Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[bethellison AT netscape.net (Beth)]

And it's already been canned.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/29/terrorist.market.ap/index.html

(Apologies if a separate email on this shows up from me. My emails to this 
list don't always go through when I send them from work)

Beth
http://navel.blogspot.com

Jason Laughlin <jason AT jasonlaughlin.com> wrote:

>Maria Winslow wrote:
>
>>"Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlor so that people 
>>could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go 
>>in 
>>and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?" - SENATOR 
>>BYRON DORGAN, Democrat of North Dakota, in disclosing that a Pentagon 
>>office 
>>has proposed an online futures market in terror attacks.
>>
>
>Has nobody ever heard the term "deadpool" (http://www.stiffs.com/) or 
>even "fucked company" (http://www.fuckedcompany.com)?
>
>People make these bets all the time, all over the world.  The only 
>difference is that this is being promulgated as a government intel tool 
>instead of a game for bored punters.
>
>Intel (the analysis of information, not the chipmaker) has always been 
>an exercise in probability, not predetermination.  I believe it's 
>already common wisdom that open markets and decentralized distributed 
>groups will always be more successful than governments at picking 
>winners and losers based on available information.  It's impossible for 
>all the intel analysts in government to have their fingers on the pulse 
>of every place in the world, so let the distributed political deadpool 
>sort it out. 
>
>The smart terrorists already profit from their predictions anyway.  
>Wouldn't you expect them to bet on the performance of stock markets of 
>countries where they're planning activity?  Don't you believe there are 
>already some deep pockets to fund the bounties on assasinations anyway?  
>This is simply bringing everything out in the open. 
>
>Since more information is almost always better, and you can't keep your 
>ear to the ground everywhere, I'd say this is a wonderful tool to alert 
>officials in targeted countries when to increase security and for how 
>long.  It's simply too honest for our rose-colored world. :-)
>
>Jason
>
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