Silk Road Shutdown

[TheAnimus]

This is quite amazing, great work by the investigative team if the rumors behind DPR revealing himself are true.

I'll post some links when I find any good ones, but its quite possible going to be the biggest interruption to criminal operations ever seen.

[wasabi]

Sounds almost too strange to be true. Will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. I reckon Bitcoin could be on shaky ground after this...

[TeePee]

I don't understand why this is a good thing.

70% of the stuff sold is drugs, which I think should be legal. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the majority of the stuff I think should be illegal is banned from the site.

But that said, the site is not responsible for the users, just as Craigslist is not responsible for people using it to sell stolen property, for example.

This represents government over-reaching, in exactly the same way that sites relating to piracy are blocked in the UK (to both of the internet users too ignorant to bypass it).

[Rob_B]

Wanting drugs to be legal and supporting drug dealers 'rights' are two very different things.

[TeePee]

Wanting drugs to be legal and supporting drug dealers 'rights' are two very different things.

Please explain.

[Rob_B]

Thinking drugs should be legal (some drugs? all drugs? I won't get into that) does not automatically mean you support the rights of drug dealers.

To put it another (clearer?) way... John Smith thinks drugs should be made legal, John thinks drug dealers are scum - The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Removing said lovely people from the equation is, IMO one of the bonuses of making drugs legal (which I've not actually got an informed opinion on at present)

Of anyone I've met who supported the legalisation of drugs I don't think any one of them would ever support dealers' rights which your post implies you do (if it wasn't the intention then apologies)

[TeePee]

I support the right of people to sell drugs, yes.

That doesn't mean I'd particularly choose to spend time with a stereotypical 'drug dealer', but not because they sell drugs. Selling drugs does not make people scum. People who are scum do tend to become involved with illegal enterprises, but everyone has the same rights.

If I were on a jury, and the defendant were charged with selling drugs (and nothing else), I would be voting not guilty, regardless of the evidence presented.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Some more details of the bust:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/2/47...ndicted-in-new
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24373759

Edit!!

It seems there are many worried people on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/com...ut_discussion/

Details of how DPR was caught:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/com...ussion/ccjlwgp

It seems that a person might have been murdered too:

http://nation.time.com/2013/10/02/al...itcoin-seized/

A criminal complaint also alleges that in March 2013, Ulbricht engaged in a “murder-for-hire” scheme where he enlisted one Silk Road user to murder another Silk Road user who was threatening to release the identities of all of the website’s users.

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/10/02/al...#ixzz2gbxCsz3K

[j1979]

Interesting that there were no holes in the code or TOR.

Just his sloppiness got him caught. It leaves the way open for the next improved Silk Road.

As the FBI had nothing to go on the had to explore and investigate all leads outside of TOR. If he had not been so lax on this they would likely never have caught him.

Interested to know if the silk road stored any details on real world addresses! If he was that sloppy with his original conception of SR then it does not bode well for SR users and especially sellers (although due to the nature of SR and TOR the sellers should in theory be anonymous). A blockchain mixer and TOR makes a seller untraceable but the user will need to give a delivery address. I hope no medical cannabis users get busted. As for the Credit card thieves and con men on SR.. no sympathy.

Using his own name on stack overflow (requesting TOR cURL advice + Bitcointalk is a major fail). He will no doubt have the book thrown at him. There will be a lot of nervous dealers tonight no doubt.

I'm indifferent on where I stand on him after his interview when he said he may start to allow weapons on SR, this really made me question him, but as for selling drugs, in my mind this is no worse than selling vodka.

[hb904460]

Hope they get the names and addresses of all the sellers of children and human traffickers that used silk road as a marketplace.

[peterb]

Some more details of the bust:


It seems there are many worried people on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/com...ut_discussion/

Details of how DPR was caught:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/com...ussion/ccjlwgp

I see reddit have closed that particular forum (although images and quotes from it are not hard to find). I guess reddit are concerned that they'll be served with an order for the details of the posters.

[GeorgeStorm]

As far as I'm aware there are a lot more thing than just drugs sold there.
On the one hand it's good if they put some baddies away, on the other another similar system (but presumably hard to find/break whatever) will come along and most of the same things will carry on

[TheAnimus]

As far as I'm aware there are a lot more thing than just drugs sold there.
On the one hand it's good if they put some baddies away, on the other another similar system (but presumably hard to find/break whatever) will come along and most of the same things will carry on

Which is classically reminiscent of prohibition in the USA.

People wanted their alcohol, sorry Hooch.

People considered the law 'silly'. The higher echelons of society thought it simply wasn't intended to apply to them, because they where upper class afterall.

The lower types didn't give a rats ass.

As a result people who would ordinarily never be funding criminal gangs did so. Giving these mafioso style gangs tremendous funds, which they would diversify out.

SilkRoad was a fascinating microcosm of that. The vast majority of it was simple drugs abuse. But plenty of other more criminal things were being sold there too. The low cost high volume trade of the drugs generated a lot of trust, and was enough to sustain a business's genesis. But many then moved on to other profitable and illegal things. If we punish someone for 10 years for selling MDMA (which has had fewer deaths than KP nuts have), why shouldn't they also start selling guns? The punishment is the same....

[TeePee]

I have no problem with selling guns either.

Things like human trafficking, child porn, etc were all banned by the site.

[TheAnimus]

But assassinations were not!

I think you can use a lot of economic theory to show why prohibition is moronically stupid on every level (ie war on drugs has been a terrible failure, with a high human cost, compared to not having it).

But there is a problem, if you create a place which promotes upselling. For instance sale of MDMA might be constant, drive the market. But off the back of that you can create a place which puts hitmen in such a simple easy to reach place. That makes things a bit dodgy. Before someone might have no idea where to get a hitman. The local pot dealer is probably equally clueless. But now the desire for one criminal activity has created a no holes barred kind of thing.

SilkRoad really did have a darker side than people are reporting.

[peterb]

I don't understand why this is a good thing.

Its a good thing because it demonstrates that unlawful activity can still be detected and deterred. You may not have a problem selling guns, but what about selling (say) WMD such as a nerve agent to someone who then uses it in (again for example) New York? That type of attack has already taken place in Tokyo in 1995. Do you want to make that easier?

You have already mentioned child prostitution, child pornography, human trafficking. They may have been banned on SR (very high minded of them) but what about the possibility of other sites using similar methods?