Any idea on Conde Nast's response to all this? If they were looking for an excuse to shutdown DNM then this would be it.
Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
131–140 of 221 posts
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Web of trust-based spam filtering takes some effort to use, but is a workable solution.
That's a nice theory, but has it been demonstrated to work in any real systems? Is it known to be a workable solution at the scale of Usenet/Reddit?
That's a very high bar to set :)
No it hasn't been validated for that use case for that large a system. Some examples where it has been used: PGP uses web of trust to validate keys. Freenet boards used web of trust to succesfully stave off spam attack. They are a lot smaller than reddit of course.
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a view I would see nothing more than government propaganda. 'If you don't like the law, then you should break it and peacefully accept any punishments.' Should we tell homosexuals in some areas of the world that they should go ahead and draft up their wills and turn themselves to be executed because they should accept their punishment for their crime?
You seem to be assuming the government wants people to break its laws, so it gets to punish people. It costs the government money to put people in prison; not only the cost of their food, shelter, supervision, etc. but also the cost of removing a taxpayer from the workforce. Furthermore, a democratically elected government that is increasingly imprisoning more and more of its people is not likely to remain popular. I…
People with power almost invariably attended a history class or two sometime in their lives, and remember what can happen to the Marie Antoinette's and Nicolae Ceaușescu's of this world.
If you were in power, and you feared civil unrest, it would be in your best interest to establish civil disobedience as the most severe form of legitimate protest. The idea that dissidents should not use violence but should instead submit themselves to arrest is very convenient for those who already have power.
In public schools across America, civil rights activists who advocated non-violent civil disobedience are lionized, while civil rights activists who advocated for techniques that did not involve martyrdom are either ignored or vilified. The first are given credit for the relative success of the civil rights movement, while the role of the later is severely downplayed. I do not believe that this is an accident.
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#134Warning: this opinion probably won't fit into the HN zeitgeist. If you commit a crime online don't be surprised when they seek to gain evidence against you. This isn't a liberty issue. This is a you're probably a criminal issue and law enforcement is coming after you. I don't protect drug dealers in my neighborhood because of their right to free speech and personal liberty so why would I protect these guys? It just a…
"This isn't a liberty issue."
Wrong. Everything is a liberty issue.
"This is a you're probably a criminal issue"
This is why this is a liberty issue. Or did everyone just forget that it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? Even in the fucking article you have Branwen saying that most of the guys are probably just red herrings but that one guy might be a valid target.
Yet here you are making broad, sweeping statements and dismissing any criticism of the justice process through the lense of "people get what they deserve"... and then you continue to attempt to establish your authority as a criminal as a means to prop up your other claims.
"I have no pity. None."
Let me ask you seriously, who of the people being targeted do you have no pity for? Is it only for NSWGreat? What about Branwen? The other guys? Are they all immediately criminals in your mind? Based off what evidence?
Here's another reason your post is asinine: the way the current system is set up, almost everyone commits a crime everyday. This hasn't applied quite as much in the computer world but due to the fact that the powers that be woke up and recognized the internet as a threat, more and more computer fraud and abuse act style legislation is popping up and pretty soon it will be the same online (e.g everyone commits an online crime once a day)
You do realize, through your self proclaimed vast experience, that the justice system is corrupted as fuck right, and that simply putting bad guys in jail isn't how it always works out right?
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#135Warning: this opinion probably won't fit into the HN zeitgeist. If you commit a crime online don't be surprised when they seek to gain evidence against you. This isn't a liberty issue. This is a you're probably a criminal issue and law enforcement is coming after you. I don't protect drug dealers in my neighborhood because of their right to free speech and personal liberty so why would I protect these guys? It just a…
> "They'll deflect, ignore, and basically try anything to escape the reality - they broke the rules of society and now society wants to punish them." I think most people, criminals or otherwise, understand this quite well. In fact, I'd guess that criminals understand it better than non-criminals. What some people don't seem to understand (or even want to think about) is that the law is often a pitiful and nationally…
People who break the law are criminals, period. It doesn't matter if the law is just or unjust, or whether or not you personally agree with it. The simple fact is that the majority of citizens don't want online drug dealing to be legal, so it isn't legal.
Equating drug dealers with Ghandi, MLK and the US Founding Fathers is a stretch at the least and outright offensive at worst. These people aren't making bold political statements. They're selling drugs.
If you think that drugs should be legal, convince your fellow citizens to vote to make them legal. MLK, Gandhi and the Founding Fathers did what was necessary to change laws that they felt were unjust. Criminal behavior isn't the same thing as civil disobedience, and there are no shortcuts.
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#136Warning: this opinion probably won't fit into the HN zeitgeist. If you commit a crime online don't be surprised when they seek to gain evidence against you. This isn't a liberty issue. This is a you're probably a criminal issue and law enforcement is coming after you. I don't protect drug dealers in my neighborhood because of their right to free speech and personal liberty so why would I protect these guys? It just a…
It is going to be really fun when being third party becomes a crime. When protesting the nth + 1 extension of the Disney protection laws become a crime. When having an unapproved relationship becomes a crime. When failing to report your family for their criminal actions becomes a crime.
This is what most people, even HN users, seem to fail to grasp about this slippery slope we find ourselves hurtling down. The surveillance engine is about control (not security), and as that "control" pervads more and more spaces previously reserved to the individual, I see, given current trajectory, no other end state than pre-crime and thought-crime becoming a reality.
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why you are giving this advice. HTTPS won't do anything to stop a subpoena for IP information(?)
I believe he's saying that accessing Reddit using Tor with HTTP is sometimes problematic but using HTTPS can fix the problems. (It's been a while but I think that might mirror my own experience.)
That's correct. Last time I tried it, Reddit was borking HTTP POST requests made through Tor. Now they seem to redirect everybody to HTTPS after login and the problem is solved.
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#138Any idea on Conde Nast's response to all this? If they were looking for an excuse to shutdown DNM then this would be it.
[deleted]
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#139Wow, Gwern from gwern.net is implicated in this. No idea he moderates that subreddit. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out considering Gwern has a few essays on self-experimentation with drugs and discloses they were purchased from Darknet vendors. Despite the articles pertaining to illicit substances the experiments in question were exceedingly academic (like much of Gwern's writings).
The feds don't have that good of a case against Gwern, if they even wanted to prosecute him for simple possession. He could be writing fiction, for all they know; to convict him in court, they'd have to prove that he possesses illegal substances, which he has presumably consumed by now. I'm not a lawyer but I don't foresee much prison time in Gwern's future. There are bigger fish to fry.
I suspect they were just interested in interrogating Gwern for what he knew about some of the market operators and various schemes related to them.
It's possible they might've planned to use some of his drug purchases and position in the community as leverage to get him to talk, but I strongly doubt they're interested in prosecuting him.
Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
>they are criminals They likely disagree that their "crimes" ought to be illegal, and do not accept the legitimacy of any punishment for such behavior. Why should they have to "make a choice" and make "better decisions" when they don't believe what they've done is wrong?
Bernie Madoff didn't think he was doing anything wrong either. Why should he have to make a choice? The only reason you are making this comment is because you don't believe drugs (and drug dealing) should be illegal.
Madoff stole people money.
These guy entered a mutually approved transaction between adults, where both side are usually happy with the outcome.