Positional Distortion

via Adrian Chen at Gawker:

Mark, a software developer, had ordered the 100 micrograms of acid through a listing on the online marketplace Silk Road. He found a seller with lots of good feedback who seemed to know what they were talking about, added the acid to his digital shopping cart and hit “check out.” He entered his address and paid the seller 50 Bitcoins—untraceable digital currency—worth around $150. Four days later the drugs, sent from Canada, arrived at his house.

“It kind of felt like I was in the future,” Mark said.

Between this, the actions of Lulzsec, and the antics of Anonymous, I’m sensing a growing underworld far beyond the reach and control of our existing state-run policing agencies. I wonder what William Gibson’s perspective is on all this, he basically predicted all this would happen.

I doubt Silk Road will last for much longer now that the secret is out, but I’m sure there are a number of other sites just like it that we simply don’t know about. The use of Bitcoin here requires an entire analysis all its own; we’ve simply never had such an untraceable currency before. I’m hoping this doesn’t completely destroy its reputation though, I’m genuinely excited to see it take off.

Read more here.