Authors: Jamie Bartlett
But others worried what might happen if no one knows you’re a dog. Parents panicked about children infected with ‘modem fever’. Soon after Turkle’s study, another psychologist, John Suler, was studying the behaviour of participants in early chat rooms. He found
that participants tended to be more aggressive and angry online than offline. He suggested this was because, when protected by a screen, people feel that real-world social restrictions, responsibilities and norms don’t apply. Whether actual or perceived, anonymity, thought Suler, would allow you to explore your identity, but it might also allow you to act without fear of being held accountable (in 2001 he would call this ‘The Online Disinhibition Effect’). It’s true that from the outset, many BBS and Usenet subscribers were treating cyberspace as a realm for all sorts of bizarre, creative, offensive and illegal behaviour. In Usenet’s ‘Alternative’ hierarchy, anyone could set up a discussion group about anything they wanted. The first group was alt.gourmand, a forum for recipes. This was swiftly followed by alt.sex, alt.drugs and alt.rock-n-roll. ‘
Alt.*
’, as it came to be known, immediately became the most popular part of Usenet by far. Alongside purposeful and serious groups for literature, computing or science, Usenet and BBS contained many more dedicated to cyber-bullying, hacking and pornography.
It was in this heady atmosphere that the radical libertarian Jim Bell first took the promise of online anonymity to a terrifying conclusion. In late 1992, a group of radical libertarians from California called the ‘cypherpunks’ set up an email list to propose and discuss how cyberspace could be used to guarantee personal liberty, privacy and anonymity. Bell, a contributor to the list, believed that if citizens could use the internet to send secret encrypted messages and trade
using untraceable currencies, it would be possible to create a functioning market for almost anything. In 1995 he set out his ideas in an essay called ‘Assassination Politics’, which he posted to the email list. It made even the staunchly libertarian cypherpunks wince.
Bell proposed that an organisation be set up that would ask citizens to make anonymous digital cash donations to the prize pool of a public figure. The organisation would award the prize to whoever correctly predicted that person’s death. This, argued Bell, wasn’t illegal, it was just a type of gambling. But here’s the ruse: if enough people were sufficiently angry with a particular individual – each anonymously contributing just a few dollars – the prize pool would become so large that someone would be incentivised to make a prediction and then fulfil it themselves in order to take the pot. This is where encrypted messages and untraceable payment systems come in. A crowd-sourced – and untraceable – murder would unfold as follows. First, the would-be assassin sends his prediction in an encrypted message that can be opened only by a digital code known to the person who sent it. He then makes the kill and sends the organisation that code, which would unlock his (correct) prediction. Once verified by the organisation, presumably by watching the news, the prize money – in the form of a digital currency donated to the pot – would be publicly posted online as an encrypted file. Again, that file can be unlocked only by a ‘key’ generated by whoever made the prediction. Without anyone knowing the identity of anyone else, the organisation would be able to verify the prediction and award the prize to the person who made it.
The best bit, thought Bell, was that internet-enabled anonymity safeguarded all parties, except perhaps the killer (and his or her victim).
Even if the police discovered who’d been contributing to the cash prizes of people on the list, the donors could truthfully respond that they had never
directly
asked for anyone to be killed. The organisation that ran the market couldn’t help either, because they wouldn’t know who had donated, who had made predictions or who had unlocked the cash file. But Bell’s idea was about more than getting away with murder. He believed that this system would exert a populist pressure on elected representatives to be good. The worse the offender – the more he or she outraged his or her citizens – the more likely they were to accumulate a large pool, and incentivise potential assassins. (Bell believed Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini would all have been killed had such a market existed at the time.) Ideally, no one would need to be killed. Bell hoped the very existence of this market would mean no one would dare throw their hat into the ring at all. ‘Perfect anonymity, perfect secrecy, and perfect security,’ he wrote, ‘. . . combined with the ease and security with which these contributions could be collected, would make being an abusive government employee an extremely risky proposition. Chances are good that nobody above the level of county commissioner would even risk staying in office.’
