Introducing Slur

Slur is an open source, decentralized and anonymous marketplace for the selling of secret information in exchange for bitcoin. Slur is written in C and operates over the Tor network with bitcoin transactions through libbitcoin. Both buyers and sellers are fully anonymous and there are no restrictions on the data that is auctioned. There is no charge to buy or sell on the Slur marketplace except in the case of a dispute, where a token sum is paid to volunteers.

How does it work ?

🔐 Sellers encrypt, upload and then list their data on the digital market with the ease a user might list an item on eBay. They do so with full anonymity and there are no restrictions on the content of the data.
🔒 Exclusive bidders attempt to purchase the data for their own use and / or prevent other parties from acquiring a copy. Should an exclusive bidder win the auction they alone will receive the decryption keys. The same data cannot be auctioned a second time on the Slur marketplace.
👥 Crowd bidders pool their funds into a single bid. Should they win the auction the network will release the decryption keys to all users on the Slur marketplace and the information will therefore become public.
⚖️ Arbitrators are randomly selected users who agree to weigh in on a dispute should the winner of an auction claim that the decrypted contents do not match the sellers description.
🔑 Public key cryptography ensures the data being sold can only be decrypted by the winner of the auction.

For example example a seller signs, encrypts, uploads and lists a document on the Slur marketplace with a description of the contents. As the buyers place bids their funds are placed into escrow in real time. The winner of the auction is an exclusive bidder and receives the decryption key from the network. The losing bidders receive their pledges back in full. Funds held in escrow by the network are automatically run through a tumbler.

At this stage the winner of the auction has a opportunity to evaluate the decrypted document before the seller receives payment to verify it matches the description. If the bidder believes he has received the promised information he can authorize the funds held in escrow by the network protocol to be released to the seller.

If the bidder believes the document does not match the sellers description a dispute can be initiated. In this case five arbitrators are given the decryption keys in order to evaluate the contents and compare with the original description. Their majority decision determines where the funds held in escrow by the network protocol will go. In trades where a dispute is initiated a small sum is paid to each arbitrator for their time which is deducted from the funds in escrow.

In the case the crowd bidders have won the auction and the listed data will become public. There is an opportunity for those who bid to evaluate the data before the seller is paid and vote on initiating a dispute. If either the majority of the bidders or a subset of the bidders who were responsible for > 33% of the equity in the winning bid are dissatisfied then a dispute will be initiated.

Implications

If correctly implemented this platform will have a profound and lasting effect on our society.

An unregulated free market for information would redefine the net worth of every person as their material assets would in the future be weighed against the market value of their secrets.

As damaging as Slur can be to individuals it is considerably more so for groups

Its estimated that 5% of the general population are psychopaths. Introducing financial incentive in an anonymous framework will produce a greater yield of leaked information than from say the ideology that drove patriots like Edward Snowden. For every idealist willing to selflessly sacrifice their freedom, assets and even risk their lives for a greater good, there are 1000 psychopaths willing to anonymously sell out their peers for material gain.

Organizations of every type; governments, corporations and the military are in the unfortunate predicament of having both a great deal of liquid assets and a large number of secrets to protect – accessible by numerous disgruntled or psychopathic personnel. When Slur becomes ubiquitous it will bleed organizations secrets and funds.

The Slur marketplace will sharply increase demand for bitcoin from those parties attempting to purchase previously inaccessible secret information and organizations scrambling to suppress damaging leaks from inside their own ranks or security breaches.

The Slur market is WikiLeaks 2.0. A incalculable resource for public knowledge and unfiltered access to the truth. Except that in the future journalists will need to compensate whistle blowers for the extreme risks they take.

The types of information we expect to see on the Slur marketplace:

🔒 Trade secrets.

🛠 Designs for every type of consumer product.

💻 The source code for proprietary operating systems and high-end CAD software.

🎯 Zero-day exploits. For the market-defined value rather than a price determined by the corporations under the guise of a bounty with the veiled threat of legal action should the researcher choose to sell elsewhere.

🚪 The details of backdoors covertly installed inside industrial and consumer hardware and software.

🔓 Stolen databases. Corporations will no longer be able to get away with an apology when they fail to secure their customers’ confidential data. They will have to pay the market value to suppress it.

📂 Proof of tax evasion from disgruntled or underpaid employees. Both the IRS and the public have an interest in that information, and the corporations will have to bid to suppress it – a very quantifiable and predictable payoff for the seller.

🎖 Military intelligence relevant to real-time conflicts.

✈️ Aerospace and defense designs.

📖 Evidence relevant to ongoing trials.

📸 Unflattering celebrity photos and videos.

🌐 The complete databases of social media sites like Facebook.

🏛 Proof of government corruption. Close to an election.