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I think it's a really positive thing that people are able to leave reviews for drug purchases. In the absence of FDA regulation, a public reputation system ince

by md224 9y ago

I think it's a really positive thing that people are able to leave reviews for drug purchases. In the absence of FDA regulation, a public reputation system incentivizes dealers to avoid harming their customers with dangerously-adulterated products. In the midst of an opioid crisis, with people overdosing on heroin cut with fentanyl, having this accountability can save lives. There's a subreddit (whose name I won't mention) that facilitates meetups between opioid sellers and users, encouraging buyers to leave feedback once the meetup is complete. I'm glad it exists.

duozerk 9y ago
Not only that, but some of those markets (mostly defunct ones by now though, and only a minority) hired "official" doctors to answer questions from the users on drug use or similar. You also have communities (like the "DNM avengers" one) that will freely and anonymously test the products of some vendors to confirm whether or not what they are selling is in fact the product described, and how pure it is. Some vendors in turn will proudly link to the posts describing those tests.
- Sangermaine 9y ago
  How would the end buyer know if the tests were genuine? The vendors could easily be paying for good results since there’s zero transparency or ability to check.
  - nugi 9y ago
    I think that just points back to reputation again.
  - duozerk 9y ago
    Absolutely. For those testing communities too, reputation / track record is everything. And since a lot (but, sadly, still a minority) of customers will also reagent the product themselves - a lot of them in countries, especially in the EU, where such a test is free and anonymous thanks to non-profits or even in some case government backed services - any divergence is in theory quick to appear and would cast doubt on their reputation. But that's only the theory, and as you say it's far from a perfect system. The community I mentioned (I don't know if it's still active) used to ask vendors for samples to test; but also ordered product from those same vendors (and others) as "fake" customers in order to make sure the product actually being sold is the one they tested. They also had donation runs with the community at large (both to pay for the tested products and to remunerate themselves).
  - scoggs 9y ago
    They could also just send in pure / accurately labeled stuff in for testing, unless the testing company is ordering stuff at random from an alias / PO Box or something to prevent sellers from masking their true products ingredients.
    - TheAdamist 9y ago
      Tech companies get busted for sending golden hardware samples to review sites, the truth eventually comes out. Although no one dies if their video card is slower than advertised.
      - baddox 9y ago
        See also Volkswagen.
        scoggs 9y ago
        Exactly what I was thinking but I didn't want to drag in an outside subject without.
ct0 9y ago
Unless trying the product becomes fatal. Wouldn't this be a selection bias?
- duozerk 9y ago
  This has happened on a few occasions (all of them opioids laced with fentanyl by vendors). The community tends to name and shame such vendors a lot when it occurs, and markets will ban them; but the very anonymity linked to the process makes that easy to circumvent, unfortunately. In any case, the general advice to people ordering from vendors for which there hasn't been a longstanding reputation + published reagent tests is for their customers to reagent the product themselves, especially for opioids.
  - ct0 9y ago
    During the SR era I was a viewer of the network but not a participant. I didnt realize the extent these vendors went to. I had a friend who did know one vendor in person and supposedly he was very very meticulous and calculated with his actions.
    - duozerk 9y ago
      Yeah; the largest ones are not single vendors but whole operations with strong opsec: use of separate fully encrypted laptops dedicated to the activity, networks of "senders" that'll roam the country sending the packages from different and random mailboxes, pyramidal networks where a main vendor will sell wholesale to re-sellers (those networks also tend to appear naturally - some DNM vendors are simply selling what they bought wholesale from vendors they never even talked to), preparing the packages themselves in isolated dedicated room and with protection to make sure no DNA is present in the packages, etc. in general I imagine it probably can be a pretty low-risk (but probably not low effort) method of making money illegally, compared to traditional drug dealing. And some vendors must have seen their fortunes explode if they hanged on to at least some of their past gained BTC given the recent price hike. But then again you also have the (from the point of view of law enforcement) low hanging fruit: vendors that encrypt nothing, keep a full record of all their customers, tend to ship with very bad stealth, etc. those are the ones that tend to get arrested. Fortunately if you're a customer it tends to be easy to pinpoint those vendors - the lack of care and professionalism tends to display itself also in their profile or during simple communications.
joe_the_user 9y ago
Drug dealing is commerce that happens to be illegal. It's completely logical that most of the considerations of an ordinary market apply here. Drugs are a "victimless crime" in the technical sense that if all goes as planned, none of the people involved would have any complaint afterwards. The thing is, the article doesn't mention the market for less victim-less crimes. It seems like a market for "murder for hire" would be a bit less reliable than a market for drugs - which is a relatively good thing. Even more, those aiming to illegalize drugs inherently are aiming to make markets not function for drugs - aiming to make the experience more dangerous and costly than it would be otherwise. The most hardcore drug-warriors are open on this question but others try to sugarcoat it.
- zxcmx 9y ago
  Drug sale and use is not victimless. The costs vary with the type of drug and the enforcement regime but the social costs never go to zero. There can be huge negative externalities involved with drug use, as anyone with a family member who has a drug problem could tell you. Even in the most enlightened societies one would have to acknowledge that support and rehabilitation for the small percentage of users who have problems creates a burden on society. Since these costs are generally not borne by either party to the transaction there is a fairly straight-forward case for regulation here. For this reason I do support banning some drugs and regulating most of them (including cigarettes and alcohol). I don't think this is inconsistent with free market ideology at all. As far as I know, no one wants a totally free market for semtex, plutonium or nerve gas (I do admit those are perhaps overly emotive examples).
  - joe_the_user 9y ago
    Drug sale and use is not victimless. The costs vary with the type of drug and the enforcement regime but the social costs never go to zero. The selling of drugs may be undesirable some people's minds, "society" may decide it should be suppressed. That's your judgment but drug use remains "victimless" in the sense I described earlier - all people involved want the event to happen. Theft or assault are against cooperative victims who will come to police to complain (in the case of murder, the relatives would). So enforcement dynamics are different. That is all. I'd mention that those opposed to drug laws would say the costs are predicated on the enforcement itself.
IAmGraydon 9y ago
That subreddit no longer exists.
- goatsi 9y ago
  It does, just with a new name.
zeep 9y ago
if they hurt their customers, they might not sell as much too... so number of transactions by itself might be an interesting metric
- sushid 9y ago
  Right, which is why they exit scam. Build up a good reputation and when the amount you can run with equals what would be years of "honest" work profits, you then run away, set up a new account and start over again.
sandworm101 9y ago
>>> public reputation system incentivizes dealers to avoid harming their customers with dangerously-adulterated products. So do the many laws that would see them on manslaughter or even murder for providing lethal drugs.

