from the shocked-to-discover-there's-gambling-in-this-establishment dept.
Wired has a story about OpenBazaar, a software project created with the idea of being to e-commerce what BitTorrent was to file sharing. From the article:
This weekend, the developers behind OpenBazaar plan to release a beta version of the software designed to let anyone privately and directly buy and sell goods online with no intermediary. They describe it as “pseudonymous, uncensored trade.” Rather than hosting its commerce on any server, OpenBazaar installs on users’ PCs, and allows them to list products in a file stored in a so-called “distributed hash table,” a database spread across many users’ machines. Everything will be paid in bitcoin. The result of that peer-to-peer architecture, they hope, will be a marketplace that no one—–no government, no company, not even the OpenBazaar programmers—can regulate or shut down.
But Patterson and OpenBazaar founder Brian Hoffman adamantly insist OpenBazaar isn’t designed for selling narcotics, guns, or other contraband. They see their invention as a freer, more democratic eBay or Craigslist, with no seller fees and no one to arbitrarily change the rules or censor products. “We’re not the ‘Super Silk Road.’ We’re trying to replace eBay in a better form,” says Patterson. “We recognize that people may choose to use that technology in a way we see as distasteful, immoral, and illegal, but we’re giving them the option to engage in a kind of human interaction that doesn’t exist right now.”
(Score: 3, Informative) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday August 31 2014, @01:09PM
They didn't design it to be used to sell illegal items, but they know it will be. They even acknowledge it with a post on their website. Here's a snippet FTFA:
And of course he really feels strongly about it:
So he knows it's going to be turned into a marketplace for things that are illegal (rightly or wrongly depending on your views about the individual items being offered for sale), and he's ready to walk away from it so he can claim he's not responsible. Stay classy Mr Hoffman.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday August 31 2014, @01:25PM
Once it exists. Whether anyone walks away from the project isn't that relevant..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AlHunt on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:13PM
$100 bills can be used to buy and sell anything, too. And nobody is suggesting $100 bills should be outlawed, banned or otherwise taken out of circulation.
Well, there does actually seem to be a push to do away with non-trackable currency, but you get the idea.
If you don't like un-trackable digital currency, then you should be opposed to the folding stuff, too.
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:12PM
I'm not against trackable or un-trackable digital currency. I'm also OK with folding money, coins, checks, etc. I just find his "if this turns out the way I think it will I can deny any responsibility simply by saying 'Raw milk, radar detectors and fireworks'" attitude repugnant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:28PM
I just find his "if this turns out the way I think it will I can deny any responsibility simply by saying 'Raw milk, radar detectors and fireworks'" attitude repugnant.
So, precisely what kind of responsibility do you want him to take?
Do you want him to go to jail if someone hires a hitman using this system?
Or make restitution to the victim's family?
Seriously, what actions could he take that would make his attitude not repugnant in your opinion?
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:40PM
I think he should man up and lose the "I only wanted good things from this ... radar detectors! ... I'm outta here" bullshit.
He sees a need for this type of marketplace. Many others see the same need. He helped create the marketplace. If it turns out that it's not all ponies and rainbows, which he already acknowledges it won't be, then he should stand his ground. "I can't control what everyone does with OpenBazzar, but I know the freedom it brings to the masses will far outweigh the potential for abuse. I'll stand by OpenBazzar even when it comes under fire from those whose intentions are not always what they portray, which is a similar situation that can occur on OpenBazzar."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:22PM
So your entire complaint is a nit-pick over a minor wording difference in one interview.
Your life must be so empty.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:33PM
Many countries are gently transitioning to a cashless economy, as this is very helpful in combating tax evasion. It has long been illegal in my neck of the woods for companies to pay salaries in cash, and the availability of ATMs has been restricted through zoning laws (so people have less access to cash and get accustomed to using their cards instead). Even without that government pressure, lots of businesses want to avoid handling cash because of risk of theft etc., so the self-service checkouts at my local supermarket only take cards, and bus drivers in many cities no longer accept cash, only an electronic ticket tied to your bank card or mobile phone. I don't know about the US ("$100 bills") specifically, but I can definitely see a near future where other Western nations dispense with cash entirely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:25PM
> It has long been illegal in my neck of the woods
Anybody reading along doesn't give a damn if it is your neck of the woods or not.
