Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

barrons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 332 posts

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#81

Post by pengaru »

martin_a wrote: post #79
pengaru wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh... weed is not even close to the most purchased drug via the dark web. Certainly not in plant matter form. They'd have to legalize all the club/party drugs to make a dent; pills and powders, lsd.

So, let's just legalize them all and hope that people will use them responsibly. As a German, I can, with no problem whatsoever, go into the next supermarket and buy enough alcohol and cigarettes to severly hurt myself. No one gives a shit, probably because the state earns money when I do so. Either we find (all) drugs bad, or we stop being such liars in regards to this.

I agree 100%, on the condition that a substantial portion of the taxes collected are allocated explicitly for funding free public mental health and addiction treatment facilities, perhaps homeless assistance programs as well.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#82

Post by martin_a »

pengaru wrote: post #81
martin_a wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let's just legalize them all and hope that people will use them responsibly. As a German, I can, with no problem whatsoever, go into the next supermarket and buy enough alcohol and cigarettes to severly hurt myself. No one gives a shit, probably because the state earns money when I do so. Either we find (all) drugs bad, or we stop being such liars in regards to this.

I agree 100%, on the condition that a substantial portion of the taxes collected are allocated explicitly for funding free public mental health and addiction treatment facilities, perhaps homeless assistance programs as well.

I'm totally with you on that.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#83

Post by Tenoke »

aunetx wrote: post #74
martin_a wrote: post #70

"the largest market" always reminds me of "Bin Ladens right hand". Obviously the next one becomes the largest, but nevertheless it's like they kill at least one of those markets a month. Probably legalizing weed would stop most of that more effectively than all those police operations after month of preparation.

I guess so, but the problem is that weed is not the only thing that is sold on these markets... So even if legalising it would make those markets lose profits, they still have a lot of nasty things to sell -- so taking them down is still the best thing to do for the moment, IMHO.

The amount sold on these markets is tiny, however they are one of the safest ways to purchase drugs - with reviews, reputation, tests etc. Constantly interfering with the safest ways to buy drugs so people have to instead buy it from a random person in the real world with less guarantees, and more danger to everyone or from an online scammer that just popped up is not good at all.

Further, the costs of these LE operations is very high to catch some small fries. These are extremely counterproductive.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#84

Post by redisman »

TrackerFF wrote: post #80
seibelj wrote: post #23

No matter what anyone says, I believe with every fiber of my being that simple drug dealing is a victimless crime. Free people choose to purchase and consume drugs to their own detriment (benefit). All violence related to the sale of drugs is ancillary to the fact some drugs (but not others - alcohol, marijuana, caffeine for starters) are illegal. https://freeross.org/

The problem with black markets - of pretty much any kind - is that they soon attract most things illegal. A good chunk of the population would probably be OK with them only selling weed, but then you have stolen credit cards, weapons, and what not. And the more unscrupulous the seller is/becomes, the worse it gets. It's like with small-town drug dealers. Kids seek them to purchase weed, but then after a while the dea…

> It's like with small-town drug dealers. Kids seek them to purchase weed, but then after a while the dealer is trying to push other stuff on them.

This sounds like one of those 90's scary stories. Do you also believe that the first dose is free?

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#85

Post by vagrantJin »

skinkestek wrote: post #33
seibelj wrote: post #23

No matter what anyone says, I believe with every fiber of my being that simple drug dealing is a victimless crime. Free people choose to purchase and consume drugs to their own detriment (benefit). All violence related to the sale of drugs is ancillary to the fact some drugs (but not others - alcohol, marijuana, caffeine for starters) are illegal. https://freeross.org/

> I believe with every fiber of my being that simple drug dealing is a victimless crime. Quick, ugly counterexample: Date rape drugs. You can of course say that the crime is on whoever uses it but criminal neglect is a thing. Somewhat more nuanced example: Vulnerable people are still given highly addictive drugs as "marketing" from dealers. This isn't something all of those victims have chosen, so I'd say it isn't vi…

Points noted but here is were I must diverge,

> This isn't something all of those victims have chosen, so I'd say it isn't victimless.

