After Over a Year of Police Action, Dark Net Black Markets Still Growing 87
When the original Silk Road was shut down in 2013, it provided definitive evidence that federal law enforcement was targeting online black markets. Later, after the fall of Silk Road 2.0 and the Evolution Market's admins running off with their customers' money, you might have expected people to become more wary of dark net markets — but that doesn't seem to be the case. The number of products being bought and sold is up significantly since last year, and it's quadrupled since the original Silk Road fell. "The most enduring institution on the Dark Net is Agora. Founded in December 2014, amid the rubble of Silk Road's fall, Agora now accounts for 37 percent of all Dark Net product listings. It's a drug-heavy market with substantial supplies in marijuana, ecstasy, prescription drugs, and stimulants—and nearly any other drug you can imagine."
Dark (Score:1)
Maybe all of the negative association was the reason Darkcoin changed its name to Dashcoin?
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Oh well, that sure clear things up then. /Facepalm
'Dark Net'... very funny (Score:2)
The honey tastes sweet, doesn't it?
Re:Bigger != Better (Score:5, Interesting)
The way to "get around" the law is to change the law.
You cannot change the law without public support. One way to get public support for repeal is to show that a law is dysfunctional. If drug prohibition laws actually worked, did what they were designed to do, and had fewer bad side effects, then support for repeal would be much weaker. We are better off if people buy their drugs online, then if they get them on street corners. The only people harmed by these online markets are the drug dealers, the police, and the incarceration industry.
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The trouble is that what the authorities did was to bring down the marketplace, not track the sellers - the money.
The primary objective when shutting down crime is to follow the money and make the crime unprofitable. That's how they did cut down Al Capone.
Re:Bigger != Better (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, they got Al Capone for tax evasion.
The best way way to make "crime" go away is to repeal stupid laws. No victim, no crime.
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Yep, and taxes - that's money.
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And Eric Garner. Taxes are regressive.
Re:Bigger != Better (Score:4, Insightful)
The primary objective when shutting down crime is to follow the money and make the crime unprofitable.
A far simpler method is to legalize the activity so it is not a crime. The problem is not the profits of the drug dealers, but the profits from civil forfeiture, and the vast profits from the prison industry, more than $74 billion annually [wikipedia.org].
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Actually, they don't change the laws; they ignore them. Nevermind.
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George Bush was elected by close to a majority of the people of the United States. The NSA exists due to law created by the elected legislative branch.
Or do you mean that the people have to have approved every decision for it to have public support?
There are a lot of people who support the *mission* of something like the NSA, while not enjoying some of the ways they go about fulfilling that mission. I suppose you could say that the warrantless wiretapping situations and dragnet on electronic communication
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>George Bush was elected by close to a majority of the people of the United States.
You mean a minority.
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gaining a majority is not a mandate , it is just persuading a large group.
untill we get past the notion that one party/idiom should be in charge we will not have real democracy.
the whole point of democracy is to have all the views represented in the choices the government makes
not choosing one or the other every few years.
we have only got to the point of this flip flop form one side to the other because of corporate funding of
the major parties , its easy to fund the top two and switch between the too whilst
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Actually, they don't change the laws; they ignore them. Nevermind.
Doesn't matter, they won reelection after the fact. The voters approve (ie: public support). Resistance was less than feeble.
Re:Bigger != Better (Score:4, Insightful)
Though the public is made up of individuals and, I have seen many of them change their tune after running into some debate on the matter.
Especially when you point out to them that despite the fact that 50% of people in burn units are there for accidents involved with making meth; then you point out that addiction rates don't change (they fluctuate but trace a pretty horizontal line).... it really does get hard to justify the benefits of drug policy.
When you have a policy that can be directly linked as a major cause of the first wave of the HIV epidemic, that has skyrocketed prison populations, and created and funded violent gangs across the country.... all while....not even achieving its most basic goal.... most people do come around when presented with the onslaught of evidence that the current strategy is bullshit and bad for everyone.....
Everyone except the cartels, the gangs, and the police unions whose membership lives off hem.
Re:Bigger != Better (Score:4, Interesting)
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The way to "get around" the law is to change the law.