What we care about is the actual country you are talking about -- tell us the name.
If you are going to write, know your audience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @04:22PM
He knows his audience. Maybe it isn't you, since you can't figure out where his neck of woods is. Perhaps you're at the wrong site?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:29PM
Money wasn't designed to purchase illegal things, but it sure is used that way. I'm not a bitcoin fanboy, never even had any. But the idea behind it is that it is a kind of money. You can't blame the money for what people do with it.
But it is the marketplace, not money ....
OK. Cities use public money to build streets and alleys. Illegal transactions take place in such places and everyone who builds such knows that will happen. Banks built money transaction infrastructure. They know this will be used for illegal purposes as well as legitimate ones. In other words, the fact that they know people will use money to buy illegal things, in places where illegal things can be sold, using banking procedures, is a big "so what."
But the transaction is designed to protect the identity of the sellers/buyers.
To that, an extra big "so what." The government and megacorps don't have a right to my purchase history -- that would be a major element of tyranny. And yeah -- when I stop by dairy queen for 500 calorie whatever, I do pay cash because it doesn't link back to me. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how profitable it would be for credit card companies to sell such information to insurance companies, or why the insurance companies would want that info. And just because it isn't standard practice today, nobody knows the future.
So what is your beef with this? That it isn't subject to strict government or corporate oversight? That it uses money? What exactly?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:08PM
I think your comment is very valid, though it seems misdirected at my post. My comments were only about Hoffman and his "if this ends up supplying things that are illegal I'm not responsible even though I told people how to sidestep the issue if it comes up" attitude. I didn't say anything about money, digital or analog. His marketplace is not only ripe for abuse, he acknowledges it but thinks "raw milk" is enough of a red herring to justify his involvement and lack of responsibility.
I'm not a bitcoin user either, but I see its value to both individuals and the future of trading.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:16PM
This marketplace is just another avenue in the realm of darknets. Anyone who programs technology such as this has thought over the implications that it is a double edged sword. Bad things can and do occur on them, but this is the price of privacy. I'm not sure what other attitude you might expect he should take?
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:33PM
Hmmm, let me think if I can find a reasonable position for someone like Mr Hoffman to take ...
Wow, that sounds a lot better than "if it goes bad it's not my fault ... hey, look over there! They can't buy raw milk!!"
(Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:46PM
I think I can understand where you are coming from in wanting him to be completely honest in what his product will end up causing. But he is trying to point out the pro's to sell his platform. As the proverb goes, "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar".
Or to use a car analogy, car manufacturers aren't going to do well selling their next model by featuring that it could be used to for criminal activity or car bombings. Everyone knows they can and will be without taking the time to reiterate unfortunate truths.
(Score: 1) by VIPeon on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:45PM
It doesn't take a genius to figure out how profitable it would be for credit card companies to sell such information to insurance companies, or why the insurance companies would want that info. And just because it isn't standard practice today, nobody knows the future.
But that's just it, isn't it? You really don't know if it is standard practice today. It very well could be.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marand on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:01PM
You'd think that, but it's amazing what people will blame and try to outlaw with that kind of "logic". Try these on for size:
• You can't blame money for people buying illegal things with it.
• You can't blame guns when someone shoots someone else.
• You can't blame television when a child sees something inappropriate due to bad parenting.
• You can't blame video games when a mentally unstable person that happens to play a game commits a crime.
• You can't blame usenet for what people post on it.
In all cases, people do blame those things, and somebody decides that the best fix is to cry for a ban of some kind, or maybe even some kind of lawsuit, because it's easier than trying to fix the real problem.
I know, it's not really relevant to the rest of your point, but is an example of how logic doesn't work with large numbers of people, which makes topics like this difficult. People, as a group, are emotional and easy to manipulate. Think of the children!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:11PM
I should have said: "you can't _rationally_ blame the money ..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:46PM
Ugh. You are doing that black-and-white fallacy that is far too popular but ends up getting us the worst possible outcomes like Prohibition.
