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Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

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Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying drugs does fund those actions. Drugs being illegal are a major reason why, and why I support legalization. But that doesn't excuse anyone currently making a purchase today. Think of it this way, illegal images could be produced by advanced CGI, but aren't because that tends to be just as illegal. That doesn't excuse anyone who consume images not produced by advanced CGI.

People have the right to control what goes in their bodies. I don't have the ability to see if my weed is "violence free", because drug prohibition took that away. You can't hold me responsible for violence among marijuana cartels if you don't give me a clean source for my marijuana. It's like saying encryption is used by terrorists, so if I buy encryption I'm indirectly supporting terrorism.

If you can trace the money flow from the drug user to the cartel, that user funded the cartel.

There's no such flow from people who buy encryption software to terrorist groups.

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#232
post #72
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. It sounds like the site was mostly dealing in drugs, which for small time dealers I feel is a waste of time to prosecute... But the problem is that larger organized criminals often get their funds to do worse things from the drug market.

Wait, it sounds like you're saying big drug dealers are just selling drugs to get money to, I don't know, go on murder sprees? I'm not saying violence is not a part of these kinds of crimes, but I don't think the purpose of their participation is just to enable other, more serious crimes. That is, I don't think it's very common for someone to say "I want to sell a lot of drugs because I can't afford to kill enough pe…

The cause-and-effect is backwards. They don't sell drugs so they can kill lots of people. They kill lots of people so they can sell drugs.

Either way, there's a lot of violence happening directly because of drug cartels, foreign and domestic.

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should say " sometimes buying drugs goes to fund actions..." I buy my marijuana from a friend who grows a few plants in his basement. How exactly is that funding slavery and murder?

I've updated to be more specific. Are such levels of specificity required when talking about other illegal transactions which have a potential to be victimless?

I don't see why not....pointless hyperbole doesn't help with many points.

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's also the case. Big organized crime groups often have access to exactly the kind of logistics required to manufacture and smuggle drugs across large distances. They have the muscle to stay competitive in a market where there is no state authority to give you guarantees on anything. This isn't an outrageous claim at all, rather it's a well-known fact: https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Stu…

Most drug dealers are not "big organized groups." I don't know from Hansa, but I'm betting a big organized group is not likely to use them as a single point of failure.

> Most drug dealers are not "big organized groups."

Who do you think provides them with the drugs?

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying drugs does fund those actions. Drugs being illegal are a major reason why, and why I support legalization. But that doesn't excuse anyone currently making a purchase today. Think of it this way, illegal images could be produced by advanced CGI, but aren't because that tends to be just as illegal. That doesn't excuse anyone who consume images not produced by advanced CGI.

People have the right to control what goes in their bodies. I don't have the ability to see if my weed is "violence free", because drug prohibition took that away. You can't hold me responsible for violence among marijuana cartels if you don't give me a clean source for my marijuana. It's like saying encryption is used by terrorists, so if I buy encryption I'm indirectly supporting terrorism.

You need to stop with the metaphors because they are ridiculous and wrong.

Buying drugs directly funds people who manufacture drugs.

Buying encryption does not directly fund terrorists.

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#236

The clever thing is that they took it over and for one month monitored it without the users knowing. Everyone on obfuscating their persona with Tor and bitcoins, still had to enter their postal addresses on the website, to receive the goodies. That database must be a wet dream for law enforcement.

Catching users is of limited interest to most law enforcement, and I suspect especially for Dutch law enforcement.

Untrue according to the crabs article interview with the woman "Petra Haandrikman, team leader of the Dutch police unit that infiltrated Hansa."

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/07/exclusive-dutch-cops-on-...

"H: Yes, we called them “AlphaBay refugees.” It wasn’t the technical challenge that caused problems. Because this was a police operation, we wanted to keep up with the orders to see if there were any large amounts [of drugs] being ordered to one place, [so that] we could share information with our law enforcement partners internationally."

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It promotes growth of the marketplace which also allows buying/selling of drugs that do involve victim crimes. If the market was limited to safely produced/trafficked drugs, it would be different. One might even make the argument that shutting down a market that only allowed victimless drugs end up causing harm.

by posting anonymously on HN you are promoting the internet and it's ungoverned nature which allows for consumption and distribution of c.p.

This is one of the most stupid comments I've ever seen on HN.

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catching users is of limited interest to most law enforcement, and I suspect especially for Dutch law enforcement.

Untrue according to the crabs article interview with the woman "Petra Haandrikman, team leader of the Dutch police unit that infiltrated Hansa." https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/07/exclusive-dutch-cops-on-... "H: Yes, we called them “AlphaBay refugees.” It wasn’t the technical challenge that caused problems. Because this was a police operation, we wanted to keep up with the orders to see if there were any large amoun…

To me, that sounds like they were looking for resellers more than users

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where exactly are those slaves working and murders taking place along the production and distribution of LSD? same question with regard to home grown weed? please, elaborate ...

It promotes growth of the marketplace which also allows buying/selling of drugs that do involve victim crimes. If the market was limited to safely produced/trafficked drugs, it would be different. One might even make the argument that shutting down a market that only allowed victimless drugs end up causing harm.

Ah so you don't buy H&M? They happen to promote a market in Bangladesh where people tend to literally die in a fire (go google it.)

So, what's left of that syllogism of yours?

Re: Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this is (mostly) a tech site, but do we have to argue semantics every time?

I don't think this is a semantic argument. The comment I replied to was making the argument that alcohol use is widespread because it has no legal competition. This does not appear to be the case to me, thus undermining the argument.

Nicotine and caffeine are drugs but when did you last hear of people crashing cars or killing other people because they were high on nicotine or caffeine. I'm sure it's an ancillary factor and if you could investigate with strict accuracy you'd find they had a non-zero influence. But putting them on the same semantic plane as you are doing implies that people in the grip of a nicotine or caffeine buzz are little different from people who are drunk, and anyone with real-world experience knows that's nonsense. You're not helping your point by reflexively making nitpicking arguments.

I'm pro legalization for all drugs, but but I'm not going to dispute the fact that booze, cocaine, and heroin are just like cannabis, caffeine and nicotine because it just isn't true. If you don't acknowledge the reality of people's experience when making your semantic arguments then people are going to ignore you.

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