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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: 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.