German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace' • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by wott » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

ath92 wrote: post #141

inglor_cz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Increase taxes on alcohol Illegal production of homebrewn alcohol is a thing and has been for centuries. Raising taxes at will does not mean that everyone will, unhappily, continue to buy expensive alcohol in the store. There is a limit after which people will start to produce their own moonshine, which is less safe than whatever you buy legally. Or start drinking various chemicals that resemble alcohol. (Window cl…

And yet Scandinavian countries have had great success by raising the price and limiting the availability of store-bought alcohol. I think this is similar to some UX patterns we see in software: most people will go with the default option because it is easier. Raising the amount of effort needed for something means fewer people will end up doing it.

> And yet Scandinavian countries have had great success by raising the price and limiting the availability of store-bought alcohol.

Great success?

1. People there still buy a lot, even at expensive prices.

2. I have never seen so much heavy consumption and problems in Southern Europe than what I saw living in Finland.

3. I had never seen people brewing their own wine in their flat in my country (not counting real wine in farms when I was a kid, of course). Youngsters wouldn't even use berries like their elders, but just sugar & yeast (bearing the suiting name of 'kilju').

4. You could sometimes illicitly buy moonshine alcohol from a car trunk on a car park, in plastic water bottles. Classy.

5. Anecdote: I remember vodka was smuggled from Russia in timber lorries (trunks were hollowed out and filled with bottles) :-D

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

#282

Post by KMag » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #96

KMag wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GP means "date rape drug" to mean CNS depressants that are extremely unlikely to be used recreationally.

Which don't exist. All date-rape drugs are used recreationally in smaller amounts.

Well, that's embarrassing. Thanks for educating me. I don't know how it didn't click that out of all the CNS depressants I know, only the one (Rohypnol) isn't found pleasant by people (within some dose range). Turns out I was wrong.

I remembered years ago reading, and recognizing as BS, some policeman's story about a bust of GHB dealers, implying there were no recreational uses, and that it must be intended for date-rape. Yet somehow I still believed some TV scare report in high school that having Rohypnol without a prescription could only mean it was intended for date-rape.

On a side note, I did know of recreational chloroform use. My dad is a retired anesthesiologist, and our family kind of adopted one of his closest work friends, a much older nurse anesthitist, as a surrogate third grandmother. In the old days, after a long surgical case, she would often drive home pleasantly buzzed from second-hand chloroform inhalation. In the old days, the nurse anesthetist would sit right over the patient with a stopwatch and an eye dropper full of chloroform, adding a few drops to gauze over the patient's mouth every time the patient's pulse got a bit fast.

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

#283

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

that_guy_iain wrote: post #171

brazzy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But note that all those statement are about the amount of harm in an environment where alcohol is legal, cheaply available in every supermarket, widely advertized, and its consumption socially accepted, even expected . Can you really say in good conscience that other drugs wouldn't be worse if they became equally ubiquitous?

For the most part, yes. Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. I've even been told of a story where people thought someone was having an overdose and they were told to go home because they couldn't risk…

But the harm is categorical. Cheap heroin might reduce the impact of crime/family issues, but what about the health of individuals? We'd be back to people wasting away in crack dens.

> Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice

what kind of places? If you become so addicted that overdose is likely, where would you be welcome? Making something illegal doesn't mean it automatically becomes socially acceptable; piss-stained street drunks don't attract lots of caretakers.

It feels like your assuming that people will be able to manage their addictions, and remain functional - I'm not sure this is realistic. Even mildly addictive substances can really wreck peoples ability to function.

Can you provide a source that suggests: "tobacco is more addictive [than heroin]"?

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

#284

Post by jamil7 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #118

I get how these market places are used for digital goods (malware, credit cards), but I don’t understand how people can trade physical goods on those. If they have to exchange products, they must either meet in person or use the mail, either is trackable by the authorities. I see how the seller can protect himself for local transactions. He could leave the goods hidden somewhere and tell the buyer where to go. But th…

The volume of domestic mail in most countries is huge, it's prohibitively expensive to check all packages. International packages from suspect countries (e.g. The Netherlands) might be checked more frequently. As far as I understand, in the case something is caught by customs it's possible to just deny you ever ordered anything and I doubt law enforcement or customs would bother taking it any further unless it was a huge amount, they'll incinerate it and move on.

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

#285

Post by bondarchuk » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #227

JimBlackwood wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, weed is a small part of the market. Agree on the legalisation though. In the Netherlands at least, I find it hard to name more than a few individuals in my social group (university students from a range of studies) that aren’t recreational users of XTC/psychedelics. Having visited festivals and clubs in other European countries, I think the situation is not much different there. It seems a bit pointless to kee…

I would be so scared to be a recreational user of MDMA at this point in time, because from what I hear there is a large amount of fentanyl and other concentrated opiates floating around in the street drug supply.

You can (and should) get your stuff tested.

