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

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

#311

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

hummusman wrote: post #153

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?

I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous. Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries, and most people are well aware of the high risks associated with them. Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the…

> Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access

access isn't the only issue. There is a high risk with obtaining and possessing an illegal drug.

plus there's no guarantee anything you obtain is safe (mixed with shit) or the correct strength, so there's further risk in putting it in your veins.

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

#312

Post by cyberdelica » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 10:34 PM UTC

transpostmeta wrote: post #135

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…

My solution: Increase taxes on all alcoholic beverages. Make pharmacies able to sell 20% by volume alcohol mixed with water that is drinkable in non-branded, medical-looking bottles. Addicts with little money can buy that and mix it with fruit juice or whatever, and everyone else buys the expensive real stuff.

This will only create a black market of booze. Brewing, and distilling alcohol, is a fairly easy endeavour. Policies like you've suggested, are why illicit moonshine and poitin exist.

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

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Post by cyberdelica » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #98

red_trumpet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one gives a shit, probably because the state earns money when I do so. That's a bit shortsighted though. Because if you end up in the hospital or with lung cancer, you will cost the public insurance lots of money.

Yeah, but that smoker would have paid a lot more in tobacco taxes and won’t be collecting a pension.

I once looked into purchasing pure ethanol, for the production of a topical liniment for martial artists. The duty to be paid per litre is eye wateringly high, to the point that it constitutes almost the vast majority of the cost. I came away wondering how manufacturers make any money. I guess, by volume.

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

#314

Post by comboy » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

FDSGSG wrote: post #288

comboy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

OK, your first point definitely beats mine. I guess then my point could be used against talent getting hired to help with the project? I mean they make some decent money so they could hire great people and pay them anonymously but somebody would need to accept the jail risk.

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

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Post by spurgu » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #209

spurgu wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by "success"? In Finland at least so many people (especially from the south) regularly (pre-COVID at least) take the ferry to Estonia to buy alcohol in bulk because of the insanely high alcohol taxes. If that option didn't exist I'd expect moonshine (and/or illegal exports) to become much more common.

A few years ago the government in Estonia raised taxes a bit too much on alcohol. The result was that Estonians started going to Latvia to buy alcohol. I believe even a lot of Finns are (or were) now buying alcohol from Latvia. Even alcohol that's made in Estonia is cheaper in Latvia. There were some additional effects to this as well. Food is also cheaper in Latvia. Some people ended up doing a lot of their grocery…

Thanks for the details/clarifications! I haven't lived in Finland for a couple of years so haven't really stayed up to date.

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

#316

Post by pcthrowaway » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 12:55 AM UTC

cronix wrote: post #240

brazzy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Knowing and doing are two different things. Yes, you'd get fewer accidental overdoses from people getting stronger stuff than they thought. But you'd get more (possibly a lot more) people overdosing from chasing a high despite having built a tolerance, or from doing craz…

> And with full legalization, you'd have billions of advertizing dollars invested into marketing and research departments by companies trying to convince people to get high from their brand. Legal competition is also pushing the THC levels up. The THC levels are definitely not going in a downward trend in legalized states like Oregon, Washington or California. Flower you can easily find 30+% levels of THC and with th…

On the other hand, you can also find strains with high CBD and low to negligible amounts of THC, which I never encountered before decriminilization

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

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Post by dpiers » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #300

dpiers wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still be highly effective in disincentivizing behavior without completely preventing it. Enforcement raises risk, raising prices, which decreases consumption and thus the incentive to distribute. People are less likely to want to participate as a seller or buyer. You talk a big game, but I don't think you understand the reality for people who are involved and get caught. Let me know when one of your closest f…

Not sure I understand your argument. It seems like you are against allowing these markets to function. But then you say: > Let me know when one of your closest friends gets arrested by the Feds and you don't get to see them for a decade plus.* Which seems like an argument in support of GP. If we didn't make these illegal, which then increases prices and danger (only the most ruthless survive), which in turn incentivi…

I am opposed to allowing the markets to function, and believe the parent post is overly dismissive of the efficacy of enforcement as a deterrent.

