Free Republic

As Bitcoin becomes an increasingly popular form of digital cash, the cryptocurrency is being accepted in exchange for everything from socks to sushi to heroin. If one anarchist has his way, it’ll soon be used to buy murder, too. Last month I received an encrypted email from someone calling himself by the pseudonym Kuwabatake Sanjuro, who pointed me towards his recent creation: The website Assassination Market, a crowdfunding service that lets anyone anonymously contribute bitcoins towards a bounty on the head of any government official–a kind of Kickstarter for political assassinations. According to Assassination Market’s rules, if someone on its...

"DIY 'DARK WEB' CRAWLER" SNIPPET: "I chafe at the notion that there is a Dark Web™ where bad guys lurk and good men fear to tread. There is no Dark Web™. Just turn a damn light on and take a look around."

At Univ of Arizona, "The Dark Web project aims to scour Web sites, forums and chat rooms to find the Internet's most prolific and influential jihadists and learn how they reel in adherents. Lab director Hsinchun Chen hopes Dark Web will crimp what he calls "al-Qaida University on the Web," the mass of Web sites where potential terrorists learn their trade, from making explosives to planning attacks. Experts said they are not aware of any comparable effort, though some said the project may have only limited applications." more at [href]"Yahoo"[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071111/ap_on_hi_te/dark_web;_ylt=Ag9H_IrfHRhz5S5Q_a_Hro9U.3QA[/url][/href]