Re:

At 05:38 PM 6/8/96 +0200, Anonymous wrote:

>Read the entire quote by Donne.  *...any man's death diminishes me, because 
I am involved in mankind;...*  By protecting Bell's right to speak what he 
thinks, we serve as an example to the rest of the world of what personal 
freedom really means. *Those crazy Americans* 
>
>Bell gives me the opportunity to say that his pronouncements are 
antithetical to the best interests of the _inhabitants_ of this nation, not 
simply the government itself.

>Thank you, Jim.   

While I appreciate your...uh...appreciation, let me remind you that part of 
my "pronouncements" are that the current political and social system is 
sick.  Many people around here seem to agree with this assessment.  What I 
advocate is a comparatively simple change in the rules that could have the 
effect of vastly changing the way things are done.  Whether these changes 
are in "the best interests of the inhabitants of this nation" is still an 
open question, and many people have agreed with me on this matter. 

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com

>While I appreciate your...uh...appreciation, let me remind you that part of 
>my "pronouncements" are that the current political and social system is 
>sick.  Many people around here seem to agree with this assessment.  What I 
>advocate is a comparatively simple change in the rules that could have the 
>effect of vastly changing the way things are done.  Whether these changes 
>are in "the best interests of the inhabitants of this nation" is still an 
>open question, and many people have agreed with me on this matter. 
>
>Jim Bell
>jimbell@pacifier.com
>
>
>

Hmm....

Assissination Politics: "Curing the sickness by killing the patient"

;)

jim bell wrote:
> 
> While I appreciate your...uh...appreciation, let me remind you that part of 
> my "pronouncements" are that the current political and social system is 
> sick.  Many people around here seem to agree with this assessment.  What I 
> advocate is a comparatively simple change in the rules that could have the 
> effect of vastly changing the way things are done.  Whether these changes 
> are in "the best interests of the inhabitants of this nation" is still an 
> open question, and many people have agreed with me on this matter. 
> 

Since corrupt officials are likely to have more anonymous cash that
phreedom phighters, guess who will win.

Also, think about this: lots of people have someone they'd like
to assassinate but do not actually do it because of lack of anonymity
and associated hassles (like dealing with assassins non-anonymously,
abundance of traces, possible confession of the assassin and so on).
With your assassination clearinghouse these hassles go away. I think it
would present an excellent prospect for reducing the population.

Maybe *that* will help the whales and trees, because of the effect on demand.

	- Igor.

ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:
> > While I appreciate your...uh...appreciation, let me remind you that part of
> > my "pronouncements" are that the current political and social system is
> > sick.  Many people around here seem to agree with this assessment.  What I
> > advocate is a comparatively simple change in the rules that could have the
> > effect of vastly changing the way things are done.  Whether these changes
> > are in "the best interests of the inhabitants of this nation" is still an
> > open question, and many people have agreed with me on this matter.
> >
>
> Since corrupt officials are likely to have more anonymous cash that
> phreedom phighters, guess who will win.
>
> Also, think about this: lots of people have someone they'd like
> to assassinate but do not actually do it because of lack of anonymity
> and associated hassles (like dealing with assassins non-anonymously,
> abundance of traces, possible confession of the assassin and so on).
> With your assassination clearinghouse these hassles go away. I think it
> would present an excellent prospect for reducing the population.

Igor, have you ever read novels about British life in 18th century?
(I'm using this as an example because every good Russian reads them. :-)
Have you noticed how exaggeratedly polite they were to each other,
in comparison to Americans today? Do you know why?
Because back then, every gentle person was armed and might use violence
in sufficiently provoked.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:
> > Also, think about this: lots of people have someone they'd like
> > to assassinate but do not actually do it because of lack of anonymity
> > and associated hassles (like dealing with assassins non-anonymously,
> > abundance of traces, possible confession of the assassin and so on).
> > With your assassination clearinghouse these hassles go away. I think it
> > would present an excellent prospect for reducing the population.
> 
> Igor, have you ever read novels about British life in 18th century?
> (I'm using this as an example because every good Russian reads them. :-)
> Have you noticed how exaggeratedly polite they were to each other,
> in comparison to Americans today? Do you know why?
> Because back then, every gentle person was armed and might use violence
> in sufficiently provoked.

Actually, here in Oklahoma almost everyone has a gun (not that they use
them though, but many carry). Incidentally, everyone including most down
to earth truckers is exceedingly polite. When I went to NYC first time,
I was shocked how less polite people were in comparison with Oklahomans.

Are the folks in Flushing, NY or around Avenue of the Americas allowed to
possess firearms? :)

Russians in Russia are even less polite, and guns are outlawed.

Maybe your hint really makes sense and after initial depopulation the
citizens will use different, more considerate, ways of dealing with each
other. Or, alternatively, maybe people will hide behind anonymity most
of the time to avoid becoming vistims of jimbell's clearinghouse.
Really, it is very hard to assasssinate username@alpha.c2.org, although
it is possible to hire nyms to write programs and pay them hard earned
digicash.

If we think about anonymous computer contractors and anonymous
employers, the interesting question is how to maintain reputations and
how to check references.

	- Igor.

ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:
> Actually, here in Oklahoma almost everyone has a gun (not that they use
> them though, but many carry). Incidentally, everyone including most down
> to earth truckers is exceedingly polite. When I went to NYC first time,
> I was shocked how less polite people were in comparison with Oklahomans.
>
> Are the folks in Flushing, NY or around Avenue of the Americas allowed to
> possess firearms? :)

I'm not quite in Flushing, but: it's possible to keep one at home, but
a carry licence is impossible.

> Russians in Russia are even less polite, and guns are outlawed.

Russians in Russia are very polite to boys wearing leather and riding BMW's.
New Yorkers are sometimes polite to black men wearing lots of gold jewelry.
Maybe they suspect something.

> Maybe your hint really makes sense and after initial depopulation the
> citizens will use different, more considerate, ways of dealing with each
> other.

I think it would take very few 'depopulation' incidents to improve manners.
Humans, like rats, are very good at learning from others' mistakes.

>        Or, alternatively, maybe people will hide behind anonymity most
> of the time to avoid becoming vistims of jimbell's clearinghouse.
> Really, it is very hard to assasssinate username@alpha.c2.org, although
> it is possible to hire nyms to write programs and pay them hard earned
> digicash.

There are some very interesting discussions in Bruno Solnik's book I
mentioned about the worth of anonymity v. reputation in financial markets.
I wonder if it would be possible for government officials to hide behind
anonymity. Everyone will hate a certain gov't official, but no one will
know who s/he is?

> If we think about anonymous computer contractors and anonymous
> employers, the interesting question is how to maintain reputations and
> how to check references.

That's an interesting question - want to think about a protocol?

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
[we were discussing jimbell's assassination clearinghouse - Igor]

> > Maybe your hint really makes sense and after initial depopulation the
> > citizens will use different, more considerate, ways of dealing with each
> > other.
> 
> I think it would take very few 'depopulation' incidents to improve manners.
> Humans, like rats, are very good at learning from others' mistakes.

Alright, but since quite a few people have quite a few present enemies,
the depopulation may be severe enough. The only hope is that the assassin
market will become tight.

> >        Or, alternatively, maybe people will hide behind anonymity most
> > of the time to avoid becoming vistims of jimbell's clearinghouse.
> > Really, it is very hard to assasssinate username@alpha.c2.org, although
> > it is possible to hire nyms to write programs and pay them hard earned
> > digicash.
> 
> There are some very interesting discussions in Bruno Solnik's book I
> mentioned about the worth of anonymity v. reputation in financial markets.
> I wonder if it would be possible for government officials to hide behind
> anonymity. Everyone will hate a certain gov't official, but no one will
> know who s/he is?

Sorry, how is the book called?

I think that it is entirely possible. For example, consider usenet: some
groups elect to create a "government" - that is, they elect to become
moderated newsgroups. They elect moderators. For all practical 
purposes these moderators are anonymous - after all, who knows who
hides behind an email address? This anonymity does not prevent
elections. 

Another problem, as we know very well, is that cyberspace elections are
easy to rig and it is easy to create identities that do not correspond
to real-life people.

Maybe we should return to the practices of XVII century and give
cybervotes only to those who pay cybertaxes. Of course, the weight
of the vote must be equal to the amount of cybertax.

> > If we think about anonymous computer contractors and anonymous
> > employers, the interesting question is how to maintain reputations and
> > how to check references.
> 
> That's an interesting question - want to think about a protocol?

Well, let's think. What are the requirements?

	- Igor.

On Sun, 9 Jun 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

> I think it would take very few 'depopulation' incidents to improve manners.
> Humans, like rats, are very good at learning from others' mistakes.
> 

A brief survey of history reveals that humans are more anxious to repeat 
the mistakes of their peers and forebearers than to learn from them. It's 
not that they don't learn, but fail to pass the wisdom on to their 
progeny. Not to mention that the average retention span is quite low.

Or you could exhume the old argument that stupid people shouldn't breed. :-)

...Paul

On Sun, 9 Jun 1996 ichudov@algebra.com wrote:

Fascinating stuff about polite gun-owners deleted.

> If we think about anonymous computer contractors and anonymous
> employers, the interesting question is how to maintain reputations and
> how to check references.

I think it comes down to "who watches the watchers". Do you trust 
Business Week's ratings of so and so management consultant? Do you trust 
The Cypherpunk Guide To Business Magazines's ratings of Business Week's 
ratings of consultants? How about Joe Usenet's assessment of the above on
misc.stocks.slander? This begins to resemble the problem of the pgp Web 
of Trust. This problem already exists in the non-anonymous 
flesh-and-paper world. Who do you trust to tell you who to trust (and so on)?
Do you trust journalists who take ad money?

Presumably, once a decent profit model evolves for net publishing, there 
will be some incentive for customers to give you their opinions, and for 
others to gather them. Do you have a clear path of trust (or faith 
or some other quality) proceeding either to them or to their stated 
customers? 

I forsee many variations of trust webs to determine the quality of
ratings. Eg. I am 50% in agreement with Hal's taste in ice cream, 10% in
agreement with Declan's and 75% with the Economist's. I have signed this
with my key. Do the math to see how much you trust my assessment of Tim
Horton's chocolate pecan fudge. You decide how to do the math. Tim and Hal
had some really nice articles on this last month 

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Reminds me that I should grab an AI book real soon now. 

Another thing one could use is a pseudonymous open-booking protocol (I 
didn't read Eric's post, so I don't know if it's any good) to determine 
if alleged customers are the real article. Offhand, I'd venture a guess 
that we'd see the above problem again, which hints at the importance of a 
good generalized trust or agreement calculus (and calculator) for formalized 
comments.

I don't want to imagine how bad the traffic will get on IETF mailing 
lists to standardize trust comments.

On Mon, 17 Jun 1996 I wrote:

> I don't want to imagine how bad the traffic will get on IETF mailing 
> lists to standardize trust comments. 

Whoops. Mental laziness, replace trust with belief throughout that post.

On Sat, 8 Jun 1996, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:

> jim bell wrote:
> > 
> > While I appreciate your...uh...appreciation, let me remind you that part of 
> > my "pronouncements" are that the current political and social system is 
> > are in "the best interests of the inhabitants of this nation" is still an 
> > open question, and many people have agreed with me on this matter. 
> Since corrupt officials are likely to have more anonymous cash that
> phreedom phighters, guess who will win.

	There are more phreedom phighters, and their assets aren't as
public as the officials.

> Also, think about this: lots of people have someone they'd like
> to assassinate but do not actually do it because of lack of anonymity
> and associated hassles (like dealing with assassins non-anonymously,
> abundance of traces, possible confession of the assassin and so on).

	Most people don't kill because they have a built in psychological
block (call it morals if you wish) against killing in cold blood. This is
what makes people like snipers so puzzling and in some sense romantic to
the average person. They _can't_ at a deep level consider calmly and
dispassonately blowing anothers brains all over the wall. Most murders in
this country are either down in the heat of passion, by psychotics/
sociopaths or by professionals, who usually fall into one of the previous
catagories.

	It is almost ridicoulously simple to kill someone in a relatively
untraceable fashion. Any person of average intelligence can do a little
research (say about 3 hours at a decent (non-chicago) library) and spend
an hour or two in thought and come up with a way to target a non- to
moderately public figure with out getting caught. 
	I can give you 4 right off the top of my head that have a
reasonable chance of sucess, and very little chance of discovery. 

	People like *A* president, or similar high profile fiugre would be
much tougher target, but by no means impossible. 

	Contracting with a "professional killer" is really very silly as I
would bet many of them are unreliable and untrustworthy (outside of
Mafia/Gang related killers--they are (IANAE) more like soldiers, doing it
for "country"-- than freelance assians.) There may be professional hitmen
that are reliable, but they tend to be out of the price range of normal
people. 

	Life ain't TV. 


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@crash.suba.com

snow <snow@smoke.suba.com> writes:
...
> 	It is almost ridicoulously simple to kill someone in a relatively
> untraceable fashion. Any person of average intelligence can do a little
> research (say about 3 hours at a decent (non-chicago) library) and spend
> an hour or two in thought and come up with a way to target a non- to
> moderately public figure with out getting caught.
> 	I can give you 4 right off the top of my head that have a
> reasonable chance of sucess, and very little chance of discovery.

Please do - thank you.

With purely academic interest,

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

> snow <snow@smoke.suba.com> writes:
> ...
> > 	It is almost ridicoulously simple to kill someone in a relatively
> > untraceable fashion. Any person of average intelligence can do a little
> > research (say about 3 hours at a decent (non-chicago) library) and spend
> > an hour or two in thought and come up with a way to target a non- to
> > moderately public figure with out getting caught.
> > 	I can give you 4 right off the top of my head that have a
> > reasonable chance of sucess, and very little chance of discovery.
> 
> Please do - thank you.
> 
> With purely academic interest,

	These methods assume a reasonable amount of stealth and
intelligence on the part of the murder, meaning things like choosing the
appropriate time of day to carry out the attack. Also notice that some of
these methods cause more "collateral" damage than others. These are also
not particluarly suited to a highly placed political victim. Those (as
noted) take more work.

	Remember AT ALL TIMES That you MUST be worried about forensic
evidence. Hair, skin, finger prints, blood etc. TAKE PRECAUTIONS. 

	Also note that I have never tried any of these, nor has anyone I
know--at least to my knowlege. They seem like they would work, but are
not, of course, guarenteed to work. 

	Some generic advise that generally applies in all circumstances:
	1) Get scruffy before hand if possible. Don't shave or wash/comb
your hair or bush your teeth. Wear _decent_ clothes aquired from a second
hand store in colors you don't normally wear (don't deliberately clash,
it is too obvious). If you normally wear shoes, wear boots and vice versa.
Of course dispose of the clothing as soon as possible after the event, and
clean yourself up to whatever is normal for you. Don't bother growning a
beard, it takes too long, and it's sudden appearance and removal could be
questioned. 
	
	1) Wire/tape 6 to 8 large cans of hair spray around the tail pipe
ofvictims car. This assumes 3 things-- 1) Victim drives, 2) You have access
to Victims car (best time is around 4 or 5 in the morning) 3) You are sure
that the victim will be in the car. Most hairspray is at least somewhat
flamable, and when heated by a tail pipe will go off like a bomb.
Thourghly clean the cans before hand to remove any possible remaining
prints and/or other forensic evidence.
	This works best in a suburb or a rural area where a) people are
less likely to be out and about at night, and b) are more likely to own
and regularly use an automobile. 

	2) Aquire a .22 caliber air pistol, clean thoroughly. Get a cigar
and boil it down to get a small amount of "pure" nicoteen. This is a
decently potent poison. Pack a portion of this into the cup end of a
pellet. Wear latex gloves On a busy street approach your victim from
behind as he/she is walking. Shoot him/her (expose the pellet gun as
little as possible. Keep walking steadily. Randomly turn corners, dropping
the gun in the trash at the first opportunity. Gloves a couple of blocks
later. 
	This would work best in a LARGE city. I don't know if you can get
a guarenteed lethal dose of nicoteen into that cup, but you could
substitute a more lethal poison at a risk of more tracability.
	This assumes that there are no cops in the immediate area. It
works on the idea that the small sound of a pellet gun going off will be
lost in the general traffic noise, and that people will be more attentive
to the victim than to random people.

	3) This one is definately NOT for the squemish, or the weak. If
the victim lives alone, or is likely to be alone at home for a length of
time, enter the home. Kill the victim using some sort of poison or other
bloodless method (strangulation, breaking the neck etc)  Carry the body to
the bathroom and drain as much blood from the body as possible. This may
take a while, so use the time to strip as much flesh from the bones as
possible, being careful NOT to mess up the place any more than necessary,
as you will have to clean it. 
	If the victim has a garbage disposal, run as much of the flesh
down it as possible. When as much blood and flesh has been disoposed of as
possible, put the rest in small trash bags. Wash _everything_ as much as
possible. Put these trash bags into a second set of trash bags. Put these
trash bags into used military duffel bags purchased (one at a time) at
different military surplus stores. If you have been able to get most of
the flesh off, it would take much, and with most of the blood gone, the
weight will be gone, so you should be able to carry the rest of the body
off. Deposit the different body parts around the city/state in random
dumpsters etc. The wider you spread the parts the better.

	4) Turn your victim into the BAFT as the leader of an "End time"
right wing gun owning Cult preaching tax evasion & armed revolt against
the Zionist occupation government.
	Ok, I could think of 4 last night, but one slipped my mind
tonight.

	Before anyone kicks off into my ass about this, for four years of
my life I was paid to be prepared to kill at any time, and boredom can
lead to some very strange conversations.  


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@crash.suba.com

On Sat, 8 Jun 1996 ichudov@algebra.com wrote:

> Since corrupt officials are likely to have more anonymous cash that
> phreedom phighters, guess who will win.
> 
> Also, think about this: lots of people have someone they'd like
> to assassinate but do not actually do it because of lack of anonymity
> and associated hassles (like dealing with assassins non-anonymously,
> abundance of traces, possible confession of the assassin and so on).
> With your assassination clearinghouse these hassles go away. I think it
> would present an excellent prospect for reducing the population.

I could see an easy possibility for sting operations with the added 
feature that you can have assassinated all the supected assassins (ie anybody
that may have come near whatever surveillance there may have been).
Why bother with courts and trials? 

I still think assassination politics is self-terminating.

> Maybe *that* will help the whales and trees, because of the effect on demand.

Don't you mean supply? Stores and physical companies are easier to target
than consumers. But the only remaining environmentalists or for that
matter any other people with strong views will be net-based pseudonyms.
Usenet flamewars, editorials and talk shows just don't seem dying for, imho.