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The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

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61–70 of 115 posts

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#61
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin allows transactions that only become valid once 2 of 3 people sign them. If the three people are buyer, seller, and arbitrator, you can have escrow without trusting a third party. There have already been commercial services along those lines. Seems to me that any dark service that doesn't do it that way probably shouldn't be trusted.

>arbitrator Is the arbitrator not a third party?

Not one that you need to trust.

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#62

>While other sites followed the original Silk Road’s ethos of selling only victimless contraband While human sacrifices may not be a literal ingredient of drugs, calling it victimless ignores a whole lot of problems caused by drugs. Buying pot from your friend who grows it is victimless. But fueling any black market, even one that avoids identity theft, means you are supporting the marketplace that provides service t…

The drug cartels brutally murder thousands and commit many other crimes -- they are as brutal as ISIS in many ways -- they undermine and oppress entire countries and ruin large parts of American cities. Many organizations such as the Taliban and Hezbollah fund themselves via the drug trade. Some people boycott companies over political issues; how many of them still buy drugs? Every user I know, to whom I've mentioned…

This is another argument in support of legalisation. The 'war on drugs' is lost, and can never be won. Far better drugs are legalised, can be produced safely and with known purities. Governments can tax their sale (as per alcohol), and direct some funds into treatment programs for addiction.

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#63
post #5

"You knew what I was when you picked me up," said the snake as it slithered away.

For those not getting the reference http://www.gballard.net/lifes_lessons/girl_rattlesnake/

Or the Scorpion and the Frog [1]

[1] http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?4&TheScorpionandth...

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#64
post #5

"You knew what I was when you picked me up," said the snake as it slithered away.

For those not getting the reference http://www.gballard.net/lifes_lessons/girl_rattlesnake/

In the version told in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Scorpion, the girl is a fox and the snake is a scorpion (hence the show's title)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708968/quotes?item=qt0492714

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bitcoin model alone doesn't fit buying drugs online. The purpose of escrow is a mutually agreeable middleman to facilitate a transaction, especially when parties that do not trust each-other can not exchange goods and payment in person.

I still don't understand how this helps though - couldn't the person still get their shipment and claim they never received it in order to trick the middleman to return their funds? How does the middleman have any ability to investigate or know who to believe?

In one model of escrow, the middleman receives both the goods and cash before distributing them to the other parties. Potentially doing some inspection of goods at the time too.

In another model, more common on the internet, the middleman holds the money from the buyer while the seller ships the goods to the seller. They can't guarantee the buyer does not lie to the middleman, but it changes the incentive structure around fraud. Especially so when the middleman runs or has connections to the marketplace.

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>arbitrator Is the arbitrator not a third party?

Not one that you need to trust.

You need to trust either the buyer or the arbitrator actually. In this case some money might have been lost due to malicious buyers (and the absent arbitrator).

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution did use escrow, except that they were the middle man between buyer and seller. Even with escrow you still have to put your trust in someone else.

Even with escrow you still have to put your trust in someone else. Not with Bitcoin. With multi-sig transactions you don't have to trust the escrow agent to not steal your money (assuming you're confident the escrow agent is not also the other party in the transaction): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_2:_Escrow_and_d... As dshankar pointed out, Evolution supported these types of transactions but they wer…

You still need to find a trustworthy 3rd party "mediator" or escrow agent, whom still holds the ability to collude with either seller or buyer for a share of the funds withheld.

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#69
post #57
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition laws created the drug cartels. You don't see distillers killing each others in turf wars, quite simply because it would be highly destructive to their possibility of operating on the right side of the law. To end the "wars" regarding drugs, you must end the war on drugs. Legalize everything. It won't eliminate drug abuse, just like legalizing alcohol didn't eradicate alcohol abuse, but it removes all the…

Agreed. And then deal with it the same way you do with tobacco and alcohol, with social campaigns to raise awareness of the issues of addiction. We have a working model here for legal drugs that are just as bad or worse.

Working model? LOL.

Re: The Dark Web’s Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished

#70

>While other sites followed the original Silk Road’s ethos of selling only victimless contraband While human sacrifices may not be a literal ingredient of drugs, calling it victimless ignores a whole lot of problems caused by drugs. Buying pot from your friend who grows it is victimless. But fueling any black market, even one that avoids identity theft, means you are supporting the marketplace that provides service t…

We're talking victimless , not harmless . With drugs, there is no victim, because the person making the purchase is making a conscious choice to buy something to put into their body. They are well aware of the effects and risks. Contrarily, identity theft is clearly not victimless. A person's credit card or social security number is taken from them without their knowledge or consent so that it can be sold. To go on a…

Using drugs is victimless, but given that a lot of drug manufacture and cultivation is directly linked to organized crime, buying drugs is only victimless if you know for a fact that your drugs are ethically grown, fair trade, etc. Which you don't.
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