Edit: I found it. It looks more professionally edited and lengthy than when I first came across it in 2010(!).
Link: https://www.themorgandoctrine.com/2010/11/draft-01-cyber-pri...
The Cyber Privateer Code (draft 02—updated on 6/28/2013): - Any unauthorized attempt to access your computer or phish your data access privileges constitutes a crime punishable by the looting of the attacker's assets by an authorized cyber privateer. All assets. Within 6 months of the attack.
- If it is determined that the attacker is acting under explicit instructions from a larger organization or government, the assets of that organization or government are also forfeit to the extent that an authorized cyber privateer may confiscate them within a six month period of the original motivating attack. All assets.
- The individual whose assets were seized by a cyber privateer—or the publicly and legally designated spokesperson for the organization or government whose assets were seized by the cyber privateer—has the "right of parley" with the head of the cyber privateering organization, such meeting to take place online in a two-way video conference, such conference to be publicly recorded by one or both parties and before the disposition of the booty but no later than 10 days from the confiscation.
- Innocent victims whose assets are directly and mistakenly confiscated by cyber privateers (and whose funds are not returned within 10-days after the parley) shall be compensated in an amount equal to four times their loss, with interest accruing on the restitution amount at the rate of twelve percent per annum. This does not include victims of the cyber criminals, since they were already victimized.
- Notifications and requests for parley must be unambiguously left by the cyber privateer so as to allow the right of parley to be exercised in a timely fashion.
*These rules would of course lead to the worlds end in any significant conflict, imo. But it would certainly be fun for a minute.
Example:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-13/caesars-e...
Caesars Entertainment Inc. paid tens of millions of dollars to hackers who broke into the company’s systems in recent weeks and threatened to release the company’s data, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Hacking gangs typically ask to be paid in cryptocurrency if they demand a ransom.
I don't want to live in a world with 100% anonymous and untraceable payments.
Cash is equally as capable of this, though. The hackers in this situation could demand cash and practically nothing would change about the technical aspects of their attack.
They would have to travel from e.g. Russia to Las Vegas to pick up the cash though. Or, I suppose, demand delivery of cash to Russia, or some other place. Whichever way, it's a lot easier for law enforcement. Suddenly a particular country is responsible.
BTC makes dealing with all of that a (potentially automated) bash one-liner.
> I encourage you to walk through some casinos and take stock of what you see.
I have spent a lot of time at casinos with family members who love eating, drinking, smoking, and gambling. Know what I've seen? I've seen that gambling is the only one of the four that hasn't killed at least one of my family members.
Check out War is a Racket, by US general Smedley Butler
Also the Snowden documents and the whole Asange/Wikileaks case
There is an urgent need to have effective international law-enforcement and justice.
Countries already use criminals as political tools to advance their goals on the world stage. What makes you think expanding these efforts will somehow change existing geopolitical behavior?
All systems of law break down into the imposers, and the imposed upon. You don't have to impose anything on the voluntarily compliant, but what about those that refuse? Are you going to invade or kill innocent people just because a few leaders don't want to play by your rules?
Sanctions don't work for their intended political purpose. The only reason politicians talk about them is because it enables their corporate masters to swoop into markets and make a lot of money. (And if you disagree, I ask you find a study pointing to how sanctions were politically successful.)
What does that have to do with it? We should expect more of international institutions in a multipolar world.
It's urgent to anyone that has had to deal with ransomware gangs.
It's urgent for countries suffering from violent cartels.
It's urgent for Canada, which just accused India of assassinating one of its citizens on Canadian soil.
And so on.
The whole reason why the world went from unipolar to multipolar is because the existing international organizations failed. What you're missing is these international organizations are political instruments used to obstruct and hinder Russia and China's development. The people in those countries don't share your supposition that more international organizations are a good thing.
> It's urgent to anyone that has had to deal with ransomware gangs.
What makes you think an international organization can do anything about ransomware? It's existed in this form for over a decade and nobody has done anything about it.
> It's urgent for countries suffering from violent cartels.
Why hasn't some international organization been formed to handled this then? Multipolarity is a very recent.
> It's urgent for Canada, which just accused India of assassinating one of its citizens on Canadian soil.
Do you think Canada is going to war with India over this?
They "failed" because they were gutted by a covert, powerful and violent "right-wing" alliance (imperialists, capitalists, white supremacists, all who felt tremendously victimized by recent global events incl. rise of communism). They were not about to throw away centuries of dominance to share international power with "inferior" classes of human.
The UN was rather effective in its initial decades.
Do you really think Hammarskjold, Kennedies, African(-American) leaders getting assassinated en masse in the 1960s was a spate of random coincidence? They were all united in opposing this covert alliance.
But the world is different now, the Global South is decisively emerging from under the imperial boot and multipolarity has a real chance.
It seems no answer can satisfy you.
You're saying we need more international organizations (or more powerful ones) to prevent the problems described. But when we do form these international organizations, and they don't do exactly like you hoped it's because of intangible reasons that cannot be falsified.
> The UN was rather effective in its initial decades.
The League of Nations, which precedes the UN, was rather effective in the 1920s and didn't include the USA. It also completely dropped the ball by 1930. Historians partially blame the League of Nations for the outbreak of second World War.
> Do you really think Hammarskjold, Kennedies, African(-American) leaders getting assassinated en masse in the 1960s was a spate of random coincidence? They were all united in opposing this covert alliance.
You're vacillating between wanting more powerful international organizations, but at the same time don't want international organizations wielding their power in ways you personally don't approve of.
What does this add?
> intangible reasons that cannot be falsified.
I assure you there is nothing intangible about a clear pattern of high-profile assassinations, to say nothing of other related global events.
> You're vacillating between wanting more powerful international organizations, but at the same time don't want international organizations wielding their power in ways you personally don't approve of
You really can't see the difference between overt, ratified international institutions, and shadowy, nameless, violent special-interest groups? Come now.
What would convince you they're not conspiring together?
As for international organizations, my point is that even ratified and official organizations are not immune to political pressures and special interests. How do we ensure transparency, efficacy, and fairness when the existing entities can't do that sufficiently well to maintain unipolarity?
What makes you think any other organization given such privilege would do any better with it than the US? Even if they started out with good intentions, that kind of power will inevitably corrupt them.
Embrace multipolarity. Benevolent, wise and just unipolarity will never happen.
Powerful also does not mean unipolar/dominant. Checks and balances can exist. That's how the US government was initially designed.