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If the government setup their own Silk Road and busted a bunch of drug dealers it wouldn’t be any different than starting a bank. The first informant said I hav

by wil421 5y ago

If the government setup their own Silk Road and busted a bunch of drug dealers it wouldn’t be any different than starting a bank. The first informant said I have drug traffickers asking for banking services. They setup what they were already seeking. Most likely a few governments and courts in multiple countries were already OK with it by the end.

nomoreplease 5y ago
> If the government setup their own Silk Road and busted a bunch of drug dealers it wouldn’t be any different than starting a bank. Silk road was e-commerce. The laws & regulations of e-commerce and banking are very different, so yes they would different. Doubly so as it's in two nations. Thirdly so, because now international laws and regulations apply
vmception 5y ago
Yeah, just a heads up that darknet commerce goes much darker after every enforcement action. More of it switches to Monero despite being less convenient, debilitating tracing capabilities. It accelerated need for completion of Monero multisignature capabilities, allowing the custody of funds to remain with the buyer and seller, instead of requiring the exchange as an escrow provider which is where many of the funds are seized when the government finds a server and takes it down. Buyers and sellers do their own encryption handshakes based on certain software protocols. Instead of all messages stored on the marketplace server. And they avoid certain apps like Wickr. The effort to take down a marketplace increases while the yield decreases. Classic war of attrition. Everyone already knows the best practices, they are just too lazy to implement them until there is evidence that it’s necessary and not just paranoia.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Of course, but these patterns are true of most businesses (and indeed much human behavior). Companies have policies planned exceeding implementation because the cost isn't justified (until it is). ... and "enforcing the law incentivizes criminals to spend more on not getting caught" isn't really an argument for not enforcing the law. Indeed, from the point of view of law enforcement, it's short-term win-win... Every resource spent on being harder to catch is a resource not spent on the actual harmful criminal activity.
  - vmception 5y ago
    These are not hard best practices.

by wil421 5y ago

nomoreplease 5y ago

> If the government setup their own Silk Road and busted a bunch of drug dealers it wouldn’t be any different than starting a bank. Silk road was e-commerce. The laws & regulations of e-commerce and banking are very different, so yes they would different. Doubly so as it's in two nations. Thirdly so, because now international laws and regulations apply

vmception 5y ago

Yeah, just a heads up that darknet commerce goes much darker after every enforcement action. More of it switches to Monero despite being less convenient, debilitating tracing capabilities. It accelerated need for completion of Monero multisignature capabilities, allowing the custody of funds to remain with the buyer and seller, instead of requiring the exchange as an escrow provider which is where many of the funds are seized when the government finds a server and takes it down. Buyers and sellers do their own encryption handshakes based on certain software protocols. Instead of all messages stored on the marketplace server. And they avoid certain apps like Wickr. The effort to take down a marketplace increases while the yield decreases. Classic war of attrition. Everyone already knows the best practices, they are just too lazy to implement them until there is evidence that it’s necessary and not just paranoia.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Of course, but these patterns are true of most businesses (and indeed much human behavior). Companies have policies planned exceeding implementation because the cost isn't justified (until it is). ... and "enforcing the law incentivizes criminals to spend more on not getting caught" isn't really an argument for not enforcing the law. Indeed, from the point of view of law enforcement, it's short-term win-win... Every resource spent on being harder to catch is a resource not spent on the actual harmful criminal activity.
- vmception 5y ago
  These are not hard best practices.