Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)

[Tim May]

At 4:07 PM -0700 4/15/01, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
>>At 02:06 PM 4/15/01 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>>When you talk about a one-time transaction, it pretty much has to
>>>involve something whose value can be ascertained ON THE SPOT.
>>>otherwise, there is either a continuing relationship that can't
>>>be unilaterally broken (ie, they know where you live) or there is
>>
>>I think this is a bit short-sighted.
>>
>>Assume there is an anonymous seller who has established reputation capital
>>over time for small transactions on the order of pennies. I may be willing
>>to risk a ten-cent transaction (to purchase an illicit MP3 or somesuch) if
>>the perceived reward is sufficient. If I am successful and word spreads
>>that the seller is to be trusted, the amount people will be willing to risk
>>larger amounts will presumably increase.
>
>And your possible motive for spreading the word about his reputation,
>which ties you to an illicit transaction, is what exactly?
>
>				Bear

Ray, or "Bear," you really need to think about these things more deeply.

There are many ways in which a buyer can signal approval...without 
even linking himself to a specific transaction. (Which is likely, in 
this "ten-cent transction" to be of any interest to LE anyway.)

A simple assertion of the form "I recommend Danny the Dealer" is not 
a statement implicating the speaker in any illicit transaction which 
is prosecutable.

You once said you were a law student...unless I'm misremembering. If 
so, how could you make such an elementary error?

There are other ways to make the same "word spreads" endorsements, 
too. From a nym, in an article, etc.

As to why someone like Declan might _want_ to help spread the word, 
there are multiple reasons: to encourage more such reputable dealers, 
to discourage bad dealers, as a kind of "attaboy" for the good 
dealings, and so on.

Isn't this all pretty obvious?


--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns