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Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

openbazaar.org

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Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#231

Post by ven_bug_trap »

mirimir wrote: post #209
matthewbauer wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you concerned at all about legal ramifications of OpenBazaar? It seems like if you guys succeed, you're going to have to deal with lots of illegal transactions. Are you able or willing to work with law enforcement in these cases?

One would expect that devs would be unable to assist law enforcement. Except to say that it's hopeless. That's pretty much what Tor Project says. Maybe that's just BS, of course. But one can hope. An official statement from OpenBazaar devs would be good.

Yeah, one would hope that cooperation with law enforcement would be hopeless. Otherwise the decentralised nature of OB, and its impartiality, would be called into question.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#232

Post by ven_bug_trap »

problems wrote: post #223
matthewbauer wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you concerned at all about legal ramifications of OpenBazaar? It seems like if you guys succeed, you're going to have to deal with lots of illegal transactions. Are you able or willing to work with law enforcement in these cases?

They have to tread very, very carefully here. I seem to remember early demo screenshots with weed as a sample product. Not exactly a good call. There's a reason all the piracy tools show things like Big Buck Bunny downloading, playing, etc. You may want the illegal uses to be present on the service - I don't blame them I like the anarchic feeling of it and the lack of regulation that is possible in the system, it's b…

Yeah, the kind of person who's alerted of this tech's criminal potential by pictures of weed etc., rather than knowing about it through other means, isn't the type of person you would feel safe conducting an illegal transaction with.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#233

Post by soupbowl »

csuwldcat wrote: post #207
matthewbauer wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thinks it totally different. At the end of the day, the law could reach the original Internet. It really wasn't much different than telephone lines. Encryption is where everything changes. I think everyone should be at least a little bit nervous about where these crypto technologies are taking us. Once criminals learn how to use this technology, there's probably no going back.

Drug purchasing sites have actually helped reduce violence and crime associated with prohibited items/activities. I'm more nervous about where authoritarian government is taking us.

* citation needed.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#234

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

mirimir wrote: post #200
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, a comment below pointed out that the team has roots in the American intelligence community, and the founders live in Virginia ( http://samuelrpatterson.com/about-me and https://twitter.com/brianchoffman ) within a 20min drive of Langley. I'm not sure what to make of that, but it seemed worth mentioning.

It sure is worth mentioning! But then, Snowden has similar roots. So ??? But yes, I'm sure that the code will be reviewed carefully.

So it's a legitimate concern that this software will be some sort of honeypot to hack and monitor those who have the technical skills to evade typical monitoring, who have a moral code that doesn't align with the federal government, and who probably have a general distrust in the federal government in the first place. It's not a secret at this point that the US government has an incredibly powerful intelligence gathering and spying apparatus, and there have been many signs that they are very willing to spy on those with questionable morals, regardless of whether or not there's any proof they're doing anything wrong.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#235

Post by johndevor »

vectorpush wrote: post #65
jstanley wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Additionally, actually acquiring cryptocurrency requires a bank account in good standing and a ton of invasive KYC paperwork which will raise suspicions and alienate "street buyers". This is false. You can acquire cryptocurrency just as easily as you can acquire cash: sell things for it, exchange currency with friends, exchange currency with people you find on LocalBitcoins, steal it, run a business taking payment…

> You can acquire cryptocurrency just as easily as you can acquire cash: This is obviously untrue. Cash is ubiquitous throughout every corner of society, while cryptocurrency is extremely niche to the point of practical obscurity. > sell things for it The overwhelming majority of potential buyers will not have even heard of crypto. > exchange currency with friends Very few people have friends who dabble in cryptocurr…

Bitcoin ATMs are very popular and easy. I know a guy who runs some and I know what kind of clientele use it... A lot are in rough shape to say the least. And he does very large volume that is growing fast.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#236

Post by headmelted »

Aaaannnnndddd..... Silk Road has re-launched.

I actually think technologically this looks like quite the achievement, but it's hard for me to see this being used at all for legal commerce. It's just so much of an audience barrier to trade exclusively in cryptocurrencies.

I like the use of Multisig though. Nice touch.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#237

Post by aboodman »

tylersmith wrote: post #133
acover wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention ipfs. Ipfs doesn't have a method of multiple people writing to one key. How do they tackle this problem? Edit: thanks in advance. I reached my time cap trying to find out

When a vendor creates a listing it's created as an ipfs file. Vistors download and seed them and we've added broadcasting so when you update your store changes will be pushed out to willing nodes preemptively.

Is there an architectural diagram or a protocol flow somewhere? I would love to understand the lifecycle of a listing.

In particular, I'm curious if in effect every client has to find, download, validate, and index every listing. And how far you expect that to scale.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#238

Post by jpetso »

erikb wrote: post #213
tylersmith wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an OB dev myself, I could and would remove any amount of built in fees. We can make money providing services to users without rent seeking from everyone.

Yes, but you probably agree that putting ethics above money means there's a higher risk of losing the long term game in a capitalist world.

Funnily enough, putting money over ethics also presents a high risk of losing the long term game... if your long term goal is to end up with something user-centric and ethical.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#239

Post by xtracto »

soupbowl wrote: post #233
csuwldcat wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug purchasing sites have actually helped reduce violence and crime associated with prohibited items/activities. I'm more nervous about where authoritarian government is taking us.

* citation needed.

Well, there are some that I know. The original is here:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436643

Then there is Neil Franklin a Maryland police officer and director of the organization "Law Enforcement Against Prohibition"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc29nw4Si3Y

And his interview in the Deep Web documentary at minute 60 (it is in Netflix).

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#240

Post by jpetso »

StavrosK wrote: post #229
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is arguing that Alice and Bob should be prevented from engaging in good ol' American trade. We're arguing that when drugs are ubiquitous -- as easy to access as pushing a button -- you'll spawn far more addicts than would have otherwise been created. When an addict's life is destroyed by these horrific tools of pleasure we've created, are they going to take solace in the fact that they were able to use technol…

Doesn't that mean we should also shut down casinos, for example? I don't think the answer has ever been "make it so people can't buy the stuff", because that can't work. Instead, I believe that education, quality control, and help towards addicts would work much better.

Education, quality control and help towards addicts implies the need for regulation and taxation of profits. For instance, gambling and casinos tend to be permitted but tightly controlled by law in many countries, for exactly this reason. An entirely anonymous market will have trouble enabling regulation and taxation to offset the damage done.
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