The FBI promises a perpetual, futile drug war as it shuts down Silk Road 2.0

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: crazyewok

They can get you no matter what. It only depends on when and how they choose.

BS

Totaly BS

If they could many more than 17 would have been arrested.

If they used the entired force of the NSA maybe but they cant:
1) many of the extreme NSA measures wont be admissable in a court of law and could cause a legal poo storm if used on a non terrorist or military threat
2) they cant throw you in GITMO or in front of a secret court for just drugs.
3) useing there more extreme powers coukd reveal operational secrets in a court of law they dont want to waste on drugs
4) resources, they are not unlimited and they likley have bigger fish to fry and can only devote limited portion of time to drugs as really its the DEA and FBI job.

a reply to: crazyewok It is not about stopping but it has always been about controlling.

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: crazyewok

They can get you no matter what. It only depends on when and how they choose.

One thing is clear, I now know where you stand on the thin blue line.

While the NSA and others loves to pretend they can see all, they can not. The snake does seem to be tightening its grip and the police are starting to catch on to the computer era. I do think it is apparent that the alphabet and interpol seized control of several of these sites and let them run from sometime in hopes of catching bigger fish and possibly racking up more bitcoins.

I am a novice at the dark web and all the stuff the new generation is doing, however there are many sites I stumbled upon DW land that certainly felt like a honey trap.

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: crazyewok

They can get you no matter what. It only depends on when and how they choose.

I've been around computers since the release of Wolf3d. If you're smart and know what you're doing you will never get caught. Sorry, Bubba.

a reply to: jrod

See, I understand nothing about computers, but I understand enough about the ethos of underground culture, and enough about the politics of the internet, to know that the people who would be up for running sites like Silk Road 2.0 and the other named entities in the article, probably see the closure of a few sites as about as threatening as a candy floss shotgun.

They know that all they would need to do, to utterly defeat the object of the FBI tactics as they exist at the moment, of closing down and seizing websites and assets, is to create so many sites of the sort being targeted, that they effectively DDoS the Feds entire operation. Also, clearly, the people running other sites of its sort, need to take into consideration the way they live their flesh lives, as well as how secure their online activities are. I can see the time coming, where there are so many of these sites, that any attempt to disrupt the trade in whatever they are selling, becomes akin to trying to catch the entire days rainfall, in a rainforest, using a few thousand test tubes and nothing else!

Try disrupting a non-networked, highly distributed system, where each individual part of it is administrated by an individual, and accounts for only a tiny fraction of the business of the whole! It would be even easier for travellers in the darknet to do this, because so much more is open sourced from what I understand, than is the case in the cyber spaces I am used to!

a reply to: TrueBrit

This is why TPTB are working so hard to curtail the freedom of the internet. It's very hard to control as it stands now.

Can the government be ignorant enough to believe that their war on drugs is actually making our country a safer place? It is making it a much more dangerous place. The only reason there is so much violence and crime surrounding drugs is because those who produce and sell them can mark up the price significantly, and do not have to comply with any of the regulations that an actual business would have to comply with. They are operating outside the bounds of the law, and thus they do not obey the law. Because there will always be a demand for illegal drugs, violent people will still be profiting from them, and the world will become worse and worse. You take one dealer down, and two will spring up in his place, because it is profitable. If drugs were legal then the markup could not be so high, and it would not be profitable to continue selling them. When the margins are so low, people will go elsewhere. Nothing else they can do will make them as much money either. So it is a win by simply legalizing drugs. The people who do them will still do them, and most people are not going to do them just because they're legal. People don't drink just because it is legal, and they wouldn't stop drinking if it were illegal. Prohibition proved this. There would be other problems associated with legalizing the majority of street drugs, but they would pale in comparison to the problems that are faced now, and it would help demilitarize the police.

Thought this was interesting to share that "How the FBI just made the world a more dangerous place by shutting down Silkroad 2.0 and a bunch of online drug markets"-

This story is still developing, but I'll note that there's a strong argument to be made that the darknet economy makes the world a safer place overall. By taking drug transactions off the street and putting them online, you eliminate a significant link in the chain of violence between drug suppliers and end users. Drugs purchased online are typically less adulterated with dangerous contaminants than street drugs are, and a system of reviews rewards sellers who provide high-quality product.

W Post

a reply to: jrod

www.newser.com...
MASSIVE DARK-WEB BUST TAKES DOWN 400 SITES

There is more to this than is apparent. Everyone knows the CIA is the global drug dealer. (Which is why we'll never get out of Afghanistan - which has enjoyed ever increasing Yearly Record Poppy Crops since we've been there.)

