FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#51

Post by oofabz » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:08 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #44

oofabz wrote: post #13

Was anyone charged with a crime? It disturbs me that the FBI has free rein to seize people's property without even giving them their day in court. The Fourth Amendment says "nor shall any person [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". I don't see any process of law here. The FBI is law enforcement, not judicial.

Blake has been formally charged with conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in forged documents and money laundering conspiracy. The FBI clearly would have sought a warrant from the judiciary as they would in any other case. I really don't understand where you're coming from here. There is nothing unusual at all about how all of this has gone down.

I don't believe Blake is the owner of the 400 sites they took down.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#52

Post by girvo » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:10 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #37

MysticFear wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The responsible use of drugs for your own use doesn't affect anyone except yourself. The chemical uses you brought up affects more than just yourself.

Except the issue is that many drugs affect your ability to be responsible. If people could take heroin or ice and (a) stop whenever they wanted and (b) still function as society expects then nobody would have an issue with them being legal. But drugs like those effectively rewire the brain and are incredibly destructive. A significant amount of domestic violence, child abuse, family breakdown incidents are directly a…

Hi. I'm an ex heroin addict, and while I was addicted for 6 years, only two other people in the world knew. I ran two businesses (one successfully), and wrote innovative software that made people a lot of money. I was successful. There are a number of other techies who have reached out to me to explain their stories, and as it turns out I'm not alone in this.

I still got clean, because the risk of getting caught and the impact that would have on my future outweighed my addiction. I'm glad I did, and I'm lucky Australia treats it as a medical problem, not a criminal one, when you seek help.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#53

Post by beeworker » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:14 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #47

sliverstorm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the bright side it leaves us in the same position as man has always been- rather charted territory. I've been skeptical of Tor et-al from day one. I didn't have provable reasons why, but the court has always served as the gatekeeper to investigation, and the Tors of the world seemed like the sort of hubris we techies are so prone to- "Age-old social justice problems man has struggled with for thousands of years ca…

>It is my opinion that we (techies) overestimate ourselves. What everyone is forgetting is this: The FBI, NSA, CIA etc all have techies. And since they would be extremely well paid it is logical to assume that they are very good at what they do. So anything that we can do they can do only (a) arguably better and (b) with the constraint of having to comply with the law.

So? They could be arguably much worse. It doesn't matter. You only need to be good enough to notice asymmetries (such as your (b), or certain mathematical asymmetries as another example) and set them up in your favor. There are plenty in existence for both sides. When the asymmetries are powerful enough, it doesn't matter how well-equipped or intellectually superior your opponent is.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#54

Post by polshaw » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:15 AM UTC

mechatronics wrote: post #49

kordless wrote: post #2

As little as 50 years ago, selling these drugs wasn't illegal in the US. Look how far we've come.

Just once, I'd like one of you to admit that Silk Road (any many of the other sites) sold large amounts of identity theft equipment. These are not noble drug dealers harming nobody. They are sociopathic assholes selling whatever makes money, even if the ONLY reason for the item is to harm innocent individuals against their will.

"They" are not the same person. Silk road and sites like it are/were marketplaces, not retailers.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#55

Post by orbifold » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:19 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #30

orbifold wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people in power realized that the counter culture of the 60s and 70s posed a real threat to a capitalistic society, so they eliminated factors that could give people the idea their life purpose was not to be a drone in a large corporation.

Capitalism - an actual free market - would require the complete legalization of all drugs. You've got it exactly backwards. The counter culture won. America is the world's largest welfare state, has the largest entitlement systems, with a total government system larger than the economy of Japan, hyper regulation, high taxation, and has very few remnants of Capitalism.

