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Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

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131–133 of 133 posts

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#131
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, you are trying to say that there are two possible positions - either the government is allowed to interfere with peoples lives, or it is not. Most people believe something in the middle - there are situations where they would like the government to interfere. For instance, if they pay you for a service, and you don't deliver it, they might want the government to take action against you. In this case, you could a…

> there are situations where they would like the government to interfere > Could we maintain a society like this without any enforcement of law? > I think the government should prevent people being harmed by predictable irrational behavior So it seems you believe that a government is a monopoly on force, but think it's a good thing. a very interesting viewpoint. How is that different from the famous quote [1] from 19…

>>have you seen a benevolent monopoly before?

I write too much, but you make an interesting point. More interesting because I find it hard to imagine a world where governments do not have a monopoly on force and the things function. Clearly, I need to think harder/better.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#132
post #77
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interviewer didn't even get the operator's first name. I think he (she? they?)'ll be fine.

The way a proper counterintelligence effort goes after someone like this is to develop a list of candidates based on known facts, then use surveillance, statistics, etc to rule people out. I could ID DPR for $500k with a few staff in a year, either by breaking the law or as an official state entitity breaking the laws of other countries.

This almost sounds like what happens at the start of Vernor Vinge's True Names a book written in late 1970s and still relevant.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#133
post #58
post #38

I'm pretty sure the government is delighted by Silk Road so that they can finally justify searching all physical mail in some very advanced way. HN, you're always asking for startup ideas, why not just get totally evil and invent technology to scan physical mail at scale and hook it into PRISM? You'd stand to make at least millions if you did it right. Oh, and part of doing it right is making sure there's some altern…

> I'm pretty sure the government is delighted by Silk Road so that they can finally justify searching all physical mail in some very advanced way. Aside from the issue that SR has been running for almost 3 years now without anyone introducing such legislation - they already scan the outsides of all letters or packages indefinitely, and can easily search anytime they want to. The legal niceties aren't why drugs by mai…

Considering the level of access that government agency's have it is amazing to me that they have not been more effective in clamping down on the drugs trade. Considering the amount of goods and money that is flowing; does that not leave a detectable trace? Is it really that difficult to find?
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