On Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:42:38 +0000 (UTC)
jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:


>> Like Zenaan, I don't think this will be very expensive.  It will be intricate, but there will be plenty of money in Dark market insurance payments.  Everybody (except those trying to enforce drug laws, for example) would want to see this occur.  The operators of the Dark markets, as well as the sellers, would love to see some guarantee of non-prosecution,
>> And, I hesitate to approach anyone on this, 1-to-1.

>>  Can I sell the idea directly to the operators of a Dark market?  Not likely, in large part because nobody knows who they are, and they like it that way.  B^) 


 >   Well I haven't checked lately but dark markets usually have forums and the operators pay attention to them, to varying degrees. 

I've never looked into those forums.  But if anybody reading this is motivated to do so, I request that he copy the essential elements of my idea to such nets to motivate further discussion.  Nothing wrong with that person doing that posting anonymously as to himself, if he wants, but I think my name (and perhaps a link to my AP essay, as well as the fact that the source was the CP list) be included.   

I'd say I give "permission" for this, but I don't want to imply that I think some sort of "permission" was necessary:   CP is a public list, of course, and I don't want anybody to think that if this kind of cross-posting was done, somehow I might be upset if that occurs.  Quite the opposite!


>> I think there needs to be further discussion, for example on CP, as to this idea.  What additional features?  Would it work?  But we should be cautious, as usual:  Maybe the people doing the discussion should state that we have no intention of actually, personally, implementing this idea. 

 >   Oh of course. We would never do anything 'illegal'  ^-^

Hardy-har-har!!!   But we must remember that their are ideas, and there are people with enough time and persistence to accomplish them.  One of the big reasons for discussion areas such as CP is to cross-pollenate ideas...   



>> But there needs to be more research and discussion.  How many  Dark markets have existed?  How many went down, and why?   

>    I think all the big ones were either succesfully attacked by govt criminals, or the operators quit while they were ahead. Agora being the best example I know. 

We cannot object if Dark market operators merely go out of business, as long as they don't rip people off.  One function of the Digital Market Insurance Fund (DMIF) might be as a reward fund to find operators who have ripped people off.   But I hope that if DMIF does what I predict, there will be little or no motivation to get out of managing a Dark market.  At least, there should be no danger of prosecution, I hope. 

  >As to how they went down, my first guess is network surveillance. Here's a gem from the Tor-US-navy 'project'

  >  "The longer an onion service is online, the higher the risk that its location is discovered. "

>    https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-onion-service.html.en

One great feature of the Ethereum system is the fact that it has no "location":  It's everywhere that a computer running it is.  Nobody can stop it by stopping 1, 10, or 100 computers.   When I wrote my AP essay, I thought of a system with a single, secret location.  The addition of the Ethereum feature is a major breakthough.

               Jim Bell