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Silk Road 2.0 Launches

forbes.com

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Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#81

Post by the_watcher »

clarkm wrote: post #55
m_ram wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forbes interviewed DPR (Ulbricht or not) in August. "Roberts isn’t actually the site’s founder, he revealed in our interview. He credits Silk Road’s creation to another, even more secretive entrepreneur whom he declined to tell me anything about and who may have used the “Dread Pirate Roberts” nom de guerre before it was assumed by the person I interviewed." http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-t…

Yeah, he was just saying that to throw people off his trail.

NOTE: I live in Austin and am acquaintances with a few people who knew him a bit while he was here.

From what I understand, at the time of Silk Road's creation, he was not nearly technically capable of creating a site like it. He seems to have learned enough to administer and update the site, but the initial construction was done by another.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#82

Post by ye »

corin_ wrote: post #31
thex86 wrote: post #27

A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…

They have ratings systems on there to help this - obviously it doesn't mean it's not possible to get stuff that isn't want you think it is, but it's not too much better or worse than trusting a local dealer on the street.

But dead people can't leave negative reviews.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#84

Post by jbackus »

subpixel wrote: post #44
andrewljohnson wrote: post #3

I'd never buy heroin from a website, but I see the Silk Road as cyber-civil-disobedience, and I hope the persona of DPR and the site itself are as unsinkable as they claim. The drug war is a ghastly thing, and the number of people we lock up in the US is more shameful than our foreign policy. You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, but he's the product of our…

I don't see the Silk Roads of the world making much difference with regard to the drug war. Right now Silk Road is the eBay of drugs, where convenience is it's competitive advantage. I can get some drug without visiting a shady person in some shady place, but the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US the bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. A huge part of the US war on drugs takes place amo…

You can use digital black markets like the silk road as an analogue for legalization though. Forget how the vendors obtain the drugs for a second and just analyze the differences in distribution and consumption between offline and online drug trade.

Offline there is: - competition via violence - political narcoterrorism - profit maximization by product dilution - profit maximization by product deception (most street MDMA is amphetamine+nBOME mixture)

Online there is: - competition via quality, price (violence impossible in anonymous marketplace) - political separation via anonymity - drastically reduced product dilution (people do reviews with sources like ecstasydata.org) - drastically reduced product deception (see "The LSD Avengers" for example)

When you contrast these aspects you see that the online marketplaces do operate like a free market with the biggest difference being the incentives associated with deceptive vending. I think thats valuable just because it provides a real world simulation for what variables of legalization would look like without forcing any one country to take the initial plunge by themselves.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#85

Post by asveikau »

njharman wrote: post #37
thex86 wrote: post #27

A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…

Do you ever buy anything at grocery store, drug store, restaurant that you put in your body? There is risk in everything. Generally people aren't sociopaths and aren't out to harm others. Risk is minimal but exists. Sellers on Silkroad do have reputation? Anonymous does not mean "unknown".

> Do you ever buy anything at grocery store, drug store, restaurant that you put in your body?

These are all inspected by governments. You can argue that this is imperfect, does not happen frequently enough, leaves something to be desired, won't catch everything, etc., but speaking personally, I do take those inspection scores seriously when I see them posted on the walls of places.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#86

Post by swalsh »

Yesterday my cousin was found dead. He had committed suicide. It was the end of a long battle he had been waging against himself. Drugs have destroyed this small part of my family, but i'm really glad to see something like the silk road revitalized.

I think the sooner we realize how fleeting a battle it is to fight them, the sooner we can place the money where it belongs.

My cousin is dead now, but I think my tax money would be better spent helping him kick his habit, than locking him up.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#87

Post by jes5199 »

the_watcher wrote: post #81
clarkm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he was just saying that to throw people off his trail.

NOTE: I live in Austin and am acquaintances with a few people who knew him a bit while he was here. From what I understand, at the time of Silk Road's creation, he was not nearly technically capable of creating a site like it. He seems to have learned enough to administer and update the site, but the initial construction was done by another.

SR was just a glorified rails app, and my understanding was that it was initially pretty buggy. It's within reason that someone could pick up the knowledge they need within a few months to build such a thing, at least enough to get it rolling.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#88

Post by eurleif »

computer wrote: post #21
ihsw wrote: post #6

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a honeypot. Just a hunch.

With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely. Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM). But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definit…

If this is a honeypot, couldn't they conceivably deanonymize users based on timing, using either ISP data or data from honeypotted Tor relays?

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#89

Post by jbackus »

subpixel wrote: post #79
joshontheweb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| but the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US th bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. Not necessarily. A lot of them appear to be shipped in via post from outside the US direct to the buyer.

I was trying to point out that the drug war doesn't begin or end at the border.

Yes, but that is where most of the enforcement is and therefore most of the violence.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#90

Post by UVB-76 »

jarrett wrote: post #53
computer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely. Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM). But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definit…

> considering that the sellers might be cops Why wouldn't law enforcement pose as buyers, as well? This is a common tactic in narcotics enforcement. Entrapment often isn't an issue, as the seller took the first step of advertising the drugs for sale. Are you getting at the fact that the buyer must have a receiving address, while the seller can ship anonymously? I would be skeptical of that. If I were attempting to tr…

I'm sure there are other examples, but this method of monitoring mailboxes was used more than a decade ago to catch the person behind the Tesco letterbomb campaign:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesco_bomb_campaign

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