[117741] in Cypherpunks
BlackNet Markets -- Organs? Kidneys? EBay?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tim May)
Thu Sep 9 17:51:25 1999
Message-Id: <v03130303b3fdd185031c@[207.111.241.66]>
In-Reply-To: <199909092056.VAA22343@server.cypherspace.org>
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Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 14:24:24 -0700
To: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
I'm glad Adam is commenting on this thread. I don't worry overmuch if my
stuff doesn't get commented upon these days...the list is, after all, a lot
different than it was several years ago.
But I thought this "go black" theme was more in keeping with the themes of
yesteryear, of Cyphepunks solutions. Very few comments on it, not
surprisingly.
After all, there are more important things to discuss, like something
called a "PECSEC report" (or somesuch), and retreads of the RNG threads.
(Rethreads?)
At 1:56 PM -0700 1999-09-09, Adam Back wrote:
>(btw. I do reckon there is a future for porn sites -- these people
>must make money, a few months ago in there UK was a report of someone
>who was put out of business who was taking 1.5 million pounds / year
>(~2.5 million US$) selling porn access. Was charging 60,000 users 25
>a year each or something like that if I recall.)
Porn sites do have a future. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
And the recent account of the Boston area comments by Andrew Odzylko on why
digital cash is still not here are instructive. (That was another post, the
report by Howie Goodell, that should have gotten more discussion.)
In a nutshell, as I don't have time to write a long essay, digital cash is
useful for its _untraceability_. Not for convenience. Expecting it to hit
big for conventional uses is bullshit.
(And I've been saying this since about 1988, including in nearly all of my
words on digital cash here since 1992. Etc.)
Recently there was a "hoax auction" on EBay. Someone offered a kidney for
auction. Supposedly the high bid--though this was likely a hoax as well, or
at least an unsubstantiated (e.g., by escrow of funds) bid--was $6 million.
EBay cancelled the item and made various apologies, blah blah blah.
Well, why not a _real_ auction of such body parts? The demand is clearly
there (42,000 await kidneys in the U.S. alone, with a long, long waiting
list). The market is not liquid, as bidding for, or even paying for,
kidneys is not allowed under U.S. law.
(The actual transplant of a kidney would of course happen in the aptly
named meatspace, and so this would seem to break the untraceability.
Certainly stings could be set up. However, with care, the issues are
separable. The sellers and buyers could be instructed to meet at an
airfield in some Third World country, checked thoroughly for bugs, then
flown to a clinic, blah blah. Any spy thriller novelist knows how to
construct the protocol. The really hard part is matching the buyers and
sellers on a list without the list operators being busted for dealing in
organs, under the laws of most countries. This is where BlackNet types of
markets excel.)
Anyway, this is all covered in, for example, the Cyphernomicon. Black
markets in body parts. Black markets in all sorts of interesting
information--military secrets, snuff films, surveillance tapes, and so on.
Plus stuff we consider OK but which Saudi Arabia, or the Vatican, or
Germany might not. Birth control information, Holocaust denial literature,
etc.
To cut to the chase, untraceable digital cash (bidirectionally untraceable,
for obvious reasons) will likely become worth the effort when it can be
used for buying black market or contraband items, for laundering certain
winnings in casinos, for hiding assets, and so on.
An enterprising person out there might be thinking in terms of creating an
EBay for black market items.
--Tim May
Y2K: It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