It is rarely a case of 100% restricted or 0% restricted. If it were, life would be sooooo much simpler than it really is.
What it always comes down to is finding an optimal balance of competing goals and because different people have different opinions the fight is about exactly where that optimal point is.
For example - nobody wants to ban television, but a lot of people think it is reasonable to restrict it by limiting some programming to certain time-slots or to put v-chips in them so that the people who own the televisions sets have more control.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Sunday August 31 2014, @11:15PM
I'm doing no such thing. My list is just examples of cases where people frequently blame the tool or object rather than the actions themselves because it's an easy scapegoat.
Blame television or video games for problems rather than face the problems themselves. Blame guns for gun violence rather than try to tackle the harder problems that create the violence. Your Prohibition mention is good, too, because it's another example I could have put on that list where people get hung up on the wrong part of the problem and want to ban something that, in itself, isn't inherently bad.
To further emphasise that my list wasn't just my own black-and-white opinions: I don't own any firearms but don't have a problem with them being legal; I don't enjoy drinking or use marijuana, but think both should be legal and related bad behaviour mitigated by the same laws that keep sober people in line; and I don't own any alt-currencies but support their existence. The common factor in all of these is that I do think that people should be rational and focus on the actual crimes and problems, rather than trying to hide the symptoms instead, but I don't see how that's a "black-and-white fallacy".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @04:08AM
It is black and white thinking because you believe the only way to reduce harm is to "focus on the actual problem" when real life is a combination of factors. Sometimes it is more effective to find a weak link in the chain. For example - more than half of gun deaths are suicides because people get sad and impulsive. You can pour a ton of money intro trying to stop people from being depressed and impulsive at the same time, or you can restrict access to guns so that they can't off themselves on a lark.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday September 01 2014, @05:33AM
Well, since you say I believe something, it must be true. Except it's not, because I never actually said or implied that. Doesn't matter, though. You're apparently so bothered by the fact that I mentioned guns in a statement about how people focus on the symptoms instead of the disease in regard to problem-solving, that you haven't noticed that you're doing the exact thing I said in the first post.
So, rather than attempting to help the mentally ill, you think it's better to take away one tool that can be used to commit suicide and pat yourself on the back that you saved the day. Doesn't matter that the person is still ill, still needs help, and still has other ways to commit suicide. If they kill themselves next week, it's okay, because at least it wasn't with a gun! Crisis averted!
Thanks for making my earlier point for me: people get too caught up on emotion-fueled crusades and ultimately don't give a shit about actually helping people or fixing the underlying problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @06:21AM
> Well, since you say I believe something,
Dude, I quoted your words. And then you went on to repeat exactly what I accused you of believing. Look, some idiots around here like to declare they know what the other person is thinking in spite of the other person's own words. But I am going with your words. I'm not twisting them, I'm not taking them out of context, I'm not interpreting them. It is your words. "Focus on the actual problem" where the "actual problem" is one root cause rather than ALSO focusing on mitigating factors.
> So, rather than attempting to help the mentally ill,
What part of "combination of factors" do you think means a single factor?
Do you not recognize that "root cause" is absolutist? If there is one sentence in my response that you should respond to, it is that question.
> You're apparently so bothered by the fact that I mentioned guns
Lol. I didn't even notice you mentioned guns. I picked a simple example. I considered going with drunk-driving and how it is illegal for a bar to serve a customer who is drunk rather than outright prohibiting the sale of alcohol. But I picked one where the statistics were straight-forward and easily verified - over half of all gun deaths are suicides. And of course I already gave the example of restrictions on television versus outright banning. You protest too much, methinks.
Either way I won't be responding, you can't seem to hear what I'm saying and I think anyone else reading along who isn't an absolutist has probably figured out my point by now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @04:24PM
You can't blame the "Big Red Kill Everyone Button" when it's created and someone uses it.
But y'know sometimes you can wish that some things weren't created merely because they could be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by geb on Sunday August 31 2014, @02:13PM
This kind of marketplace does at least let us spot the difference between principled libertarians and selfish arseholes.
