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Eventually, you do need to complete the transaction in the real, right? These aren't virtual drugs. The FBI can pose as drug dealers, collect your bitcoins, and

by ansy 15y ago

Eventually, you do need to complete the transaction in the real, right? These aren't virtual drugs. The FBI can pose as drug dealers, collect your bitcoins, and send agents to your door instead of drugs if you're in the US. Bitcoins may be a better candidate for selling virtual goods like stolen credit card numbers, security exploits, and secrets. But even then the money/goods from cashing out bitcoins have to go somewhere. If some dude goes from broke to millionaire with a single large deposit and he's going to be on the fed's radar for life.

ericmoritz 15y ago
That's what laundering is for. I'm not that familiar with bitcoins. How easy would it be to launder the coins?
- ansy 15y ago
  The coins are a mechanism for laundering. My point is you can't launder goods. Heroin is heroin is illegal no matter how you came about it. You could have gotten the drugs for free without cash, credit, bitcoins, goats, bushels of corn, or anything. It's still illegal to have heroin. With Silk Road, the drugs have to go somewhere. And there's probably a paper trail leading to the origin of the package as well unless the dude is driving across the country before dropping it in the mail Ted Kaczynski style.
  - matthavener 15y ago
    Still, I wonder if this circumvents some of the law. If you can't prove I paid for some drugs, am I less likely to be prosecuted? If a random shipment of drugs showed up at my door with no transaction to match them with, am I even at fault?
    - SwellJoe 15y ago
      If so, I imagine politicians, police chiefs, judges, etc., will begin receiving gifts in the mail on a regular basis. Anyone with enemies, of any sort and for any reason, could be targeted. People have been raided based on where a package was shipped, in absence of proof of payment (I recall reading a story, I believe linked from HN, about a family whose dog ended up getting killed in the resulting raid, following a box of drugs being delivered to the wrong house as part of a sting). Anonymity just makes it really easy to get away with setting people up.
    - nerfhammer 15y ago
      It's not like people had previously been paying for drugs with credit cards, personal checks and/or direct deposit
- deleted 15y ago
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by ansy 15y ago

ericmoritz 15y ago

That's what laundering is for. I'm not that familiar with bitcoins. How easy would it be to launder the coins?

ansy 15y ago
The coins are a mechanism for laundering. My point is you can't launder goods. Heroin is heroin is illegal no matter how you came about it. You could have gotten the drugs for free without cash, credit, bitcoins, goats, bushels of corn, or anything. It's still illegal to have heroin. With Silk Road, the drugs have to go somewhere. And there's probably a paper trail leading to the origin of the package as well unless the dude is driving across the country before dropping it in the mail Ted Kaczynski style.
- matthavener 15y ago
  Still, I wonder if this circumvents some of the law. If you can't prove I paid for some drugs, am I less likely to be prosecuted? If a random shipment of drugs showed up at my door with no transaction to match them with, am I even at fault?
  - SwellJoe 15y ago
    If so, I imagine politicians, police chiefs, judges, etc., will begin receiving gifts in the mail on a regular basis. Anyone with enemies, of any sort and for any reason, could be targeted. People have been raided based on where a package was shipped, in absence of proof of payment (I recall reading a story, I believe linked from HN, about a family whose dog ended up getting killed in the resulting raid, following a box of drugs being delivered to the wrong house as part of a sting). Anonymity just makes it really easy to get away with setting people up.
  - nerfhammer 15y ago
    It's not like people had previously been paying for drugs with credit cards, personal checks and/or direct deposit
deleted 15y ago
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