Maybe they're wannabe criminals and/or trolls. Or maybe they're just unreconstructed anarchists. But I do like this bit: "[C]orrectly implemented" here must include very strong anonymity for all parties concerned. But given that, perhaps implausibly, the result could be more equitable compensation for information workers. Consider that the vast majority of workers are poorly compensated, even those who handle extremely sensitive information. Extreme examples include secretaries and paralegals. This could be a huge win for the droids. This arguably isn't about "whistleblowing". It's about eliminating a disconnect between secrets known, and compensation received. More radically, perhaps it's about undermining the "trust" (in practice, often just compliance enforced by fear of consequences) that large organizations depend on (and exploit). So over time, it could ameliorate the power imbalance between individuals and organizations. All hail Eris But I do concur that money trails would be incredibly problematic. Maintaining anything like strong anonymity in moving money to Bitcoins and vice versa is not at all trivial. And it's especially nontrivial for individuals without the resources of large organizations.
Equating this with Wikileaks 2.0 is wishful thinking. In most every country, this will qualify as extortion. If their goal is to completely criminalize leaking, this is the way to do it. IMO, this will have the opposite effect of what they're claiming. Given how authorities have been able to target hidden services lately, would you want to take that risk? Leaking files like the NSA documents or the collateral murder video because it's the right thing to do is one thing. Doing it for profit throws right and wrong completely out the window. If we do this, we're no better than those we're opposing. We'll be as wrong as they are.
From a pure anarchist perspective, everything about states and other coercive organizations is fundamentally wrong. So maybe slur.io is revolutionary. It's hard to say at this point.
I agree. That said, you can't battle or resist something that's fundamentally wrong with something that's equally wrong. Nothing good or right will come out of it. Even if it succeeds against the richest and most powerful, where does it go from there? The next most profitable target? Where does it stop? What makes this any better than the revenge porn sites?
Yes, that is a concern. But violence in self-defense is moral, as I see it. So is violence in revolting against oppression, in that it's a form of self-defense. But maybe this is all too political for Wilders. It stops when there are no coercive organizations left Notwithstanding the messed-up emotions of spurned lovers, there is no revolution against oppression going on there
When the motive is profit (greed), I don't see it stopping with organizations and governments. The greed would be self feeding and would continue for as long as there are extortable targets. We've already got governments and corporations doing this for money and power. Do we really want, as the website described it, psychopaths doing the same thing? I can't call this self defense. This is purely offense with no regard for what's right, legal, decent or anything else. On my exit node, I don't block access to anything. If this becomes a reality, I will block this.
The more I think about this, the more it looks very much like the black market sites for credit cards, expanded to include any information of value.
Yes, I also have reservations. Even in a world where there were no monopolies of power, and where sovereign individuals freely transacted, contracts could be violated via <slur.io>. However, it would arguably be difficult in that case for leakers to remain anonymous And undoubtedly I'm biased. I've worked with far too many personal assistants, secretaries, paralegals, etc who in many ways ran the show, and yet were paid virtually nothing for their work. Making that unworkable is almost worth the cost, no?
I don't see any way that an individual could be prevented from extorting the same group, individual, etc repeatedly with the same data. Change one letter or add a space and it's a new file. There's no way to safeguard against that. What happens when that information is the identity and location of the developer of a strong encryption application and the customers are governments? Do we want this decided by who will pay the most?
Yes, it's troubling. Technology is erasing distinctions between individuals and large organizations. This is just one aspect of that. It all started with the PC and the Internet. That started a fire, and it's hard to predict and/or control.
Agreed. To expand on that description, something like this would be the equivalent of parking a gasoline tanker on that fire. The potential collateral damage isn't worth it.
True. But once you have the fire, and there are gasoline tankers, stuff happens I'm reminded of that recently posted article about WWIII being waged online, with no way to distinguish lulz-seekers, bored hackers, criminals, terrorists, state actors, AIs, etc, etc, etc. And worse, state actors, terrorists, AIs are all recruiting lulz-seekers, bored hackers, criminals and other AIs. And so on. Plus there's so much overlap among categories that they become useless. Whoa
And as always, finding myself agreeing with both noone and mirimir. Agreed. Whether its intention or not, it feels it'll be used that way. I'm not getting into the whole "well, it's a neutral tool and because it could be used by criminals doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit", cause I understand that. But... Like Greenwald said about Snowden- there's already a market for "secrets". Plenty living in mansions from selling them to others as opposed to letting the public know through the medium of press.
Quite true. Like the already existing markets and methods, the ones that stand to benefit are the ones who can afford secrets. We'd be playing the game on their terms, again. Someone who doesn't have nearly unlimited funds to defend themselves would have no chance.
