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Silk Road 2.0 Launches

forbes.com

41–50 of 243 posts

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#41
post #27

A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…

This applies to most recreational drug taking. It all entails risk. Dealers are shady and so are their sources. There aren't a lot of "completely trust this guy who sells me LSD" scenarios.

They do, but they take the risk. Shows how much people want that stuff in their body.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#42
post #27

A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…

Your fears are no larger than those of a drug addict on the street, not sure what exactly is in the little baggies they buy. Frankly, I think online is safer, as the guy you're buying from online has a reputation system, and is less likely to stick a gun in your face and take your money. And less likely to sell you baby powder and run.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#43
post #27

A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…

Of course there are risks, it's a trade-off. But sellers are motivated to sell high-quality products.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#44

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 don't see the Silk Roads of the world making much difference with regard to the drug war.

Right now Silk Road is the eBay of drugs, where convenience is it's competitive advantage. I can get some drug without visiting a shady person in some shady place, but the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US the bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. A huge part of the US war on drugs takes place among and between those parties, with the US not always supporting the side you might expect.

I'd be more excited about an Etsy of drugs, where people could buy whatever they want straight from the source, bypassing the blood trail. Good luck getting packages delivered from Afghanistan or Colombia though.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#45
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be, but would they really dare to mock themselves in the honeypot? If it is a honeypot, it's very convincing and elaborate.

I would say, that's exactly what you want from your honeypot. What I don't really know, I guess, are the legal implications of entraping people on such a mass scale. I'm also not sure about the usefulness of such a honeypot, since you can't actually track the buyers. Just because someone pays you to send drugs to some address, doesn't mean it's their own address

IANAL, but my understanding of entrapment is that law enforcement has to persuade you to break a law that you wouldn't otherwise have broken - for example if you walk up to a cop and say "sell me some weed" that isn't entrapment, unless he initiated it and persuaded you to try to buy some weed - so if this site was a honeypot, it wouldn't be entrapment, as buyers and sellers are both going there without any persuasion, because they already want to do something illegal.

That said, I agree with other comments here as to why it's unlikely to be a honeypot.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#46
post #30

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…

Are you saying heroin specifically because you do buy it but not from websites, or because some drugs you'd trust to a website (regardless of whether you personally buy them or not) but heroin not, or were you just naming a random drug?

[deleted]

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#48
post #29
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.

[deleted]

Forbes interviewed DPR (Ulbricht or not) in August.

"Roberts isn’t actually the site’s founder, he revealed in our interview. He credits Silk Road’s creation to another, even more secretive entrepreneur whom he declined to tell me anything about and who may have used the “Dread Pirate Roberts” nom de guerre before it was assumed by the person I interviewed."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-th...

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#49
post #6

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a honeypot. Just a hunch.

Nah, I believe the motive is money. Did you hear how much was seized from the previous admin? To make such money just sitting behind a computer, without having to worry about guns and the violence that comes with dealing drugs? There are many people who are willing to risk it.

Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches

#50
As I've never heard of the site before it was seized, the DEA gave it some good advertising. They probably will have grown the site much quicker by trying to stop it.
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