In a manner of speaking, this rings hollow to my ears - a sort of platitude. I would make a counter example with depression drugs. A former colleague, lives in NY amd has his wife and daughter on anti-depressants. Upon inquiry on why they were drugged up, his response was both spine chilling and grotesque.

"They've been feeling a bit down lately. "

A medical professional saw fit to prescribe an otherwise healthy 12yr old and a healthy 34yr old anti-depressants because those drugs are legal. That was eye opening. The medical establishment is using their trust to peddle these drugs Have you met someone taking anti-depressants then they stop?

I havent. Small sample size but I still havent.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#86

Post by Moru »

oaiey wrote: post #63
alasdair_ wrote: post #22

The article mentions the us irs were involved. For a german marketplace run by an Australian. Any idea why?

US citizens are taxable also abroad to my understanding ;). One of the few countries doing it like that.

I live in Sweden. When we open a bank account we always get a bunch of questions. One of them is "Are you a US citizen?". The banks are apparently required to send the information to US.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#87

Post by Moru »

forgingahead wrote: post #20
Scoundreller wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given a long enough timeline There's an opportunity. Marketplaces that will exist for X days only.

Unlikely - ever tried to get a gambler on a winning streak to "stop while he's ahead"?

Scammers is not gamblers really, they just do their scam and move on to the next scam.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#88

Post by 88840-8855 »

martin_a wrote: post #79
pengaru wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh... weed is not even close to the most purchased drug via the dark web. Certainly not in plant matter form. They'd have to legalize all the club/party drugs to make a dent; pills and powders, lsd.

So, let's just legalize them all and hope that people will use them responsibly. As a German, I can, with no problem whatsoever, go into the next supermarket and buy enough alcohol and cigarettes to severly hurt myself. No one gives a shit, probably because the state earns money when I do so. Either we find (all) drugs bad, or we stop being such liars in regards to this.

"So, let's just legalize them all and hope that people will use them responsibly."

Same logic as... "let us not legally force face masks on people, but trust in their responsibility. Let us not control social distancing, but trust that people, especially young people, will be responsible"

... booooom, over 9000 covid cases.

Democracy assumes rational people and people with responsibility. We see now how well it all works.

Same "responsibility" applies to the free internet. It is amazing, when people are responsible and are not pushing fake news to allow demagogues and populists to rise to power.

Was it Sokrates who once said that Democracy fails because of Unmündigkeit?

I cannot find the English translation of this word.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#89

Post by akvadrako »

loves_mangoes wrote: post #37
thelightthat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is larger?

I'm not sure what HN's policy is on discussion of illegal marketplaces, but I imagine it's no secret that the new #1 is White House Market.

Yepp, I second WHM. I'm not sure it's the largest, but it seems the most well run. Notably they only accept Monero; I wonder if that will help them stay safe from the police.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#90

Post by patrickaljord »

de_nied wrote: post #45
Shared404 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model would be something like User --> VPN --> Tor --> Market Assuming the VPN is trustworthy and you don't connect to Tor without it, the VPN would cover up the fact that you used Tor at all. If you normally use the VPN, but forget it one time, you are now exposed.

A VPN would not cover up the fact that you used Tor at all. Assuming you're actually utilizing SSH through sock proxies and using a VPN, you can still be fingerprinted and tracked. There are already existing databases that have established profiles for various sites. Your ISP can easily see if you're connecting to one of those sites based on the type of data you're sending. Regardless if it's encrypted. On the other…

> User -> RandomWifi -> VPN/SSH -> Slave -> SecondSlave/WifiHop -> VPN/SSH 2.0 -> Tor -> Market

One thing I would add to the RandomWifi at starbucks is to make sure not to bring your phone as they could detect you went there if they get to find your RandomWifi starbucks location. Also make sure to change starbucks/RandomWifi location every time and for extra-paranoid reasons, maybe wear some toupee and fake moustache in case they try to get camera recording from the starbucks. I would also do most of the work from home, just run all the db/code updates from home and then sync/push the update at RandomWifi so you just need to stay there a few seconds. You don't even need to get in, just stay outside walking and click the push button from your laptop quickly. Never do it on the same hours either.

Post reply on HN