You cannot change the law without public support. One way to get public support for repeal is to show that a law is dysfunctional. If drug prohibition laws actually worked, did what they were designed to do, and had fewer bad side effects, then support for repeal would be much weaker. We are better off if people buy their drugs online, then if they get them on street corners. The only people harmed by these online markets are the drug dealers, the police, and the incarceration industry.
considering the funding, behind the scenes pressures over intrests and the privatisation of the prison system (not just the US sadly) somehow I think police and the prison industry wins the most. The goal isn't to "stop" drugs which is clear from methods of operations and who is targeted when
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That said, if you're going to participate in that marketplace, stay far, far away from the big players. The smaller ones may be less of a known quantity, but they tend to be less of a target too.
While true, in a marketplace like that, a number of the smaller players are likely government* operatives. While hiring a hit man is likely illegal anywhere, there are legal methods for obtaining most of what you'd find on those sites -- it's just a lot more work, and significantly more public.
*not necessarily the US government
I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you... (Score:5, Funny)
Why, if they were as dangerous as my kindly DARE officer claimed, we'd probably be living under the iron heel of a drugs occupation force right now.
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Like along the Rio Grande Valley? There are places outside of towns you just don't go any more.
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yeah indeed, drug cartels have taken over in parts of Mexico and other Central / South American countries
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And Arizona.
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I drive over the Rio Grande pretty regularly- care to go into a little more detail?
Re:I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you... (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't go there because of the war on drugs, not the drugs themselves. The US became a much safer place when the war on alcohol was abandoned and the world will be a safer place when the war on drugs is abandoned.
Black markets create a criminal element, so it's important policy to only use prohibition when absolutely necessary (contract killing and the like). The war on drugs have killed more people and caused more economic damage than drugs ever have.
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I hate Illinois Grammar NAZIs... (Score:2)
Re:I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you... (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual winners:
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You missed a big one:
drug cartels -- when it's illegal, you drive up the price and limit the number of sources, which also limits the big players to those who operate without regard for the law in general.
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Exactly. Cartels win, law-abiding citizens still lose.
Re:I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you... (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's not just the private prisons that profit. The correctional officers' unions lobby relentlessly against any legislation to reduce federal prison sentences. It's perverse.
Re:I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you... (Score:5, Insightful)
So yeah, sucks for the average citizen, awesome for the people who actually make the laws.
Whack-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)
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Addiction rates pretty much universally drop in places where legalization/decriminalization are implemented.
Re:Whack-a-mole (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, there would be problems with addiction, just like there are now with alcohol and tobacco. It would also be far, far less costly to deal with those than with the negative affects of drug prohibition.
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I question how bad the "addiction" problem would actually be.
I think some subset of the population may be prone to abusive use of opiates, but I would bet that most would settle into a maintenance habit that might technically be called addiction but wouldn't otherwise be a major obstacle to living a more or less normal life.
And that's of people who actually would find the effect pleasant. I've known many people who *complain* about opiates they get after surgery -- "it makes me too sleepy", "it makes me ki
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I also don't think legality factors into it massively, particularly if it's legalized with the facts about safety and addiction clearly marked on the package.
The reason I don't get up in the morning and smoke heroin has nothing to do with the law, it's very similar to the reason I don't start the day with a double whisky - it's because it wouldn't have a positive impact on my life. Generally nobody believes they'll be caught anyway - there might be a little novelty at first, but by and large the people who
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I think you're right if you're talking about who would start using opiates if they became legal tomorrow -- most people who don't abuse them now wouldn't rush out to abuse them tomorrow just because they became legal.
That being said, I think there would have to be limits on what big pharma could do in terms of advertising and marketing. Considering the kinds of ad pushes you get for Naproxen or other drugs, I could see Big Pharma being less than honest about the risks and subtly hooking people.
If it was fr
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Similar experience here. On several occasions I was given demerol in a hospital. The first two or three times it was like the best buzz ever. All my pain was gone and I was floating on a happy cloud of bliss fog. After that the next few times i got no pain, bliss and nausea like a boat ride in 12 foot waves. Never really enjoyed it once the nausea hit. Maybe if i took gravol first.....
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"Laws too severe are seldom obeyed" -Ben Franklin.