A lot of libertarians would argue that you don't need much regulation on products, because responsible customers will refuse to buy anything from an unethical company. Personally I think we need more layers of protection than that, but I can still respect the idea. It recognises a problem and offers a solution. A libertarian of that type should be horrified by the idea of an anonymous marketplace because it completely eliminates any chance of choosing to buy from an ethical supplier. You have no idea who the supplier is. Is your weed coming from some friendly local guy with a plastic greenhouse in the woods, or from a vast murderous cartel? Who knows!
Anybody actually supporting anonymous transactions is making the implicit statement that they don't care where the money goes, doesn't care about the consequences when they vote with their wallet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday August 31 2014, @02:24PM
Another factor here: Imagine what this will do to your local economy. If you start buying all your drugs online, a whole network of smugglers and dealers will be destroyed! The local guy's money goes to local (illegal) gun dealers, convenience stores, and of course paying off the local police forces. Whereas if you buy mail-order, your money goes directly to $DEITY-knows-where (as the parent poster points out), and only partially re-enters the US economy when it gets laundered by a major bank like HSBC.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:33PM
What do you mean by an anonymous marketplace? It's not like the stock market where you're buying and selling shares of weed without regard for who the other side of the transaction is. After all, the other guy might be a law enforcement agent and your weed still has to go to a physical address at some point in order for you to smoke it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:50PM
A libertarian of that type should be horrified by the idea of an anonymous marketplace because it completely eliminates any chance of choosing to buy from an ethical supplier.
Pseudonymous is not the same thing as anonymous.
You should read this other story at wired [wired.co.uk] about how great the customer service and quality levels are at another pseudonymous marketplace.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:30PM
I would disagree, I support anonymous transactions. I can also honestly say I do NOT support any sort illegal transactions, in principle. I do however believe liberty and not being spied on by governments or groups of human beings who think they are above everyone else is way way more important than groups of human beings abusing the system for illegal transactions. Ideally we should prevent both, but if not I'd choose the latter over the former any day.
My interpretation of the article is that this type of marketplace does not actually let you distinguish between the two or in fact allow any type of surveillance to distinguish what is happening. I still think its better than a marketplace where I get spied on my groups of people claiming to be "the forces of good and holy".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @02:20PM
ratssnakessnitchesandunknownsquids.onion
First 500 joiners receive an authentic pair of handcuffs!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:21PM
Let's I want to buy some Goat Soap. So I go to this weird website, hosted nowhere and buy soap from "the cloud", hoping I get it but have no recourse if the item is not shipped or arrives at all? Seriously, why would I even bother? Either it's a legitimate Goat Soap business and I can get said soap (or know to whom I've sent my money), or it's not. You are better off buying stuff from ebay than some "unknown seller will send you stuff!".
(Score: 2) by Lemming on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:55PM
OpenBazaar has a reputation and rating system, just like eBay. It also has an independent third party for each transaction, and 2 of the 3 parties (buyer, seller and 3rd party) have to sign for the money transfer to proceed. It's some kind of decentralized escrow system. More info: https://blog.openbazaar.org/what-is-openbazaar/ [openbazaar.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nukkel on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:37PM
I hate how every time someone announces a censor-resistant anything, they think it necessary to go (or feel pressured into going) through the "excuse routine".
Just goes to show how deeply PC has already taken root in our society.
I somehow can't imagine Nobel, having invented dynamite, saying "We recognize that people may choose to use that technology in a way we see as distasteful, immoral, and illegal, but we’re giving them the option to engage in a kind of geological undertaking that doesn’t exist right now.” ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @05:48PM
Well spoken Sir.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @07:31AM
I thought the Nobel prizes were done to assuage Nobel's guilt for inventing a great way for people to kill each other...
(Score: 1) by looorg on Sunday August 31 2014, @05:13PM
It might not have been built for illegal trading but then what else would you want or need a pseudonymous trading platform for? Most people don't care if other people know that they buy normal everyday stuff. What is left then is the seedy underbelly of commerce such as drugs, guns and (weird) sex things. Things people are, for one reason or another, ashamed of buying or that they know are illegal.
