I have a whack of work to do right now as yesterday devolved at about 7 PM (no complaints) into bizarre sweet drinks and experimenting with air guns to see what we could make them shoot. But I just wanted to say that this terrorism “dead pool” is one of the most messed up things I've seen in a long time.
Basically, it allows “investors” to place bets on future terrorst events — you'd be buying and selling “futures contracts”. For example, if you say “Bush is going to be assassinated” and “invest” in that, you get a payout when it happens, with the US government taking their house cut of course. Others would bet on whether North Korea launches a nuclear missile strike on Los Angelese — if Los Angeles is vaporized, those people get rich.
The market opens for registration on Friday, with “investing” starting October 1st. $600,000 has been spent so far, with $3 million and $5 million being requested for the next two years of betting.
Here's the DARPA page on “FutureMap”, and here's the EFF mirror in case that's taken offline or altered (as other parts of TIA have been — what, you thought TIA had been dissolved? Think again).
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