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Using Silk Road

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Re: Using Silk Road

#91

Post by OGinparadise »

cageface wrote: post #68
OGinparadise wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1.2 million is an infinitesimal slice of the illegal drug market, but if an ordinary startup handled 1.2 million in transactions per month they'd be ecstatic. apples and oranges. This is illegal and their take is maybe enough to pay one criminal lawyer for a month.

Criminal lawyers make 1.2 million in a month?

as other said, their cut is under $100K.

A decent criminal lawyer will take that in a month and tell you that he needs $2-$3++ million for a drug case. (From Aaron S case we learned that a simple fed case is $1.5 million, on average)

Re: Using Silk Road

#92

Post by jopola »

A1kmm wrote: post #74

I think the easiest attack on SR would not be one of the attacks mentioned in the article (although similar to their second attack, but focused on legal implications instead of fraud), but rather: a. Law enforcement creates a large number of vendor and customer accounts. Due to the pseudonymity, they can create as many as they like and they can't be linked (they may need to create them over time to avoid making the p…

A. Why does it matter that the police have your address? Addresses are public information. Anyone could have your address and send illegal material to it. B. Just stick with the reputable vendors before the whole police thing happened.

Re: Using Silk Road

#93

Post by jerguismi »

DanBlake wrote: post #90
toomim wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can't. The coins are mixed before they get to mtgox. Mtgox doesn't know where they came from. In fact, you don't even need to use mtgox. Mtgox is just where you swap bitcoins for cash. If I sold drugs, it would be smart to just keep the money in bitcoins. And you can also exchange money for bitcoins with an anonymous physical person in your city. Just go to localbitcoins.com, find someone near you with one or…

How are the coins mixed before exactly? Also, I think its extremely impractical to think that a volume drug dealer is going to do physical exchanges. Even if they did opt for that route- Track the guy he did the exchanges with, then beat him with a wrench to find out who he bought from.

> How are the coins mixed before exactly?

You can mix them anyhow you want. If you know how bitcoin transactions work, the idea is simply to break the transaction chain. There are simpler or more paranoid ways to do it, and of course in Bitcoin world it is inviduals responsibility to handle his own coins.

Edit: think about how someone would try to connect the transactions: timing, amounts, etc.

I find it pretty annoying that there seems to be lot of people with strong opinions about bitcoins, but who haven't really studied it that much...

Re: Using Silk Road

#94

Post by maxwellhansen »

A1kmm wrote: post #74

I think the easiest attack on SR would not be one of the attacks mentioned in the article (although similar to their second attack, but focused on legal implications instead of fraud), but rather: a. Law enforcement creates a large number of vendor and customer accounts. Due to the pseudonymity, they can create as many as they like and they can't be linked (they may need to create them over time to avoid making the p…

It currently costs $505.90 to register an account as a vendor on Silk Road, so I do not think this is a financially feasible strategy.

Re: Using Silk Road

#95

Post by lifeisstillgood »

jerguismi wrote: post #93
DanBlake wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the coins mixed before exactly? Also, I think its extremely impractical to think that a volume drug dealer is going to do physical exchanges. Even if they did opt for that route- Track the guy he did the exchanges with, then beat him with a wrench to find out who he bought from.

> How are the coins mixed before exactly? You can mix them anyhow you want. If you know how bitcoin transactions work, the idea is simply to break the transaction chain. There are simpler or more paranoid ways to do it, and of course in Bitcoin world it is inviduals responsibility to handle his own coins. Edit: think about how someone would try to connect the transactions: timing, amounts, etc. I find it pretty annoy…

Where would one start - I would like to buy some and see how it all works, and maybe leave a laptop mining some - but I would prefer to research first - where would I start?

Cheers

Re: Using Silk Road

#96

Post by kiba »

jacoblyles wrote: post #89
tekromancr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lesswrong is a weird place. I can read an awesome, insightful article one moment, then something completely bat-shit insane the next.

The problem with LW is that the old-timer's confidence is pegged at 100% for non-controversial stuff (like Bayes' Theorem) and highly controversial stuff (like the inevitability of unfriendly AI). It's essentially a cult of personality around Eliezer Yudkowsky, with little dissent. They use the non-controversial value-add stuff to draw new members into the cult. Eliezer has stated in interviews that the most importan…

I thought it is well established in the lesswrong community that we shouldn't give money to Eliezer Yudkowsky until the Singularity Institute proves itself to be of value.

Re: Using Silk Road

#97

Post by jerguismi »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #95
jerguismi wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are the coins mixed before exactly? You can mix them anyhow you want. If you know how bitcoin transactions work, the idea is simply to break the transaction chain. There are simpler or more paranoid ways to do it, and of course in Bitcoin world it is inviduals responsibility to handle his own coins. Edit: think about how someone would try to connect the transactions: timing, amounts, etc. I find it pretty annoy…

Where would one start - I would like to buy some and see how it all works, and maybe leave a laptop mining some - but I would prefer to research first - where would I start? Cheers

If you want to test out how it works in practice, try playing with instawallet.org , maybe buying small amount of coins and tracking how it works. There are also free bitcoins sites, I don't have much experience with them or either with mining. You can track transactions on blockchain.info

If you want to learn about technicalities, Satoshi paper would be a good start: http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Then bitcoin wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page I especially like the myths page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths

Re: Using Silk Road

#98

Post by DanBlake »

jerguismi wrote: post #93
DanBlake wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the coins mixed before exactly? Also, I think its extremely impractical to think that a volume drug dealer is going to do physical exchanges. Even if they did opt for that route- Track the guy he did the exchanges with, then beat him with a wrench to find out who he bought from.

> How are the coins mixed before exactly? You can mix them anyhow you want. If you know how bitcoin transactions work, the idea is simply to break the transaction chain. There are simpler or more paranoid ways to do it, and of course in Bitcoin world it is inviduals responsibility to handle his own coins. Edit: think about how someone would try to connect the transactions: timing, amounts, etc. I find it pretty annoy…

>I find it pretty annoying that there seems to be lot of people with strong opinions about bitcoins, but who haven't really studied it that much...

Read the last line of my original comment. No reason to get snippy.

Re: Using Silk Road

#99

Post by jacoblyles »

kiba wrote: post #96
jacoblyles wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with LW is that the old-timer's confidence is pegged at 100% for non-controversial stuff (like Bayes' Theorem) and highly controversial stuff (like the inevitability of unfriendly AI). It's essentially a cult of personality around Eliezer Yudkowsky, with little dissent. They use the non-controversial value-add stuff to draw new members into the cult. Eliezer has stated in interviews that the most importan…

I thought it is well established in the lesswrong community that we shouldn't give money to Eliezer Yudkowsky until the Singularity Institute proves itself to be of value.

The prevailing ideas (AKA Eliezer's ideas) do change. They used to be for AI research before they were against it. I am too bothered by the groupthink to hang around for long periods of time. I get enough of it IRL.
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