{"id":16273,"date":"2024-10-19T15:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T13:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/19\/the-podcast-kill-list-doesnt-reflect-badly-on-the-internet-it-reflects-badly-on-us-john-naughton\/"},"modified":"2024-10-19T15:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T13:37:45","slug":"the-podcast-kill-list-doesnt-reflect-badly-on-the-internet-it-reflects-badly-on-us-john-naughton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/19\/the-podcast-kill-list-doesnt-reflect-badly-on-the-internet-it-reflects-badly-on-us-john-naughton\/","title":{"rendered":"The podcast Kill List doesn\u2019t reflect badly on the internet \u2013 it reflects badly on us | John Naughton"},"content":{"rendered":"

A gripping audio series about a killer-for-hire scam on the dark web is a reminder of how technology holds up a mirror to human nature<\/p>\n

This column comes to you as a break from listening to a riveting podcast series called Kill List<\/a><\/em>. It\u2019s about a secret website that journalist and author Carl Miller<\/a> discovered on the dark web, the slimy underbelly of the internet. The site essentially runs what one might call an \u201cassassination market\u201d or a murder-for-hire service. Customers identify and profile someone whom they wish to have killed and pay (in bitcoin, natch) for the service they require. Hence the title of the podcast series.<\/p>\n

The story starts in 2020 in the early days of the pandemic lockdown when a gifted IT expert and hacker, Chris Monteiro, was browsing the site and found a security vulnerability that, once exploited, gave him complete access to it. Inside, he found a \u201ckill list\u201d, rather like an Excel spreadsheet, of 175 people all over the world whom clients wanted murdered. For each target, there was usually lots of detailed information \u2013 address, photographs, habits, routes regularly travelled etc. It looked, I guess, superficially mundane \u2013 until you read the \u201cinstructions\u201d attached for each one. \u201cHow much bitcoin should I pay?\u201d \u201cTell me the execution time in advance \u2013 I can\u2019t be there.\u201d \u201cI would just like this person to be shot and killed. Where, how and what with does not bother me at all.\u201d You get the idea.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nA gripping audio series about a killer-for-hire scam on the dark web is a reminder of how technology holds up a mirror to human nature
\nThis column comes to you as a break from listening to a riveting podcast series called Kill List. It\u2019s about a secret website that journalist and author Carl Miller discovered on the dark web, the slimy underbelly of the internet. The site essentially runs what one might call an \u201cassassination market\u201d or a murder-for-hire service. Customers identify and profile someone whom they wish to have killed and pay (in bitcoin, natch) for the service they require. Hence the title of the podcast series.
\nThe story starts in 2020 in the early days of the pandemic lockdown when a gifted IT expert and hacker, Chris Monteiro, was browsing the site and found a security vulnerability that, once exploited, gave him complete access to it. Inside, he found a \u201ckill list\u201d, rather like an Excel spreadsheet, of 175 people all over the world whom clients wanted murdered. For each target, there was usually lots of detailed information \u2013 address, photographs, habits, routes regularly travelled etc. It looked, I guess, superficially mundane \u2013 until you read the \u201cinstructions\u201d attached for each one. \u201cHow much bitcoin should I pay?\u201d \u201cTell me the execution time in advance \u2013 I can\u2019t be there.\u201d \u201cI would just like this person to be shot and killed. Where, how and what with does not bother me at all.\u201d You get the idea. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A gripping audio series about a killer-for-hire scam on the dark web is a reminder of how technology holds up a mirror to human nature This column comes to you as a break from listening to a riveting podcast series called Kill List. It\u2019s about a secret website that journalist and author Carl Miller discovered …<\/p>\n

The podcast Kill List doesn\u2019t reflect badly on the internet \u2013 it reflects badly on us | John Naughton<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16273"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}