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

#286

Post by bluescrn » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

ath92 wrote: post #141

inglor_cz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Increase taxes on alcohol Illegal production of homebrewn alcohol is a thing and has been for centuries. Raising taxes at will does not mean that everyone will, unhappily, continue to buy expensive alcohol in the store. There is a limit after which people will start to produce their own moonshine, which is less safe than whatever you buy legally. Or start drinking various chemicals that resemble alcohol. (Window cl…

And yet Scandinavian countries have had great success by raising the price and limiting the availability of store-bought alcohol. I think this is similar to some UX patterns we see in software: most people will go with the default option because it is easier. Raising the amount of effort needed for something means fewer people will end up doing it.

The problem with sin taxes is that they even further increase the divide between rich and poor.

The wealthy won't be concerned if they're spending twice as much on booze, as it's such a small fraction of their income. But the working class may be denied one of their few pleasures - even if they were perfectly capable of keeping their consumption at reasonably healthy level.

Even worse than taxing alcohol is trying reduce car use by taxing people off the roads (without significantly improving alternatives). That's taking away vast numbers of opportunities from those who need them the most.

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

#287

Post by dathinab » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #75

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.

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.

> weed is not even close to the most purchased drug via the dark web

I can only agree on this.

Sure different parts of Germany differ in their handling of weed but I don't think anyone in Berlin bothers buying weeds from the dark web. I mean it's just way to easy to get weed from other sources, which don't require any online payment and by asking frequent weed consumers in your environment you have a better shot at getting good quality weed.

But while this is the case for weed it's much less so for other drugs, mainly due to the police being very lax on weed but less so on many other drugs.

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

#288

Post by FDSGSG » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #206

FDSGSG wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm also interested in the particular opsec failure for this iteration The person running this site did not have anything near the technical skills required to operate a darknet market. Instead of developing his own, he used a very clunky public script for his market https://github.com/5auth/eckmar-source All of the early posts by /u/darkmarket on Dread were in /d/darknetmarketsAU. Very early on other users figured…

I think owners who are not security pros may be more common because when somebody knows enough and have been doing it for some time, he may realize that with all his skill he still can be owned one way or another (and he will be given long enough time and high enough incentives).

Or maybe because there are just far more amateurs than actual security pros out there?

Dream market remained online for 7 years and shut down gracefully after the administrator got tired of dealing with DDoS attacks, odds are the site earned closer to $100M even if you ignore bitcoin appreciation.

>and he will be given long enough time and high enough incentives

You only have to last a couple of years to make tens of millions, Empire Market exited the business with over $30 million after two years.

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

#289

Post by cowboysauce » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

waste_monk wrote: post #134

cm2187 wrote: post #118

I get how these market places are used for digital goods (malware, credit cards), but I don’t understand how people can trade physical goods on those. If they have to exchange products, they must either meet in person or use the mail, either is trackable by the authorities. I see how the seller can protect himself for local transactions. He could leave the goods hidden somewhere and tell the buyer where to go. But th…

From an article [1] I read here a while ago: """ Now, goods are hidden in publicly accessible places like parks and the location is given to the customer on purchase. The customer then goes to the location and picks up the goods. This means that delivery becomes asynchronous for the merchant, he can hide a lot of product in different locations for future, not yet known, purchases. For the client the time to delivery…

I’m skeptical that dead drops of items purchased on the dark net is common. It seems like too many competing factors that would make it impractical.

Your customers are limited to your immediate geographic area and those who are willing to search for their purchases. The use of cryptocurrency to make purchases is a pretty big barrier for most people and reducing your customer base even further seems like it would make the whole operation uneconomical.

Paradoxically, the purchases should be inconspicuous yet easy to find. The mention of using Bluetooth and WiFi to help guide your customers would help, but at some point you have people out in public (presumably they’re in public because private locations provide even more obstacles) looking for hidden objects. That in itself is pretty conspicuous, even with the greater public knowledge of things like geocaching and Pokémon go (your customers also risk being engaged by those people). Additionally, placing and maintaining your drop locations is conspicuous. All it takes is one person seeing you leaving an object for the bomb squad to get called in.

The idea that a seller could place multiple orders ahead of time and then activate them as required seems odd as well. Your customers are going to have to be okay with buying drugs that could be degraded from being exposed to environmental conditions if the drops are outside (placing them inside of buildings exposes both you and your customers to more scrutiny). Likewise, leaving them for extended periods of time makes it more likely for them to be discovered. You’re also limited by what you’ve previously placed. If a customer wants multiple items, they’ll have to go to multiple drop locations.

There’s also the time and expense of setting up all these drop locations. You don’t want them concentrated because that makes it more likely that your customers will be noticed, but spreading them out will reduce your profit.

Shipping through the mail obviously poses it’s own problems, but it also has a lot of advantages. Mail generally can’t be opened without a warrant, sending and receiving mail is pretty inconspicuous and it gives the buyer more plausible deniability.

The article reads more of a “maybe this is how it could be done” than a “this is how it’s actually being done”.

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

#290

Post by asdff » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #287

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.

> weed is not even close to the most purchased drug via the dark web I can only agree on this. Sure different parts of Germany differ in their handling of weed but I don't think anyone in Berlin bothers buying weeds from the dark web. I mean it's just way to easy to get weed from other sources, which don't require any online payment and by asking frequent weed consumers in your environment you have a better shot at g…

Its also pretty trivial to grow your own weed. Stop all the cross border trafficking you want but people will still be growing pounds in their apartments a year.