by md224 9y ago

duozerk 9y ago

Not only that, but some of those markets (mostly defunct ones by now though, and only a minority) hired "official" doctors to answer questions from the users on drug use or similar. You also have communities (like the "DNM avengers" one) that will freely and anonymously test the products of some vendors to confirm whether or not what they are selling is in fact the product described, and how pure it is. Some vendors in turn will proudly link to the posts describing those tests.

Sangermaine 9y ago
How would the end buyer know if the tests were genuine? The vendors could easily be paying for good results since there’s zero transparency or ability to check.
- nugi 9y ago
  I think that just points back to reputation again.
- duozerk 9y ago
  Absolutely. For those testing communities too, reputation / track record is everything. And since a lot (but, sadly, still a minority) of customers will also reagent the product themselves - a lot of them in countries, especially in the EU, where such a test is free and anonymous thanks to non-profits or even in some case government backed services - any divergence is in theory quick to appear and would cast doubt on their reputation. But that's only the theory, and as you say it's far from a perfect system. The community I mentioned (I don't know if it's still active) used to ask vendors for samples to test; but also ordered product from those same vendors (and others) as "fake" customers in order to make sure the product actually being sold is the one they tested. They also had donation runs with the community at large (both to pay for the tested products and to remunerate themselves).
- scoggs 9y ago
  They could also just send in pure / accurately labeled stuff in for testing, unless the testing company is ordering stuff at random from an alias / PO Box or something to prevent sellers from masking their true products ingredients.
  - TheAdamist 9y ago
    Tech companies get busted for sending golden hardware samples to review sites, the truth eventually comes out. Although no one dies if their video card is slower than advertised.
    - baddox 9y ago
      See also Volkswagen.
      - scoggs 9y ago
        Exactly what I was thinking but I didn't want to drag in an outside subject without.