Besides shutting down (competing) illegal drug sites that CANNOT be taxed, the overt criminality of the other offered "products and services" turned this into a "must do - no collateral damage" event.

They've already caught Defcon (Blake Benthall), who brags he's a "former engineer at SpaceX". As these 400 domains come unraveled, and new arrests are made, expect to see more corrupt "names" getting caught.

People were commenting when Silk Road 1 was brought down, that the story sure dropped out of sight fast. Now we know why - they were starting a new and bigger, related case.

Futile is an understatement. The resources they must waste just to shut down a couple of sites, while knowing that many more exist, and many more will continue to pop up. It makes no logical sense at all. They are a couple of guys and lock them up for life....so what? How about they use those resources and try to stop the CIA from smuggling drugs? Oh wait, they only target average people so it looks like they're doing their jobs. What a farce.

A big flaw in the omnipotent LE /FBI/NSA logic is the fact 2 of the biggest market Agora and Evolution are still up. They didn't get pulled along with few smaller ones. If they they had 100% control they would have gone down too.....

a reply to: Swills

I also checked out the Silk Road but there were no hit men and there were no child porn items. So, that is strange to me that you saw them but I didn't. Perhaps the earliest version of Silk Road allowed anything but that was then changed to disallow child porn or hitmen.

a reply to: wayforward
I second that, # is free all over the dark web, who would pay for porn? Lol

originally posted by: TKDRL
a reply to: wayforward
I second that, # is free all over the dark web, who would pay for porn? Lol

Third it.

I asked my mate and he said it was strictly forbidon and pedo got kicked off. They had some standards as they were junkies not monsters.

Correct... I did a lot of research on the dark net and it's trappings as I'm a bit of a libertarian.
The sites the law have recently taken down had strict rules against violence and pedophilia and it seems they had a strong sense of community and possessed a sound moral compass. In fact, if the money and manpower used to destroy these "evil drug users" was focussed on pursuing the sick people that sexually prey on innocent children (using the very same technology they were investigating), the world would be a safer and better place.
I guess there's no money for the government in catching pedofiles.

a reply to: wayforward

Oh yeah, everything was for sale on the original Silk Road and as I've stated in that post it was years ago that I visited it. You could literally buy anything from drugs, guns, prostitutes, hit men, and I think child porn. When did you surf it was last? Was this SR 2.0?

a reply to: crazyewok

What the FBI and friends failed to tell the public is they set up several sites to act as honey traps, no doubt many of those were part of the 400 that went down. Inflated numbers on busts are good for PR and justifying the budget needed. They were hoping to get some of the bigger venders to use their sites in hopes they could make a huge bust. Also most if not all of these sites had security issues that savvy computer geeks were aware of. Most people who were aware of the dark web and SR were much more cautious after the original Silk Road went down last year.

Despite nabbing about 400 sites, the total amount seized from what I have seen is about 1/10th of what they seized with the original Silk Road. I have to laugh when the Drug War advocates try to claim this latest bust is a great success that cripples the Dark Web Anon marketplace.

Hopefully I will get a chance to talk with a dark web and bitcoin guru about this latest bust and will be able to get reliable information on what really happened, I know better than to believe what the MSM and the alphabet tell us.

a reply to: Swills

I checked out Silk Road in late 2011. By that time hitmen seem to have been banned.

Whats interesting is that of the five things you listed (guns, drugs, prostitution, hit men, and child porn) only two of those are illegal in the USA. There is prostitution in Nevada and drugs at pharmacies which include heroin. There are not all that many drugs that are not allowed in any way to be manufactured and sold and even then there are exceptions to the rule for things like coc aine. But of the two illegal things (child porn and hitmen) I do believe the Federal government has the world's largest child porn collection and the CIA has some hitmen. Not to say that should make it okay for other people to hire hitmen of course only that its a bit hypocritical to disallow other people to hire hitmen when you believe in hiring them your self.

So, that's how it works now? The CIA fuels one side, and the FBI does its work on the other side…..and this is just an illustration of how everyone else gets put in the middle, as we're all dealing with the noise produced by guess which side?

I don't quite get what people suggest. There is a problem with dealing with this underground drug trade, and it seems that many advocate that the government just "give up" because it's impossible to stop. So that's the answer.. seriously? Just give up and do nothing? Even if they only nab a handful here and there, it might be the impetus to cause others pondering do this to think twice. You have to fight it, even if it's a losing battle.

It's a losing battle, but it's a battle none the less... and quitting isn't the right answer.