In 1995, when Bell wrote ‘Assassination Politics’, this was all hypothetical. Although Bell believed his market would ultimately lead to the collapse of every government in the world, reality hadn’t caught up with his imagination. Nearly two decades later, with the creation of digital currencies like Bitcoin, anonymous browsers like Tor and trustworthy encryption systems, it had, and Bell’s vision was realised. ‘Killing is in most cases wrong, yes,’ Sanjuro wrote when he launched the Assassination Market in the summer of 2013:
However, this is an inevitable direction in the technological evolution . . . When someone uses the law against you and/or infringes upon your rights to life, liberty, property, trade or the pursuit of happiness, you may now, in a safe manner from the comfort of your living room, lower their life-expectancy in return.
There are, today, at least half a dozen names on the Assassination Market. Although it is frightening, no one, as far as I can tell, has been assassinated. Its significance lies not in its effectiveness, but in its existence. It is typical of the sort of creativity and innovation that characterises the dark net: a place without limits, a place to push boundaries, a place to express ideas without censorship, a place to sate our curiosities and desires, whatever they may be. All dangerous, magnificent and uniquely human qualities.
fn1
In 2010 Tor was awarded the Free Software Foundation’s Award for Projects of Social Benefit, in part for the service it provides for whistleblowers, human-rights campaigners and activists in dissident movements.
fn2
September 1993, the month America On-Line started to offer its subscribers access to Usenet, is etched into internet folklore as ‘the eternal September’, when newcomers logged on to the internet en masse.
‘
At the top of the tree of life there isn’t love: there is lulz.
’
Anonymous
‘HI /B/!’ READ
the small placard that Sarah held to her semi-naked body. ‘7 August 2013, 9.35 p.m.’
It was an announcement to the hundreds – thousands, perhaps – of anonymous users logged on to the infamous ‘/b/’ board on the image-sharing website 4chan that she was ready to ‘cam’. Appreciative viewers began posting various sexually explicit requests, which Sarah performed, photographed and uploaded.
On 4chan, there are boards dedicated to a variety of subjects, including manga, DIY, cooking, politics and literature. But the majority of the twenty million people who visit the site each month head for /b/, otherwise known as the ‘random’ board. Sarah’s
photographs were only part of one of many bizarre, offensive or sexually graphic image ‘threads’ constantly running on /b/. Here, there is little to no moderation, and almost everyone posts anonymously. There is, however, a set of loose guidelines: the
47 Rules of the Internet
, created by /b/users, or ‘/b/tards’, themselves, including:
Rule 1: Do not talk about /b/
Rule 2: Do NOT talk about /b/
Rule 8: There are no real rules about posting
Rule 20: Nothing is to be taken seriously
Rule 31: Tits or G[et] T[he] F[uck] O[ut] – the choice is yours
Rule 36: There is always more fucked-up shit than what you just saw
Rule 38: No real limits of any kind apply here – not even the sky
Rule 42: Nothing is sacred
The anonymous and uncensored world of /b/ generates an enormous amount of inventive, funny and offensive content, as users vie for popularity, and notoriety. Did you ever click on a YouTube link and unexpectedly open Rick Astley’s 1987 smash hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’?
fn1
That was /b/. Or receive
funny photographs of cats with misspelled captions? Also /b/. The hacktivist group Anonymous? /b/ again.
But anonymity has its downside. Female users are a novelty here, and are routinely ignored or insulted, that is unless they post photographs of themselves, or play ‘camgirl’, which is always a simple and effective way to capture the attention of the /b/ tards. 4chan has a dedicated board for camming, called ‘/soc/’, where users are expected to treat camgirls nicely. Every day, dozens of camgirls appear there and perform. But occasionally one foolishly strays into /b/.
Approximately twenty minutes after the first photograph was posted, one user requested that Sarah take a naked photograph of herself with her first name written somewhere on her body. Soon afterwards, another user asked for a naked photograph of her posing with any medication she was taking. She duly performed both tasks. This was a mistake.
