Listen up you punks... I will assume that readers already know how "Assasination Politics" a.k.a. AP works. If not, look it up: I consider it a brilliant idea. But like many brilliant ideas, one can find structural flaws if one looks closely enough. Here's my set: 1) AP treats anonymity on the networks as a 'primitive', that is, a Platonic ideal: One either has anonymity or not, and if one does, nobody can remove it regardless of resources brought to bear. I see anonymity on the networks as nearly always relative and nearly never absolute. To achieve absolute anonymity, an individual must commit "the perfect crime" by connecting to the networks once, briefly, by physically breaking in at an access point not personally associated with him or herself. If not seen coming or going (a tricky prospect in 'civilized' countries these days), and all digital fingerprints left behind present a generic, non-traceable profile, success: Unbreakable anonymity. But any lesser feat of operational cyber-warfare leaves some smaller or larger probability that the message in question will be attributed to the right person. I say "message" rather than "messages" because each instance of 100% anonymous network access presents a fresh challenge. Re-using the same access point and/or techniques could potentially create an identifiable profile. "Really anonymous" network access presents as a job for well trained intelligence officers and/or assets, not John and Jane Q. Public looking to fund the removal of a politician they don't like. Designers and operators of anonymizing overlay networks generally agree, their tools do not by themselves provide "life safety" grade protection against an adversary with global network surveillance capability. Within the borders of a given State with a highly funded intelligence establishment, such global adversaries already exist. If AP rears its very interesting head, the first response from the community targeted for termination would include command directives and blank checks to turn the AP process inside out. Thus would exploitable gaps in network surveillance close up fast. AP depends on the ready availability of anonymity to thousands or millions bettors, and dozens or hundreds of professional assassins. Participation in any 'lottery of the doomed' (RIP Spain Rodriguez - and Trashman, agent of the 6th International) would immediately become a Federal felony with stiff minimum mandatory sentences. The unavailability of absolute anonymity for assassins, or even half-assed anonymity for John and Jane Q. Public, would at best seriously degrade the whole program. 2) Large numbers make fools of us all. AP appears to presume that abusive politicians. and the cartels of billionaires who elect and direct them, can not out-spend 'honest' participants in AP by orders of magnitude at need. Well... they can. And if required, they will. Bounties on actual and perceived "enemies of the State and ruling class" participating in the AP process would greatly exceed bounties on State and corporate offenders within weeks of the first pay-out by an honest AP game. Massive bounties for "information leading to the arrest and conviction" of AP operators and anyone collecting bets made in that lottery would greatly exceed those available to "honest" assassins who play by the rules of AP. (Anyone here naive enough to believe that AP lotteries can not and will not be outlawed within days of a perceived reason to do so?) Combined with top priority directives to /all/ intelligence and law enforcement agencies to shut that shit down PRONTO, hostile AP-like games would create a steep uphill climb for honest AP participants and winners. For a quick correction to "common sense" assumptions about income disparity in the USA - which is less than asset disparity by a couple of orders of magnitude - see http//lcurve.org 3) As a general conclusion, I think that for AP to work as intended and usher in an age of NAP based Anarchist society - an objective no truly sane individual could oppose IMO - it would be necessary for only "honest" lotteries that deny targeting of "Libertarian" figures to present games. But two can play at any game, as long as the second players in question happen to be filthy rich. In real life, "Operate an AP lottery, die within weeks of announcing it to the public and getting enough capital under management to motivate an assassin." Or in a best case scenario, pull 20 years without parole in a Federal prison. That same sentence would also be available to any random participant who happens to get "outed" by any of several technical means readily available to the NSA and comparable signals intelligence services. I do believe that the above factors explain why Assassination Politics has not been implemented in the 20 or so years the instructions have been floating around. As far as I know, nobody has even tried. Alas, for those who want to Change The World from the bottom up, it looks to me like conventional populist political warfare - the darkest of the Dark Arts - in the sense that nearly nobody outside agencies tasked to prevent it knows the first damn thing about how it works - remains the only game in town. :o/