ct0 9y ago

Unless trying the product becomes fatal. Wouldn't this be a selection bias?

duozerk 9y ago
This has happened on a few occasions (all of them opioids laced with fentanyl by vendors). The community tends to name and shame such vendors a lot when it occurs, and markets will ban them; but the very anonymity linked to the process makes that easy to circumvent, unfortunately. In any case, the general advice to people ordering from vendors for which there hasn't been a longstanding reputation + published reagent tests is for their customers to reagent the product themselves, especially for opioids.
- ct0 9y ago
  During the SR era I was a viewer of the network but not a participant. I didnt realize the extent these vendors went to. I had a friend who did know one vendor in person and supposedly he was very very meticulous and calculated with his actions.
  - duozerk 9y ago
    Yeah; the largest ones are not single vendors but whole operations with strong opsec: use of separate fully encrypted laptops dedicated to the activity, networks of "senders" that'll roam the country sending the packages from different and random mailboxes, pyramidal networks where a main vendor will sell wholesale to re-sellers (those networks also tend to appear naturally - some DNM vendors are simply selling what they bought wholesale from vendors they never even talked to), preparing the packages themselves in isolated dedicated room and with protection to make sure no DNA is present in the packages, etc. in general I imagine it probably can be a pretty low-risk (but probably not low effort) method of making money illegally, compared to traditional drug dealing. And some vendors must have seen their fortunes explode if they hanged on to at least some of their past gained BTC given the recent price hike. But then again you also have the (from the point of view of law enforcement) low hanging fruit: vendors that encrypt nothing, keep a full record of all their customers, tend to ship with very bad stealth, etc. those are the ones that tend to get arrested. Fortunately if you're a customer it tends to be easy to pinpoint those vendors - the lack of care and professionalism tends to display itself also in their profile or during simple communications.

joe_the_user 9y ago

Drug dealing is commerce that happens to be illegal. It's completely logical that most of the considerations of an ordinary market apply here. Drugs are a "victimless crime" in the technical sense that if all goes as planned, none of the people involved would have any complaint afterwards. The thing is, the article doesn't mention the market for less victim-less crimes. It seems like a market for "murder for hire" would be a bit less reliable than a market for drugs - which is a relatively good thing. Even more, those aiming to illegalize drugs inherently are aiming to make markets not function for drugs - aiming to make the experience more dangerous and costly than it would be otherwise. The most hardcore drug-warriors are open on this question but others try to sugarcoat it.

zxcmx 9y ago
Drug sale and use is not victimless. The costs vary with the type of drug and the enforcement regime but the social costs never go to zero. There can be huge negative externalities involved with drug use, as anyone with a family member who has a drug problem could tell you. Even in the most enlightened societies one would have to acknowledge that support and rehabilitation for the small percentage of users who have problems creates a burden on society. Since these costs are generally not borne by either party to the transaction there is a fairly straight-forward case for regulation here. For this reason I do support banning some drugs and regulating most of them (including cigarettes and alcohol). I don't think this is inconsistent with free market ideology at all. As far as I know, no one wants a totally free market for semtex, plutonium or nerve gas (I do admit those are perhaps overly emotive examples).
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  Drug sale and use is not victimless. The costs vary with the type of drug and the enforcement regime but the social costs never go to zero. The selling of drugs may be undesirable some people's minds, "society" may decide it should be suppressed. That's your judgment but drug use remains "victimless" in the sense I described earlier - all people involved want the event to happen. Theft or assault are against cooperative victims who will come to police to complain (in the case of murder, the relatives would). So enforcement dynamics are different. That is all. I'd mention that those opposed to drug laws would say the costs are predicated on the enforcement itself.

IAmGraydon 9y ago

That subreddit no longer exists.

goatsi 9y ago
It does, just with a new name.

zeep 9y ago

if they hurt their customers, they might not sell as much too... so number of transactions by itself might be an interesting metric

sushid 9y ago
Right, which is why they exit scam. Build up a good reputation and when the amount you can run with equals what would be years of "honest" work profits, you then run away, set up a new account and start over again.

sandworm101 9y ago

>>> public reputation system incentivizes dealers to avoid harming their customers with dangerously-adulterated products. So do the many laws that would see them on manslaughter or even murder for providing lethal drugs.