Anonymous said:
shit, I hope no one doxxes her. She actually delivered. She seems like a kind girl.
Anonymous replied:
dude get a grip she gave her first name, her physician’s full name, and even the dormitory area she lives in she wants to be found.
Anonymous replied:
She is new. Any girl who makes signs or writes names on her body is clearly new to camwhoring, so they really don’t know what they’re getting themselves into.
Sarah had inadvertently provided enough personal information to allow users to ‘dox’ her – to trace her identity. Other /b/tards were alerted
and quickly joined the thread – on 4chan, doxing a camwhore is seen as a rare treat – and before long, users had located Sarah on her university’s searchable directory, and revealed her full name, address and telephone number. Next, they tracked down her Facebook and Twitter accounts. Sarah was still at her computer, watching helplessly.
Anonymous said:
STOP. Seriously. Fucking fat losers
Anonymous replied:
good to see you’re still in the thread sarah. You’re welcome btw.
Anonymous replied:
heyyy . . . sarah . . . can I add you on facebook? Just kidding delete that shit before your nudes get sent to your friends
Anonymous said:
She literally just made her fucking twitter private while I was browsing her pics. Fucking cunt.
Anonymous replied:
It’s K if she does delete it. I’m making notes on the people on her friends list and their relation with her. Will start sending the nudes soon.
Anonymous replied:
LOL she deleted her Facebook. Doubt she can delete her relatives though.
Anonymous replied:
Eh, just save her name. Eventually once all this settles she will reactivate it and she will have her jimmies rustled once more. She will now never know peace from this rustling. And she’s going to have one embarassing fucking time with her family.
Anonymous said:
You fucking nerdbutts got her Facebook? You guys are fucking unbelievable. A girl actually delivers on this shit site, and you fuckers dox her. Fucking /b/, man.
Anonymous replied:
get the fuck out you piece of shit moralfag trash
Anonymous replied:
How much time do you spend here? You’re really surprised by this?
Anonymous said:
Those who deliver nudes deserve no harm
Anonymous replied:
hahahahahahaha you must be new here. ‘for the lulz’.
*
Anonymous said:
I don’t wanna be a whiteknight, but already being one, I wonder why /b/ does this. She provided tits and shit, yet ‘we’ do this to her. Internet hate machine at its best.
Anonymous replied:
/b/ camwhoring: 2004–2013. R.I.P. Thanks.
Anonymous replied:
The amazing thing to me is how you guys never shut up about how ‘if u keep doxing them we wont have any camwhores left :(.’ notice that you’ve been saying this for roughly a decade.
Anonymous said:
Anyway here is a list of all her Facebook friends. You can message friends, and all their own friends, so
that anyone with a slight connection to sarah via friend of friend knows
Anonymous replied:
So has somebody started messaging her friends and family or can I begin with it?
Anonymous replied:
Assume no one else has, because anyone else who responds might be a whiteknight looking to make you think that someone else was already sending the pics out.
Anonymous replied:
gogogo
One user created a fake Facebook account, put together a collage of Sarah’s pictures, and began sending them to Sarah’s family and friends with a short message: ‘Hey, do you know Sarah? The poor little sweetie has done some really bad things. So you know, here are the pictures she’s posted on the internet for everyone to see.’ Within a few minutes, almost everyone in Sarah’s social media network had been sent the photographs.
Anonymous said:
[xxxxx] is her Fone number – confirmed.
Anonymous replied:
Just called her, she is crying. She sounded like a sad sad sobbing whale.
Anonymous replied:
Is anyone else continuously calling?
This was what /b/ calls a ‘life ruin’: cyberbullying intended, as its name suggests, to result in long-term, sustained distress. It’s not the
first time that /b/ has doxed camgirls. One elated participant celebrated the victory by creating another thread to share stories and screen grabs of dozens of other ‘classic’ life ruins, posting photographs of a girl whose Facebook account had been hacked, her password changed, and the explicit pictures she’d posted on /b/ shared on her timeline.