I have serious problems with this - leak by economic purchasing power?
Where's the principle in that? What could possibly go wrong?
This allows the mega wealthy to pay for the protection of their data.
If such a market actually gets going, if nothing else it's a turbo
charged economic greasing of economic information blackmail.
Please people, think before you support such a things.
Obviously the oligarchies around the planet will love such a thing
(they print the money anyway, so a few dollars is pocket change - a
pittance to them anyway).
I guess we had to see such reactions to Snowden and his ilk.
Juan, your voice is needed so much more now than ever!
Where this goes will be interesting to say the least.
On 7/31/15, Nick Econopouly
Paste for those who don't want to load the webpage:
http://slur.io/ Slur: You're going to hate it.
"Slur is an open source, decentralized and anonymous marketplace for the selling of secret information in exchange for bitcoin. Slur is written in C and operates over the Tor network with bitcoin transactions through libbitcoin. Both buyers and sellers are fully anonymous and there are no restrictions on the data that is auctioned. There is no charge to buy or sell on the Slur marketplace except in the case of a dispute, where a token sum is paid to volunteers. - See more at: http://slur.io/#sthash.OsHtOC5o.dpuf"
"How does it work ?
Sellers encrypt, upload and then list their data on the digital market with the ease a user might list an item on eBay. They do so with full anonymity and there are no restrictions on the content of the data.
Exclusive bidders attempt to purchase the data for their own use and / or prevent other parties from acquiring a copy. Should an exclusive bidder win the auction they alone will receive the decryption keys. The same data cannot be auctioned a second time on the Slur marketplace.
Crowd bidders pool their funds into a single bid. Should they win the auction the network will release the decryption keys to all users on the Slur marketplace and the information will therefore become public.
Arbitrators are randomly selected users who agree to weigh in on a dispute should the winner of an auction claim that the decrypted contents do not match the sellers description.
Public key cryptography ensures the data being sold can only be decrypted by the winner of the auction. - See more at: http://slur.io/#sthash.OsHtOC5o.dpuf"
"Implications: If correctly implemented this platform will have a profound and lasting effect on our society.
An unregulated free market for information would redefine the net worth of every person as their material assets would in the future be weighed against the market value of their secrets.
As damaging as Slur can be to individuals it is considerably more so for groups
It's estimated that 5% of the general population are psychopaths. Introducing financial incentive in an anonymous framework will produce a greater yield of leaked information than from say the ideology that drove patriots like Edward Snowden. For every idealist willing to selflessly sacrifice their freedom, assets and even risk their lives for a greater good, there are 1000 psychopaths willing to anonymously sell out their peers for material gain.
Organizations of every type; governments, corporations and the military are in the unfortunate predicament of having both a great deal of liquid assets and a large number of secrets to protect - accessible by numerous disgruntled or psychopathic personnel. When Slur becomes ubiquitous it will bleed organizations secrets and funds.
The Slur marketplace will sharply increase demand for bitcoin from those parties attempting to purchase previously inaccessible secret information and organizations scrambling to suppress damaging leaks from inside their own ranks or security breaches.
The Slur market is WikiLeaks 2.0. An incalculable resource for public knowledge and unfiltered access to the truth. Except that in the future journalists will need to compensate whistle blowers for the extreme risks they take.
The types of information we expect to see on the Slur marketplace ;
Trade secrets.
Designs for every type of consumer product.
The source code for proprietary operating systems and high end CAD software.
Zero day exploits. For the market defined value rather than a price determined by the corporations under the guise of a bounty with the veiled threat of legal action should the researcher choose to sell elsewhere.
The details of backdoors covertly installed inside industrial and consumer hardware and software.
Stolen databases. Corporations will no longer be able to get away with an apology when they fail to secure their customers confidential data. They will have to pay the market value to suppress it.
Proof of tax evasion from disgruntled or underpaid employees. Both the IRS and the public have an interest in that information and the corporations will have to bid to suppress it - a very quantifiable and predictable payoff for the seller.
Military intelligence relevant to real-time conflicts.
Aerospace and defense designs.
Evidence relevant to ongoing trials.
Unflattering celebrity photos and videos.
The complete databases of social media sites like facebook.
Proof of government corruption. Close to an election. - See more at: http://slur.io/#sthash.OsHtOC5o.dpuf"
The site appeals for donations and has a crossed out sentence saying production versions will be available in july 2015.
Thoughts?
-nick