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Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

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71–80 of 133 posts

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#71
post #49

Whether it's a victimless crime or not depends on where they source the drugs. You could argue that aggressive law-enforcement is what causes reprisal violence, but that still wouldn't justify supporting it in another way.

Well, producing child pornography is a crime that is inherently victim-ful. (I do not include cartoon CP here) Producing drugs today happens to have victims because of social policies etc, but those aren't inherent to the act of producing the drug. There are victims in the production of certain modern day goods (like electronics, clothes, etc.) but that doesn't mean that manufacturing iPhones necessarily leads to exp…

Like I said, regardless of whether it's inherently victim-ful, the sale and support still produces those victims in a consistent and predictable manner.

Law enforcement knows drug consumers will continue to consume drugs and drug cartels will continue to be violent, so if they don't change their behavior, they are responsible for the violence they cause.

From another perspective, drug consumers know drug cartels will continue to be violent, and that drug enforcement agencies will continue to enforce. From their perspective, if drug consumers don't change their consumption patterns, they are at fault for the violence.

If none of the parties change their stance, everything stays the same. Consumers blame the government for drug crackdowns, the government blames consumers for consuming and supporting.

Everyone is at fault. The practical way to look at this is how do you effect change with the least amount of effort? Is it easier to create legislation that change the government stance on drugs, or is it easier to do a public opinion campaign to change opinions on drug consumption? Seeing as how drug addicts are rational about their drug use (aside from dopamine=good), it's probably easier to pass legislation.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#72

The name Dread Pirate Roberts should've given away the fact the site is supposed to be handed down to different operators if you read/watched Princess Bride. This guy is making a fatal mistake of talking to the press. History shows all blackmarket admins like Max Vision go down shortly after press articles come out with interviews. Now he went from guy running a drug site to "subverting the US with propaganda" so the…

Note to future outlaws: resist the temptation to make yourself famous by giving interviews.

Desire for fame seems to be a common theme in the downfalls of otherwise very successful individuals involved in this sort of undercover operation.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#73
post #18

The name Dread Pirate Roberts should've given away the fact the site is supposed to be handed down to different operators if you read/watched Princess Bride. This guy is making a fatal mistake of talking to the press. History shows all blackmarket admins like Max Vision go down shortly after press articles come out with interviews. Now he went from guy running a drug site to "subverting the US with propaganda" so the…

The interviewer didn't even get the operator's first name. I think he (she? they?)'ll be fine.

[deleted]

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#75

“Silk Road doesn’t really sell drugs. It sells insurance and financial products,” says Carnegie Mellon computer engineering professor Nicolas Christin. “It doesn’t really matter whether you’re selling T-shirts or cocaine. The business model is to commoditize security.” I thought this was an interesting look at it. In a sense Silk Road is like the Pirate Bay in that it doesn't hold the items it generates traffic from.

So you have a marketplace now for illegal (stolen) digital products and one for illegal physical products. What other illegal marketplaces will crop up because of tor and bitcoin?

The Pirate Bay is not a marketplace, nor did its origin had anything to do with Tor or Bitcoin.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#76

Whether it's a victimless crime or not depends on where they source the drugs. You could argue that aggressive law-enforcement is what causes reprisal violence, but that still wouldn't justify supporting it in another way.

So I smoke normal, legal cigarettes. About 10 a day, 20 when I'm stressed. I started about 20, borrowing them off friends, and it's been maybe 8 years now.

The first 2 years, I didn't realize I was addicted to them. I just smoked when I wanted, which was between every lecture and with my friends in the evening. Then I tried to stop.

Quitting smoking is weird because sometimes you can just stop, and don't feel the need to smoke (until a couple months later you get drunk and buy a pack).

Other times, it's really hard. As in horrible. Your brain is trying to trick you into doing it. Telling you that your girlfriend (who asked you to stop) will leave you if you don't have one and calm down. Telling you that you haven't seen (smoking friend) in a long time. Just like you can't perceive your blindspot, you can't spot your own irrationality. This, I think, is the biggest reason smokers don't quit. It's relatively easy to fend off cravings, but recognizing irrational, addiction driven thought is hard.