I did not mean some fantasy version of Capitalism, just the fact that for a modern capitalistic society to function, people have to want to buy a new car every few years, strife to have a house and take on consumer credits to buy a new flat screen TV. Maybe I should have used Consumerism. I think it is fairly indisputable that modern economies would not function, if there were not a constant and increasing demand for new stuff. From a global standpoint this seems far from optimal, if you want to optimize for conserving finite resources like oil. In a free market the only way to counter act that a finite resource is exhausted is by the fact that the price increases as time goes on. So there is a very long time where you can use a resource for frivolous stuff like Helium balloons, while at the same time being perfectly aware that it should probably be used for more useful things.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#56

Post by malka » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:22 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #50

malka wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 23% of the people that use heroin becomes addicts[0]. Most users are responsible, but since they are responsible, they won't impact you, or anyone, and you'll never hear of them [0] http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/heroin

I would argue that avoiding physical dependence (the 23% number) is not the bar for "responsible use".

behavior that have a negative impact on other people, such as stealing for drugs, comes from the physical addiction.

And, I took the most addictive drug to illustrate this.

What is the net negative impact that MDMA users, for instance, have on other people ? Other than being nice to the point of being annoying, but, well, if we talk about this kind of negative impact, what are we waiting to make ethanol illegal ?

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#57

Post by dobbsbob » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:24 AM UTC

forgotpasswd3x wrote: post #43

travisp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that other things sold include "firearms; stolen credit card data and personal identification information; counterfeit currency; fake passports and other identification documents". A number of the sites didn't even sell drugs (only these other things).

I'm not sure about silk road 2, but firearms were never sold on silk road.

SR#1 they created the Armory, a seperate market. It was full of scams and extortion attempts so shut it down. Best listing was some guy in Russia trying to peddle uranium for GPS coord drop.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#58

Post by polshaw » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:25 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #41

orbifold wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people in power realized that the counter culture of the 60s and 70s posed a real threat to a capitalistic society, so they eliminated factors that could give people the idea their life purpose was not to be a drone in a large corporation.

Did it though? AFAICT when people came down from whatever it was and actually tried to live their 'new' ways, they pretty much degenerated and fell apart after short times for all sorts of reasons. Being a corporate drone is not an aspiration. Feeding your family and having a nice place for them to live certainly is though.

I don't believe the 'threat to capitalism' that the parent referred to requires the hippies to immediately threaten to create a communist/anarchist/etc society, just to not participate in the capitalist rat race, to base their lives less around consumption. In that light a 'nice' place is very different from the typical "American dream"TM, and having such a place and feeding your family don't require the type of participation we're talking about.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#59

Post by orbifold » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:27 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #41

orbifold wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people in power realized that the counter culture of the 60s and 70s posed a real threat to a capitalistic society, so they eliminated factors that could give people the idea their life purpose was not to be a drone in a large corporation.

Did it though? AFAICT when people came down from whatever it was and actually tried to live their 'new' ways, they pretty much degenerated and fell apart after short times for all sorts of reasons. Being a corporate drone is not an aspiration. Feeding your family and having a nice place for them to live certainly is though.

Well, the drugs were just a side story to the political activism that took place along with it. The war on drugs is just one of several counter measures to the shock the political elite experienced, when suddenly "fringe elements of society" demanded active political participation. The cost of a college education would be another example. It has skyrocketed since then, and now to become a decently educated person, you basically have to work a high paid corporate job afterwards, unless you are lucky.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#60

Post by icebraining » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 1:34 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #28

puredemo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, for marijuana. But the ethical imperative to allow people full control over what substances go into their own bodies seems to be as ignored as ever. Simple example: I'm not legally allowed to control the levels of testosterone in my own body. That seems absurd. #MyBodyMyChoice

Because we balance it against other ethical imperatives, such as impact to the people around the user, and safety/health. Many drugs have indirect impacts. Jacking up on testosterone, for example, makes you aggressive and violent. Many people want the government to look out for them. For example, the regulatory rigor around new medicine. Many proponents of complete legalization of all substances argue that responsibl…

You have to weight the infringement on the rights & freedoms of innocent bystanders suffering at the hands of the abusers, against the infringement of rights from outlawing the drug. Somebody must loose; which should it be?

This is a good question to ask in some hypothetical world where making it illegal actually stops people from consuming it.

That's clearly not our world, though, so the question is actually of little relevance. Laws punishing consumption have been shown, empirically, to violate the rights and freedoms of both the users and of the innocent bystanders (by preventing users from becoming non-users).