If everything is going to be stored on everyonce machine how long will it takes before someone figures out the storage system and starts to mess with it, either to siphon off currency or to poison the bazaar with erroneous or faulty information.
After all if Ebay or Amazon or whomever thought there was big business in selling stuff for bitcoins, or some other cryptocurrency, they would start doing it tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:01PM
I don't understand the prejudice against private transactions. People with this prejudice, assume that they know for all time what is and what is not a "legitimate" purchase. There is nothing that prevents a future despot from deciding that X, Y or Z, however innocent it may seem, is dangerous and people who have purchased such items deserve closer monitoring or worse. Such laws have a long history and even get their own special category with the requisite latin name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law [wikipedia.org] (and note, while the Supreme Court has limited the prohibition to criminal laws (see the US section in that link) -- civil issues are not affected and while you may not face prison over a civil issue, you can quite literally lose everything you have and get garnished on anything new you might get).
So while the constitution prohibits such laws, it has been punched through with holes and interpretations -- besides what worth does the constitution have today with respect to any personal privacy issue? Take for example the immunization of the telecommunications companies who had been breaking the law to help out the NSA violate the 4th Amendment? Sure, that made illegal behavior "legal" (ignoring Constitutional issues), but if the government can do that, what's to stop them from making legal behavior illegal? And don't say "the Constitution" -- it's just a piece of paper that nobody in DC cares about, except as a background image to use in popup adverts.
(Score: 1) by looorg on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:34PM
If that (future evil despot) is your reasoning for anonymous purchases what do you think they will think about anonymous transactions in general? You'll be screwed either way even if you just bought normal things.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:56PM
It is much more likely that the future despot doesn't arise as a full-on-instant-evil, but rather gradually and progressively. I'm old enough I suspect I'll be dead before full-on-evil, but not so old that I will take your defeatist attitude of assuming that the choice is between privacy and the instantaneous arising of the worst possible future. Besides, the best way to prevent such a terrible future is to make it too expensive to implement -- rolling over and acquiescing by doing no private transactions makes that future more possible, while mixing it up with private transactions (all you need is cash) poisons the data to some extent.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:36PM
The slippery slope argument is weak unless you can demonstrate that it is indeed a slippery slope. I'll put it this way: I've spent time with people who lived under full-blown totalitarian communism (Cuba, East Germany, Ukraine), and none of those governments were really focused on tracking the money spent by ordinary people. They were really interested in who people were talking to socially and what they were thinking about the despot, but with everyone mostly broke and with only basics like food and medicine for sale these totalitarian governments had very little interest in purchasing habits.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:55PM
And? The US isn't Cuba. We aren't as rich as we once were, but we have a long way to fall to get to that level. Besides, the NSA is already monitoring purchases: http://business.time.com/2013/06/11/big-brother-is-watching-you-swipe-the-nsas-credit-card-data-grab/ [time.com] so it really doesn't matter if other despots failed to monitor purchases. Our own are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @07:09PM
Most people don't care if other people know that they buy normal everyday stuff.
Every day more and more people are starting to care. That's because every day corporations and governments are abusing their access to transactional data to build databases of perfectly law-abiding citizens for whatever purposes they can dream up and they are doing it in complete secrecy.
We don't have agency in our own data anymore - they take it and do whatever they want with it and not only do we not know who has that information there is nothing we can do about it. Systems like this are a direct response to that loss of agency. If I can't control what data is collected about me and who gets access to it then I will do my damnedest to make sure that data simply isn't created in the first place. They can't record what doesn't exist.
After all if Ebay or Amazon or whomever thought there was big business in selling stuff for bitcoins, or some other cryptocurrency, they would start doing it tomorrow.
Nevermind that your analysis terribly oversimplifies the situation (like how ebay's ownership of paypal makes them a competitor to bitcoin)
What about Newegg, [newegg.com] Overstock, [overstock.com] Expedia [techcrunch.com] and even Dish Networks? [dish.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @11:21PM
Expedia sucks.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 01 2014, @05:13AM
It may be so, but then again it does have the ability to suck on Bitcoins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday September 01 2014, @12:42PM
1702845791×2