I intended to call out the folly of their idealism - "the war cannot be won" - the Feds don't have to win a war. Every battle they win destroys the lives of the people foolish enough to be involved. Once you're in their sights it's only a matter of time before you slip up and then you're done.

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

#318

Post by pcthrowaway » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 2:40 AM 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…

This is brilliant, but also raises a bunch of questions for me. Perhaps you or other readers may have the answers:

- How is collection of the product verified. In other words, a customer can say they went to the drop location and nothing was there. The seller has no way of knowing if the customer was lying or if the product was "intercepted" by chance or federal officials

- How can people making the drop be confident that authorities making controlled buys won't be able to trace them via CCTV (if there is a camera recording in that area, their identity can be determined) I suspect the normalization of face masks has helped make this somewhat easier to evade, but in normal times, the government could go to 100 drop zones used by the same seller, compile a list of all the people who have been seen near those zones in the last 6 months with facial recognition, then dig into people who have been seen in more than one of those zones. I assume these are obscure enough locations that random people won't find the drops, so a person appearing in more than one is enough to flag them as likely to be involved. But in the event these are just really good hiding places in more public locations, someone being near 3 or more of these locations is still enough to suggest involvement.

- Most of the risk still seems to be the buyer's burden; if a government official impersonates the seller, they can just wait for the person to show up to collect their package, and they'd be caught "red-handed" so to speak. I suppose the person can claim ignorance, but I don't know how good of a defense this would be.

- Sellers would be taking massive risks with bulk orders being found by the wrong party (I assume bulk orders are most of their profits). Additionally, they wouldn't really have the ability to tailor the amount to the customer for complicated orders

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

#319

Post by whythre » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #269

rtisdale wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was relevant to the parent post as well as your own comment. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 A UK study led by a panel of experts analyzed a number of recreational drugs and evaluated them across 16 different criteria. Alcohol was one of the most dangerous drugs and was unique in that it was the only drug that posed more risk to society than it did for the actual user. This is of course, not definitive proo…

What is their definition of harm to others? Meth addicts can be very violent yet this study says they pose little risk.

Meth addiction can also really mess with sex drives. In college I had a friend who was a social worker and she said that with the growing meth usage meant increased child sex abuse, basically due to parents getting high and then messing with their own kids. This is secondhand, but she was clearly disturbed by what was an increasingly prevalent issue in our college town.

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

#320

Post by pcthrowaway » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

pcthrowaway wrote: post #318

waste_monk wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is brilliant, but also raises a bunch of questions for me. Perhaps you or other readers may have the answers: - How is collection of the product verified. In other words, a customer can say they went to the drop location and nothing was there. The seller has no way of knowing if the customer was lying or if the product was "intercepted" by chance or federal officials - How can people making the drop be confident…

I wanted to reply to my own questions (let's say 1-4) with some follow-up, because I didn't realize how complex the system was until I read the linked article.

1) The article mentions the drop locations need to be places where another person stumbling upon them will be super unlikely, and which also haven't been used before (not regular, recurring locations as I assumed).

3) There is still likely a fair bit of risk to the buyer, but the writer seems to believe they can plead innocence

4) Addressed in the same as 1, and with drop locations being new every time, making more involved drops may not be as much of an issue

(2) still begs the question, people making lots of drops seem to have a lot of risk; if many controlled buys are taking place, officials can crossreference the lists of people who have been near that location. Once they identify people who make the drops they can then watch the people who are seen in many of the locations, subpoena location information from Google, etc. until they catch them in the act of making a drop or gather enough evidence to indite them. These people could then face very serious charges of conspiracy. It's not unlikely that these people could then be turned informant. Get enough surveillance on, or cooperation of the people making the drops and you can then use the same techniques to suss out the sales layer. Rinse and repeat.