It's happened.
I remember seeing a 60' (minutes) show where a small town (Tennessee or
Georgia ?) was being terrorized by a bully. The police couldn't do much (He
had good lawyer).
Finally, the citizens have had enough. He goes to down to get drunk at a bar
and several townspeople are already there.
There's a scuffle. He gets killed (shot).
The police interview all involved, but they all answer, "I didn't see
anything". The weapon is never found. State police, FBI get involved. No
luck.
Since the police can't find a witness to come forward, They can't arrest
anybody.
I believe the mystery hasn't been solved to this day.
Sorry, I don't have specifics, but I'm sure someone here knows about it.
Neil M. Johnson
njohnson@interl.net
http://www.interl.net/~njohnson
PGP Key Finger Print: 93C0 793F B66E A0C7 CEEA 3E92 6B99 2DCC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Newby"
On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 10:29:54AM -0500, Trei, Peter wrote:
---------- From: Greg Newby[SMTP:gbnewby@ils.unc.edu] "de puta madre!"
But seriously, folks: How would you work with a like-minded distributed group to murder someone? Preferably with guaranteed no risk of discovery or prosecution to the participants.
- Would we need to assume the someone would be the "hands," e.g., your good ole' professional hit-man? How would s/he be contacted?
- How would the person be paid? How would the money be collected from the different people who pay?
- What trust model would work? Would it be more desirable for all players to be completely anonymous? Cells of people who know each other?
- Could this all be done legally (without the individuals who are planning and paying needing to commit any crimes)? [...] -- Greg
Um, governments and organized crime achieve this goal on a regular basis.
Governments by having an effective monopoly on violence in a given area (George the Second bears the blood of over 300 people who presented no threat to society (they were already incarcerated)).
Organized criminals by having the resources and manpower to effectively separate the person ordering a hit from the person doing the hit, and to cover up the evidence.
Beyond that, even non-distributed murders are often unsolved, especially when there is no pre-existing link between murderer and victim (eg, many serial killers).
Right, I agree.
But what I'd like to consider is a recipe for "plain ordinary" folk to conspire anonymously to commit murder.
Not just any murder: murder for some of the people who (some people on this list have said), are needing killin'.
If a bunch of crypto anarchists or whoever decide to knock off Bill Gates or Al Gore (who really didn't invent the Internet well enough...), you can bet someone will come looking pretty hard!
Again, I see this as a serious problem in applied cryptography. -- Greg