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Silk Road 2.0 Launches

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Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#151

Post by freshhawk »

jzzskijj wrote: post #131
nostromo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the competitive advantage of druglords is controlling the means of distribution, not the means of cultivation. So, SilkRoad could help bypass those monopolized distribution channels and undermine the druglord's competitive advantage. For example, if a druglord is competing directly with a mom-and-pop drug cultivator on SilkRoad -- the drug lord has higher costs (bribery, paramilitary force, etc.) and only margina…

The druglord would wipe out the mom-and-pop cultivator and happily live ever after with their higher costs.

That seems like it wouldn't be cost effective for them if there is even a small amount of anonymity between the buyers and cultivators.

I mean, cartels have been pumped up to pretty ridiculous heights by the war on drugs but it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all."

Even considering that their MO is more along the lines of picking out the ones they can find and making a gruesome spectacle to scare the rest it still seems unrealistic, although so do a lot of things happening with drugs cartels these days to be fair.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#152

Post by ZoFreX »

eurleif wrote: post #88
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…

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

Yes: https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#AttacksOnOnionRo...

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#153

Post by jbackus »

OvidNaso wrote: post #127
jbackus wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright. Let's assume the massive difference in quantity of violence is substantial. We're talking 10s of thousands dead via cartel trade vs. 2 alleged attempted hits on the silk road. Even then that was the operator of the marketplace defending users, it wasn't a vendor killing another vendor to gain a competitive advantage.

But your analysis specifically excluded the source of all of this violence, the wholesale procurement of the drugs by the end user dealers. None of that is different with the Silk Road.

It depends on the drugs. There are a lot of cases of producers selling on these market places. Look at a lot of the marijuana vendors, the vetted LSD vendors, the mushroom vendors, etc. Beyond that, there is violence involved in later steps of the drug trade: smuggling, gang turf wars.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#154

Post by stcredzero »

Alex3917 wrote: post #141
stcredzero wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be more excited about an Etsy of drugs I think you mean more of an Amazon Marketplace of drugs. > the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US the bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. If the information and payment infrastructure is good enough, it should make producers and shippers invisible to other producers and shippers, including the paramilitaries and drug-lords.

For what it's worth, you can currently buy drugs on both Amazon marketplace and Etsy. It's not even a hypothetical.

In this context, we really mean illegal drugs. You obviously know this and are just being annoyingly pedantic.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#155

Post by lem72 »

jzzskijj wrote: post #131
nostromo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the competitive advantage of druglords is controlling the means of distribution, not the means of cultivation. So, SilkRoad could help bypass those monopolized distribution channels and undermine the druglord's competitive advantage. For example, if a druglord is competing directly with a mom-and-pop drug cultivator on SilkRoad -- the drug lord has higher costs (bribery, paramilitary force, etc.) and only margina…

The druglord would wipe out the mom-and-pop cultivator and happily live ever after with their higher costs.

But the Mom and Pop shop can now be anonymous and the evil druglord will have a hard time finding them since they can't go torture the street dealers that peddle Mom&Popshop & Co drugs.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#156

Post by Erwin »

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…

Here's what I'd consider the Etsy of drugs: http://www.rechemco.net/ -- they apparently synthesize the various active ingredients in their own lab, so you can get your 99% pure version of say, the various popular anti-narcoleptic drugs popular as concentration aids.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#157

Post by DanBC »

jbackus wrote: post #153
OvidNaso wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your analysis specifically excluded the source of all of this violence, the wholesale procurement of the drugs by the end user dealers. None of that is different with the Silk Road.

It depends on the drugs. There are a lot of cases of producers selling on these market places. Look at a lot of the marijuana vendors, the vetted LSD vendors, the mushroom vendors, etc. Beyond that, there is violence involved in later steps of the drug trade: smuggling, gang turf wars.

{I am strongly in favour of legalising all drugs}

There are problems with some of the manufacture of cannabis. Criminal gangs use trafficked workers, forcing them to work in cannabis farms.

If I was a criminal gang using slaves to grow cannabis I think I'd market it as some home grown organic low yield crop with images of open fields and nice trees.

Just like eggs from caged hens don't show battery farms, but happy chickens walking in green fields. http://www.ecolovers.co.uk/wordpress/labelling-matters-the-r... etc.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#158

Post by pizza234 »

freshhawk wrote: post #151
jzzskijj wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The druglord would wipe out the mom-and-pop cultivator and happily live ever after with their higher costs.

That seems like it wouldn't be cost effective for them if there is even a small amount of anonymity between the buyers and cultivators. I mean, cartels have been pumped up to pretty ridiculous heights by the war on drugs but it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all." Even…

>> it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all."

This is not exact, unfortunately, because it depends also on some other factors. If the drug lords decide that they want to impose the fact that they don't accept opposition, they are actually going to do exactly that. They've done it already for several bloggers, it would make little difference if they decided to do it for the little indipendent dealers.

Keep in mind that in order to take out a few hundred independent dealears, they only need to torture and kill a few, and have the word spread.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#159

Post by pizza234 »

lem72 wrote: post #155
jzzskijj wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The druglord would wipe out the mom-and-pop cultivator and happily live ever after with their higher costs.

But the Mom and Pop shop can now be anonymous and the evil druglord will have a hard time finding them since they can't go torture the street dealers that peddle Mom&Popshop & Co drugs.

There is no certainty of anonymity, especially in Mexico, for two reasons.

First, drug cartels have very easily control of the IT infrastructures, and second, they now employ hackers exactly to keep the internet information under control.

They've killed several bloggers already, and you can be sure they thought they were anonymous.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#160

Post by veemjeem »

TylerE wrote: post #147
davmre wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Silk Road seizure demonstrated that the only reasonable way to participate in any online drug market is to assume the market itself is compromised and untrustworthy. That means you never upload identifying information in cleartext (e.g., buyers encrypt their addresses with the seller's public key), and you run all bitcoins sent to or received from such a site through a third-party mixer. Of course, there still ha…

What good does that do if the sellers are also fake?

Law enforcement would rather go after the vendors than buyers. There are probably too many buyers for officers to deal with, and they would have to make all the arrests simultaneously. In meat-space, they arrest buyers so that they will rat out their dealer. This is not possible on SR because the dealers do not expose any identifying info to buyers.
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