest idea ever (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's guaranteed to divest some foolish people from spare bitcoins.
Oh right... Ben Bernanke, of COURSE. (Score:5, Interesting)
... only the guy who near single-handedly saved the world economy from total and utter destruction.
(YES, he did have a bit to do with the bubble in the first place... but that was mostly the previous free-market, deregulationist Fed chairman's fault.)
Of course, this assassination nonsense is a scam and a horrific idea. But sweet jesus, these anti-Fed demogogues are such self-denialist losers. Sure, let's go back to the gold standard so we can have a Panic every 15 years. Let's relinquish total control over our money supply and our economy for absolutely no reason. Let's just hand over our nation's economic advantage as the world's go-to currency... great idea... ...say the same idiots who insisted QE would lead to global hyperinflation (wrong), that the biggest problem our government has is the national debt (wrong), that nations need to tighten their belts during a recession (wrong), that there was no gold bubble (wrong), and that nothing bad would ever happen if we default... How many times do these people have to be proven wrong, over and over?
But I guess it makes sense that the ultra-paranoid sorts of people who would be attracted to the idea of bitcoin are the same ones who would hold some kind of insane vendetta against the Fed, totally missing the mark on who REALLY to blame for the near collapse and meltdown of western civilization.
seems wrong... (Score:4, Interesting)
it seems wrong that such a site with a list of people to execute could exist. it brings the good old lynch mob in to the digital era. fun times. gov officials should not have to operate in fear of assassination.
yet. it is interesting that this is exactly what the us gov is doing with its enemies, building hit lists, ranking them, and executing.
Re:what about the ads in soldier of fortune (Score:5, Interesting)
where you can find people willing to do mercenary work
I suspect that up to half of them are bogus, and the other half are likely scams. What's left is probably well out of Interpol jurisdiction, let alone that of the FBI (or RCMP, or {insert European national police force here} ), since you're probably going to do it in the borders of some craphole nation already torn asunder by civil war or rebellion.
Re:Assassination Politics (Score:4, Interesting)
That page might be "downright criminal", however, it is not the messenger, it is the message, that counts.
That page was put up back in the mid-nineties. HTM code was quite limited. So, it ain't pretty. Neither are those who think that pretty means more than content.
BTW, Jim did not put up the page. I did, as the FBI was looking at both Jim and I (investigating), so out of respect for Jim, I put it up while he was in prison. I will keep it up simply to stick it in the face of the feds.
There have been over 600 visits to the page, today, mostly because of the link provided here. So, Jim's thoughts from two decades ago seem to still deserve attention.