What Happens When You Give a Robot $100 in Bitcoin? It Buys Drugs [View all]
An automated online shopping robot set up by a Swiss art collective has run afoul of law enforcement. The bot purchased a Hungarian passport, a baseball cap with a built-in camera, and some Ecstasy.
The bot, known as the "Random Darknet Shopper," is given a weekly allowance of $100 USD in Bitcoin and then let loose on the so-called "dark web," where illicit substances can be bought and sold in a more protected environment than the normal old internet.
According to cnet, the Swiss authorities confiscated the bot and its illegal wares in January, and the bot was recently returned to the artists with its purchases intact. Well, the ones that weren't illegal party drugs at least. The MDMA tablets were destroyed by the authorities.
The artists behind the PLURbot, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, programmed the bot to randomly purchase items it comes across as it scours the dark web. The purchases are then sent to a Swiss art gallery to form an exhibition. The artists were not charged, as the local police determined the E was never intended to be sold or consumed.
Read more: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/22/what-happens-when-you-give-a-robot-100-in-bitcoin-it-buys-drugs
= new reply since forum marked as read