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Using Silk Road

gwern.net

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Re: Using Silk Road

#151

Post by malandrew »

gordaco wrote: post #106
tirant wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you won't accomplish anything by shutting down Silk Road. Most of drugs that get in a country don't do it by packages sent by Silk Road. LE (Law enforcement) is already low on resources, so they better use them for bigger 'operators'.

Even more: if they happened to be able to close Silk Road, or make it impractical or unusable, another similar site would rise within weeks. If they don't understand this, they simply don't understand internet. This is another example of how useless does the so-called "war on drugs" get.

Exactly. And the new site will learn the mistakes committed by the old site.

Re: Using Silk Road

#152

Post by gwern »

malandrew wrote: post #148
Jabbles wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some pretty basic clustering algorithms would reveal this self-serving subset of participants in SR. The fake vendors and fake buyers would have to interact with the real ones (and positively, with real drugs) in order to go unnoticed.

Is the data available to perform this clustering? Like with BitCoin, are all SR transactions recorded for posterity and accessible to every market participant?

Not to users, I don't think. I also think this would run afoul of the (claimed) data retention policies that DPR has posted - after a while most information is gone.

Re: Using Silk Road

#153

Post by gwern »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #43
scarecrowbob wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard about the site and am casually curious, but how does the obvious security hole of eventually having a product sent to a specific real world address work out in practice? What is the genearl method for anonymizing this.... I'm sure it's a pretty basic question, but since you're here and all...

I've never ordered anything from Silk Road, but one thing I'm surprised isn't done is using cheap/knockoff consumer products as a "carrier." For instance, if it were well known that ordering a $295 DVD player from FrobozzCo.cn would result in delivery of a $29 DVD player stuffed full of Adderall or whatever people order, I imagine people would feel pretty safe ordering that way. The other thing is, I'm not sure that…

> I've never ordered anything from Silk Road, but one thing I'm surprised isn't done is using cheap/knockoff consumer products as a "carrier."

Some do. They package them in small consumer goods and that sort of thing. For example, the Australian vendor who was recently convicted was importing, IIRC, MDMA and the powder was being stashed in flashlights by his vendor.

> The other thing is, I'm not sure that the act of merely receiving illicit goods in the mail is adequate grounds for prosecution in the US. You can always claim that you have no idea where it came from or why it was sent to you, can't you?

It's not; something further is necessary in practice. Look up "controlled delivery".

Re: Using Silk Road

#154

Post by DanBC »

roel_v wrote: post #118
OGinparadise wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

"A decent criminal lawyer will take that in a month and tell you that he needs $2-$3++ million for a drug case." [citation needed], which is really a passive-aggressive way of saying "bollocks". Well I'm not saying that Pablo Escobar's lawyers didn't bank that much, but really - there are thousands of drug dealers tried every single day, a sizable percentage of that with turnovers way over 100k / month - you're not s…

$150 USD per hour feels very cheap for a criminal defence lawyer for someone charged with such serious offences.

Re: Using Silk Road

#155

Post by Tichy »

henrikschroder wrote: post #145
Tichy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds scary, but not crazy?

The basilisk argument, in a nutshell, is this: At some point in the future, a near omniscient and omnipotent being, whose existence is not a certainty, will judge you and may punish you if it finds that the actions you take today are not pleasing, according to its undiscoverable morals, and the fact that you know about this increases the risk of you being punished. The parallells to religion should be obvious to anyo…

It sounds like Pascal's wager to me. I haven't really thought it through in much detail, though - for safety reasons...

Re: Using Silk Road

#156

Post by dllthomas »

jopola wrote: post #92
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.

Regarding B, it's a practical defense, but it also means it was something of an effective attack: undermine the efficiency of the marketplace by adding a barrier to entry.

Re: Using Silk Road

#157

Post by dllthomas »

sruser wrote: post #32
mindcrime wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, these aren't exactly about the site, but if you'll humor me, a couple of questions jump to mind: Do you have purchases sent directly to your home/business, or do you attempt to obfuscate the delivery somehow? If so, can you share anything about the tactics you use? What percentage of your purchases arrive as expected? Do you have any reason to believe that anything is being intercepted by Customs / Border Polic…

I have purchases sent to my home, most of the time. I have never lost a package that was actually mailed, though I have been scammed a couple of times by vendors who never send anything. I try to stick to domestic vendors to avoid customs, but sometimes it is impossible due to supply issues. When I am ordering internationally I stick to Canada if possible. I once had a package from India get stuck in customs for over…

"I have never lost a package that was actually mailed, though I have been scammed a couple of times by vendors who never send anything."

You've said this a couple times - how do you differentiate?

Re: Using Silk Road

#158

Post by mquander »

jacoblyles wrote: post #141
FeepingCreature wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure he's still for AI research, he just realized he'd been irresponsible about it. I'd much rather people change their mind as they gain greater understanding, as long as they document the reasoning.

It's just that it gives me the heebee-jeebees to see everybody change their mind together . Eliezer often cites a theorem from a mathematician that says that ideal rational agents can't disagree and applies it to normal conversation. In the LW circle this is used to bully people into conformity. No allowance is given for the time that it takes humans to think things through or negotiate on a set of priors based on th…

I hang around with a bunch of LW people both online and in real life, and I really don't think that I've ever seen anyone deploy the kind of rhetoric you're describing when arguing with someone. It sounds unreasonably dumb.

On the other hand, I see a lot of examples of people being unusually polite and curious about people who disagree with them, and who try to specifically cultivate the ability to drill down to the root cause of arguments and learn as the result of a dispute.

Re: Using Silk Road

#159

Post by derefr »

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…

Basically, a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack aimed at networks of people, rather than networks of machines.

Re: Using Silk Road

#160

Post by mquander »

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…

You may be interested in the results of a big voluntary annual survey here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5/2012_survey_results/

It has some questions that do a reasonable job of surveying people's beliefs on transhumanisty and Yudkowsky-y stuff like AI, cryonics, and many-worlds. Going by the survey, the population is more heterogeneous than you give it credit for.

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