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Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

openbazaar.org

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Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#251

Post by tripzilch »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #171
SamPatt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that OpenBazaar has been used for over a year now, and only a small minority of the trade has been illicit. Most people just want a platform where they can buy / sell in crypto and avoid marketplace fees. We built OpenBazaar to be an agnostic protocol for trade online. It's like any other protocol in that it's neutral, and people can use it how they please. I don't like the idea of people using it for im…

After digging into some Reddit comments, this reply appears to downplay the extent to which you're directly facilitating the darknet market migration. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBazaar/comments/6oifak/is_it_po... "Well if the devs want massive adoption and 2.0 is functional then getting it to work on tails in the next 3 months will get them that." "If someone would post an eli18 walkthrough on how to config tails s…

> the extent to which you're directly facilitating the darknet market migration

Since it's other people speculating and discussing how to integrate OB with Tails etc, shouldn't that more accurately be "indirectly facilitating (...)"?

You can question the ethics just the same, but it sounds like you're not, and already made up your mind.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#252

Post by tom_mellior »

exadeci wrote: post #221
mike-cardwell wrote: post #112

Installed. Run. First screen: Select your language. English already selected. Hit "Next". Nothing happens. No apparent way of actually selecting a language or proceeding. Uninstalled.

Give it the time to connect to the network... Look at the bar at the bottom

Didn't see a bar at the bottom, but this seems to have been it. I opened it, wandered off for an hour, and it worked afterwards.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#253

Post by e12e »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #199
mirimir wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like Open Bazaar is poised to become the next Silk Road. It might be a decentralized replacement for Silk Road. But there won't be central servers to take down, or owners of such to arrest. I mean, Tor devs don't get busted, do they? So rather, I'd say that it could replace centralized dark markets.

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.

Absolutely worth mentioning - because it implies similar roots as Tor: a project that provides a platform for plausible denials communication for the intelligence community in the case of Tor - for a "dénivelé" marketplace in the case of Open Bazaar.

Things like iran-contras would probably be easier today (under many Panopticon watchers) with such tech available.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#254

Post by tom_mellior »

kvee wrote: post #154
SamPatt wrote: post #114

I work on OpenBazaar and I'm happy to answer questions. This website links to the current version of OpenBazaar, but we're just about to launch a completely new version, which you can read about here: https://medium.com/openbazaarproject/openbazaar-2-0-p2p-trad... The 2.0 is built with Go and uses IPFS. It's open source and we welcome any developers into the project: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-go

It won't let me buy anything from any of the vendors I've tried It says: "The vendor's server has rejected the purchase request. This may be due to a connection issue. Check your purchase data, such as quantity and Bitcoin refund address, to make sure it is valid. If it is valid, try again in a few seconds. Reason: vendor rejected contract". I've also gotten " Reason: unable to reach vendor" Has anyone successfully b…

Same problem here, with different products from different vendors and several retries. My guess would be some packets blocked by my firewall, but I haven't tried to verify this.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#255

Post by mirimir »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #234
mirimir wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gathe…

For sure. Some have the same concerns about Tor. I mean, Paul Syverson does work for the US Navy. But of course, he's an ornery idealist who would never stand for Tor being backdoored. At least, that's the story. I'm ~90% convinced, but how would one be sure? Except that the code is open-source, anyway.

> So it's a legitimate concern that this software will be some sort of honeypot to hack and monitor those ... who have a moral code that doesn't align with the federal government ...

Yes. And it's not just about the US. The US government is a serious threat for many non-Americans, and does pretty much whatever it likes on the Internet. There are effectively no rules, and no justice. Only the raw exercise of power.

> ... regardless of whether or not there's any proof they're doing anything wrong.

Well, who gets to decide what's wrong?

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#256

Post by e12e »

e12e wrote: post #253
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.

Absolutely worth mentioning - because it implies similar roots as Tor: a project that provides a platform for plausible denials communication for the intelligence community in the case of Tor - for a "dénivelé" marketplace in the case of Open Bazaar. Things like iran-contras would probably be easier today (under many Panopticon watchers) with such tech available.

Eh, fr/en autocorrect, too late to edit:

plausibly deniable communication

"deniable" marketplace

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#257

Post by vectorpush »

johndevor wrote: post #235
vectorpush wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Bitcoin ATMs are rare, notoriously unreliable, often require invasive KYC and always come with a gigantic markup.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#258

Post by mirimir »

e12e wrote: post #253
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.

Absolutely worth mentioning - because it implies similar roots as Tor: a project that provides a platform for plausible denials communication for the intelligence community in the case of Tor - for a "dénivelé" marketplace in the case of Open Bazaar. Things like iran-contras would probably be easier today (under many Panopticon watchers) with such tech available.

Sure, unconstitutional military actions like Iran-Contra would be easier. But the key point is that suitably educated and skilled individuals can also do such stuff. Without nation-scale (or even corporate-scale) resources. That's what I meant about democratization of freedom.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#259

Post by e12e »

mirimir wrote: post #258
e12e wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely worth mentioning - because it implies similar roots as Tor: a project that provides a platform for plausible denials communication for the intelligence community in the case of Tor - for a "dénivelé" marketplace in the case of Open Bazaar. Things like iran-contras would probably be easier today (under many Panopticon watchers) with such tech available.

Sure, unconstitutional military actions like Iran-Contra would be easier. But the key point is that suitably educated and skilled individuals can also do such stuff. Without nation-scale (or even corporate-scale) resources. That's what I meant about democratization of freedom.

Yeah, the point I was trying to make, is that having a real, anonymous digital marketplace might be very useful to intelligence agencies, so it might make sense for them to help build one. Without looking to build in back doors - just like naval intelligence might want an onion router system that works, and has enough traffic going through it that picking out the (smallish) sub-set that is intelligence traffic isn't trivial (eg: a traditional, secure, encrypted (overlay) network that is only used by a single/handful of intelligence agencies isn't very robust/useful for hiding communication).

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#260

Post by mirimir »

e12e wrote: post #259
mirimir wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, unconstitutional military actions like Iran-Contra would be easier. But the key point is that suitably educated and skilled individuals can also do such stuff. Without nation-scale (or even corporate-scale) resources. That's what I meant about democratization of freedom.

Yeah, the point I was trying to make, is that having a real, anonymous digital marketplace might be very useful to intelligence agencies, so it might make sense for them to help build one. Without looking to build in back doors - just like naval intelligence might want an onion router system that works, and has enough traffic going through it that picking out the (smallish) sub-set that is intelligence traffic isn't…

OK, got it. And indeed, that is the Tor Project argument.
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