Anyway, so one day I'm in a medical stats class. The lecturer is making a joke about a graph. It seems to show smoking is protective against prostate cancer. Smokers are super unlikely to die of prostate cancer. It looks convincing. Smokers don't survive to die of prostate cancer. It convinces me not to smoke again. I make my way downstairs, and grab a bagel. I have an exam next period, and I'm behind in that class. I can't focus without a cigarette. I light up, and keep lighting up, and now it's 5 years later, and I'm not going to die of prostate cancer.

There is this idea that humans are rational entities capable of making free choices, but we know they are really, really not. Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, a great (nobel prize winning) economics book explains that there are situations where humans predictably make bad choices. Addictions are one of these. If I were not hooked on cigarettes, as a smart, otherwise disciplined person, I'd be more sympathetic with this libertarians on drugs.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#77
post #18

The name Dread Pirate Roberts should've given away the fact the site is supposed to be handed down to different operators if you read/watched Princess Bride. This guy is making a fatal mistake of talking to the press. History shows all blackmarket admins like Max Vision go down shortly after press articles come out with interviews. Now he went from guy running a drug site to "subverting the US with propaganda" so the…

The interviewer didn't even get the operator's first name. I think he (she? they?)'ll be fine.

The way a proper counterintelligence effort goes after someone like this is to develop a list of candidates based on known facts, then use surveillance, statistics, etc to rule people out. I could ID DPR for $500k with a few staff in a year, either by breaking the law or as an official state entitity breaking the laws of other countries.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#78
post #45
post #38

I'm pretty sure the government is delighted by Silk Road so that they can finally justify searching all physical mail in some very advanced way. HN, you're always asking for startup ideas, why not just get totally evil and invent technology to scan physical mail at scale and hook it into PRISM? You'd stand to make at least millions if you did it right. Oh, and part of doing it right is making sure there's some altern…

I don't have the links handy, but it's well know that mail has been photographed for years and it seems likely that PRISM or some gov database is already ingesting this information. Seems like an easy step to upgrade the camera to something that attempts to scan contents.

Envelopes have been photographed for years. The worry is that they'll start scanning package contents.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know he found a wallet bug so that immediately gives away what level of competency/expertise to look for on the bitcoin forums which he undoubtedly posts there too. How he discovered the site is relevant and will give away how long he has been on bitcointalk since the orig dpr advertised there. We know his book recommendations from the forum which he prob recommended on clearnet in the past, or attached to his FB…

Are there tools to beat stylometry? Like something that strips all personality out of your writing.

There is: https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~pv42/thebiz/ and JStylo https://psal.cs.drexel.edu/index.php/JStylo-Anonymouth

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#80
post #57

“Silk Road doesn’t really sell drugs. It sells insurance and financial products,” says Carnegie Mellon computer engineering professor Nicolas Christin. “It doesn’t really matter whether you’re selling T-shirts or cocaine. The business model is to commoditize security.” I thought this was an interesting look at it. In a sense Silk Road is like the Pirate Bay in that it doesn't hold the items it generates traffic from.

Well, it becomes pretty obvious when you look at how SR actually operates: why don't sellers just post a list of products on a forum or wiki and buyers send them bitcoins? Because there would be no form of escrow or feedback tracking or interventions by third-parties or bonds required of sellers; with pseudonymous identities and irrevocable payments, it'd be an incredibly tempting lemon market. It's those additional…

Interesting link, particularly the part about ways law enforcement might try to shut down SR. One approach police might take is to set up shop as sellers, and then instead of running a scam, actually ship the illicit goods and have the police show up right after the mailman. If I understand correctly, the buyer's address must go to the seller instead of the SR admins.

This might be considered entrapment, but if the buyer seeks out SR themselves and gets unlucky in their choice of seller, entrapment might be hard to argue.

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