4 ms·

I don't understand why they made this a public posting. Romney isn't incentivized to pay up once the blackmail is public knowledge -- payment is equivalent to a

by ender7 14y ago

I don't understand why they made this a public posting. Romney isn't incentivized to pay up once the blackmail is public knowledge -- payment is equivalent to admitting guilt. Might as well keep your money and take the hits. I don't see any situations where this beats contacting the campaign privately, with a document or two in hand to prove that you have the real stuff. Unless, of course, if this is just a stunt that someone is running on the off chance that anyone is stupid enough to actually pay the money.

brokentone 14y ago
So far they've made $0.30 BTC and the story has hardly broken...
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Romney would never pay directly, that's not an option that is even in the realm of possibility. Surrogates, though, or better yet supporters... The ideal outcome for the person who made the post is that Obama and Romney supporters get in a bidding war.
jredwards 14y ago
I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that he could make the payment privately, deny that he ever did so, and then take the position that no one was ever in possession of the documents and the whole thing was just a scam and the documents were never released because no one ever had them. It's plenty likely that the whole thing IS just a scam and they don't actually have the documents.
corry 14y ago
A possible motive is to force Romney's hand to release it himself. It still makes him look bad - but not as bad as a bidding war between his supporters and detractors.
sp332 14y ago
This isn't about getting Romney to pay, it's about getting some suckers to send a little money to the addresses on their own. Here's the balance for the "stop release" account https://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8 https://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW... and the "promote release" account https://blockchain.info/address/12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL6RaNgB https://blockchain.info/address/12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL...
- axusgrad 14y ago
  Someone was sending "binary" (10101) amounts of bitcoins to the address, to spell out an imgur link as a joke.
  - sp332 14y ago
    What's the link?
    - macchina 14y ago
      This is what I got: imgur.com/5k37g
      - sp332 14y ago
        ...I don't get it. I mean it's funny that someone is using the BTC chain for communications :) But does that image mean anything?
        MartinCron 14y ago
        Maybe there's a message encoded in the image as some sort of double-steganography.
      - grenouille 14y ago
        You have got the last characters wrong, see my messages below for the correct link. But there is no useful content in the imgur link because the person who made the image messed up and truncated their message. As for the "promote release" Bitcoin account, somebody posted the ASCII string 'prove it' (I'm repeating what I said below since this thread shows up at the top).

by ender7 14y ago

brokentone 14y ago

So far they've made $0.30 BTC and the story has hardly broken...

waterlesscloud 14y ago

Romney would never pay directly, that's not an option that is even in the realm of possibility. Surrogates, though, or better yet supporters... The ideal outcome for the person who made the post is that Obama and Romney supporters get in a bidding war.

jredwards 14y ago

I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that he could make the payment privately, deny that he ever did so, and then take the position that no one was ever in possession of the documents and the whole thing was just a scam and the documents were never released because no one ever had them. It's plenty likely that the whole thing IS just a scam and they don't actually have the documents.

corry 14y ago

A possible motive is to force Romney's hand to release it himself. It still makes him look bad - but not as bad as a bidding war between his supporters and detractors.

sp332 14y ago

This isn't about getting Romney to pay, it's about getting some suckers to send a little money to the addresses on their own. Here's the balance for the "stop release" account https://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8 https://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW... and the "promote release" account https://blockchain.info/address/12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL6RaNgB https://blockchain.info/address/12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL...

axusgrad 14y ago
Someone was sending "binary" (10101) amounts of bitcoins to the address, to spell out an imgur link as a joke.
- sp332 14y ago
  What's the link?
  - macchina 14y ago
    This is what I got: imgur.com/5k37g
    - sp332 14y ago
      ...I don't get it. I mean it's funny that someone is using the BTC chain for communications :) But does that image mean anything?
      - MartinCron 14y ago
        Maybe there's a message encoded in the image as some sort of double-steganography.
    - grenouille 14y ago
      You have got the last characters wrong, see my messages below for the correct link. But there is no useful content in the imgur link because the person who made the image messed up and truncated their message. As for the "promote release" Bitcoin account, somebody posted the ASCII string 'prove it' (I'm repeating what I said below since this thread shows up at the top).