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Silk Road 2.0 Launches

forbes.com

191–200 of 243 posts

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#191

Senator Tom Carper's statement on the launch: “This new website – launched barely a month after Federal agents shut down the original Silk Road -- underscores the inescapable reality that technology is dynamic and ever-evolving and that government policy needs to adapt accordingly. Rather than play ‘whack-a-mole’ with the latest website, currency, or other method criminals are using in an effort to evade the law, we…

Yeah, how about redefining what a criminal is in the first place. Then you don't need to protect the public.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#192
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current DPR is allegedly the third one, and the one in jail is the second, as he said in an interview with Forbes.

Reports indicate that the original DPR retired to Patagonia 15 years ago, and has been living like a king ever since.

How does work? Wikipedia says that the silk road started in February of 2011. And if that was months, it would still only give him around a year and a half on the site.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You don't think that sending a schedule I substance to an unknowing stranger through the mail and across state lines isn't irresponsible? Are you going to valiantly turn yourself in if your neighbors get raided? If you get drugs shipped to your house, they will charge and probably convict you. Doesn't mean it would hold up in an appeal, but why would you risk an innocent's life, freedom, finances, and soci…

32 pounds of marijuana in that case. If you were going to do a test run in this way, you could send a single schedule IV Xanax or something. I'm not saying it's a good idea but the likelihood of putting your neighbors in danger is probably smaller than many common actions. It's probably less dangerous statistically than giving them baked goods with nuts. All I was responding to is your statement, "One of the most irr…

Maybe I should clarify: it's one of the most directly irresponsible things I've seen unironically suggested here.

If you don't see the irresponsibility of implicating an unknowing third-party in a serious life ruining felony, I don't know what to tell you.

Given that this is most likely filled with vendors who are either agents or guys who have been popped and are now confidential informants, your statistics are way off.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#194
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> violence impossible in anonymous marketplace if you read the report about the 1st silk road, you'll see that's not true

Silk Road was not an anonymous marketplace. Buyers had to provide some identity and address to sellers in order to receive shipment. There are obvious geographic limitations with how anonymous a person could be while still receiving the goods they want.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#195

Not unexpected of course, the demand for narcotics and other services is still out there. I can't help but wonder if this isn't a bit like becoming the new head of some terrorist organization, the target is now painted day-glo orange and we know that it is not only on the 'radar' of law enforcement, its a priority target. The clock starts, and a number of resources are now tasked with taking you out. Of course the ge…

I think it will be interesting to watch, no doubt this time round the creators have been anonymous from the get go. Avoiding all the errors that DPR/Ulbricht made would be quite simple given the knowledge we have from court documents of how he was caught.

If these guys get caught then I think we can more safely assume that it was a case of parallel construction after the targets were initially identified by the NSA/GCHQ tracking them via Tor. Only the biggest dealers and the operators would be worthy of the resources required to undertake that task.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#196
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Violence amongst end user drug dealers is very rare and confined to specific, very poor, areas. Wholesale is the only place where you start to see significant amounts of cash, and hence most of the problems, and that has zero differences between offline and on. There is no 'political narcoterrorism' between the guys selling 8ths of coke in the neighborhood. You're also mischaracterizing the drug trade with regards to…

It's also a mis-perception to assume the hood is where all the gangsters are, a block outside the poverty stricken areas here the gangsters are suburban kids from affluent neighborhoods who are just as violent when it comes to protection rackets, extortion and taxing minor dealers.

Anybody running a small delivery line is almost always carrying an illegal gun, and willing to shoot competitors over peddling 8ths of coke.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#197

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.

I'm looking for an Etsy for drugs. I want my synthetic opiates cradled in a lace & cordoroy kerchief that states "rustic charm".

It's called Alibaba. I haven't checked in about a year but I recall finding MDMA precursors, Meth precursors and bulk Opium for sale on it.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#198

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'd never buy heroin from a website I'd rather buy heroin from Silk Road (where it's peer-reviewed and often tested by third-parties) than on the street. Buying online is just overall less risky.

Used to be less risky now they slam you with interstate trafficking charges which can climb to 10+yrs whereas getting jacked on the street and losing $50 doesn't sound too bad in comparison.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#199
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Maybe in Mexico they do this. Here there are investors who buy up a dozen houses through shell corps and hire one grower who sets everything up, and is paid a lot of money. The grower then hires people to maintain and protect the grow usually for pretty good money as well. http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3268.html

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#200

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…

The one glaring problem with anonymous purchasing of items is assassinations / hits that people seem to be hired for through it. There are other bad things too. Society could become a very fucked up place - even more so than now as people gain trust for that system.
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