Editing Harassment markets (section)

== Lessons from Silk Road ==

Silk Road used Tor for anonymity and Bitcoin for (pseudo-)anonymous payments, which seemed foolproof. But its fundamental weakness was a central hierarchy—one founder at the top, a single server hosting the site. When law enforcement targeted Dread Pirate Roberts, the entire marketplace collapsed. '''Hierarchies''' can be a security vulnerability: take down the top, and the rest crumbles.

'''Enter DAOs'''<br />
A '''decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)''' could, in theory, govern a marketplace without a single kingpin. A blockchain enforces rules across many untrusted nodes, distributing power. For a harassment or illicit marketplace, a DAO model might muddy the waters of prosecution as no single person would be “in charge.”

<span id="the-challenge-of-open-source-software"></span>