At 11:36 AM 2/13/96 -0800, you wrote:

The Rushdie incident is simply so far removed from "Assassination Politics" that it can't possibly be used to refute it; I still believe it actually demonstrates how much effort somebody has to go to, to protect a targeted person. One targeted person is easy to protect. 10,000 would be FAR harder. And the moment a few of those guys got "whacked," the rest would want to resign their jobs and hope they would be allowed to retire in peace.

From a cypherpunks perspective, yes you could run an assassination lottery,

Rushdie is just low on your target list. I agree that it's much harder to protect 10,000 people (say the Iranians put out a contract on Baha'is and other heretics, at $X/head...) but it's still abusable. Maybe the Anonymous Captains of Industry put out a contract on strike leaders. though it might be hard for the assassin to collect - how do you prove that _you_ were the hit man, and not merely the nearest person to a phone after it happened? How do you prevent an anonymous escrow agency from refusing to deliver the cash? Some of the protocols may be difficult to work out. Meanwhile WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE JIM BELL REWARD 13 demo-cyberbucks An assassination-sponsoring society is _not_ a polite society. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com / billstewart@attmail.com +1-415-442-2215 # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs Pager +1-408-787-1281