Addicts by definition will put themselves at risk unreasonably, so you have to be a fool to think addicts would stop even if you passed a law where the punishment was a shortening of their lifespan or torture them so badly it leaves them with permanent medical conditions! ( like the drugs already do to them on their own. )
The simple solution is to destroy the black market (which is about as free market as you get; it exists outside regulation...) you simply
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There's also the current problem of getting reasonably pure drugs at a known efficacy. If the drugs were legalized, they could be regulated, so we could be sure that our LSD was actually LSD, and of a known dosage. It seems very likely that this would eliminate a lot of medical problems associated with drugs.
Angora is lacking (Score:2)
I can't find anyone selling SuperCool or Glint in any form; powder, gel, runtime-capulets, particulary-waveform, in-grease suspension, toenail suppositories, etc.
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I'll trade you some Glint for some Gleemonex
Are either of those like Plutonian Niborg?
We've seen this before... (Score:4, Interesting)
The exact same thing happened in the '90s with online purchasing.
At first everybody thought it was crazy. "Who would give their credit card details to people over this new fangled Internet thing?" There were legitimate businesses and total scams. But things grew and grew, and now nobody bats an eye about one click purchasing on Amazon.
I figure this will go the same way. Right now it's the wild west, but things will settle down and eventually nobody will bat an eye about spending a few doge on an impulse.
It's a demand-side problem ... (Score:2)
... and we can't fix that.
As long as people want stuff, someone's going to supply it.
It's not a war, it's whack-a-mole.
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Supply-side economics
I don't care how many tons of frosted elephant dung cereal you put on the market, demand will remain minimal.
I don't get this (Score:1)
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Erm, would not work, they are super careful to double airtight bag shit.
And not just USPS, stuff gets sent in the mail international, passing through customs of numerous countries, still undetected.
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I am sure you are right. The criminals would adapt quickly there are plenty of inexpensive packaging materials that could be used which be sufficient to defeat detection by a dog. The biggest challenge for drug packers would probably be developing handling protocol to avoid contaminating the outer packaging with product.
That does not need to be perfect either just 'pretty good' assuming the postal service/government deployed a detective device more sensitive than a dog it would have to be tuned down other
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You used an illegal scenario, but how about these:
Did the guy working packing at the Amazon eat a poppyseed-lemon muffin on his coffee break? Instant FP (goes for inhalers too, btw).
Did someone who handles large amounts of cash also wrap a package? There's likely trace amounts of cocaine present on the outside of the package then.
Did someone wrap a package after their macrame class or civil war re-enactment? Oils from the rope will likely cause an FP.
There are so many drugs out there that to test for all
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Yes, let's waste more money trying to control people's lives! Let's also force drug users to go to even more dodgy sources for their drugs! The number one cause of death amongst drug users is taking contaminated drugs, so let's have more of them die. It's for the sake of goodness and morality! Why the hell aren't they doing this?!
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Why the hell aren't they doing this?!
It would kill the market!
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there was a thread about this last time dark-net markets were discussed on /., there is a law against drug sniffing or any other type of detection method against US postal items, it relates to an unlawful search, i.e. each parcel is the same as a car or home search, unlawful unless probable cause or a warrant.
and nearly any other drug you can imagine (Score:3)
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Indeed. Do they have ThreeEye from the Dresden Files? Spice melange from Dune? Glitterstim from Star Wars? Jet from Fallout?
Dark matter black markets? (Score:1)
The "war on drugs" is still an abysmal failure (Score:2)
No surprise. Has been running almost a century now, no positive effects, but a lot of negative ones. To any sane person that would suggest it was not a good idea in the first place, but, quite obviously, its proponents are insane.
Behold! The power of capitalism and corruption! (Score:2)
By making drugs illegal, they become expensive and create a pool of dark money which can then be rerouted to:
1) Banks ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com] )
2) Federal agencies and lobbyists ( http://www.thenation.com/artic... [thenation.com] )
3) Three letter agencies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org] )
4) Local police ( http://my.chicagotribune.com/#... [chicagotribune.com] ) where traffic stops are now an entrepreneurial opportunity, as in "I had a thought about drugs, so give me all of your money."