5 ms·

The druglord would wipe out the mom-and-pop cultivator and happily live ever after with their higher costs.

freshhawk 13y ago
That seems like it wouldn't be cost effective for them if there is even a small amount of anonymity between the buyers and cultivators. I mean, cartels have been pumped up to pretty ridiculous heights by the war on drugs but it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all." Even considering that their MO is more along the lines of picking out the ones they can find and making a gruesome spectacle to scare the rest it still seems unrealistic, although so do a lot of things happening with drugs cartels these days to be fair.
- pizza234 13y ago
  >> it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all." This is not exact, unfortunately, because it depends also on some other factors. If the drug lords decide that they want to impose the fact that they don't accept opposition, they are actually going to do exactly that. They've done it already for several bloggers, it would make little difference if they decided to do it for the little indipendent dealers. Keep in mind that in order to take out a few hundred independent dealears, they only need to torture and kill a few, and have the word spread.
  - protek 13y ago
    "They've done it already for several bloggers" as in people that blog about drugs? Could you elaborate?
    - alasarmas 13y ago
      Here's one example. Googling for something like "cartel kills social media activist" will probably yield more. http://techland.time.com/2011/11/10/fourth-blogger-reportedly-killed-by-los-zetas-mexican-drug-cartel/ http://techland.time.com/2011/11/10/fourth-blogger-reportedl...
    - ebrenes 13y ago
      Another example was when Anonymous decided to start outing Cartel members. They kidnapped one of the people involved and Anonymous declared a truce to get that person released. source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/member-anonymous-released-violent-mexican-drug-cartel-viral-video-threat-article-1.972507 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/member-anonymous-relea...
lem72 13y ago
But the Mom and Pop shop can now be anonymous and the evil druglord will have a hard time finding them since they can't go torture the street dealers that peddle Mom&Popshop & Co drugs.
- pizza234 13y ago
  There is no certainty of anonymity, especially in Mexico, for two reasons. First, drug cartels have very easily control of the IT infrastructures, and second, they now employ hackers exactly to keep the internet information under control. They've killed several bloggers already, and you can be sure they thought they were anonymous.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Why would mom and pop want to base out of Mexico?
  - spikels 13y ago
    The cartels can employ all the hackers and torture all the bloggers they want but it will still be very hard to find sellers on SilkRoad. You will need to break Tor, trace BitCoins, trace deliveries, or trick sellers. This takes national or even international resources (NSA, FBI, Interpol, etc.). And they will have to do this in the US and Europe not Mexico.
    - iskander 13y ago
      >You will need to break Tor, trace BitCoins, trace deliveries, or trick sellers. These aren't all of equivalent difficulty...
    - draugadrotten 13y ago
      >it will still be very hard to find sellers on SilkRoad. Apparently not hard enough. It is being done in Europe already. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Six-More-Silk-Road-Drug-Dealers-Arrested-in-the-UK-and-Sweden-389493.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Six-More-Silk-Road-Drug-Deale...
  - 13y ago

That seems like it wouldn't be cost effective for them if there is even a small amount of anonymity between the buyers and cultivators. I mean, cartels have been pumped up to pretty ridiculous heights by the war on drugs but it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all." Even considering that their MO is more along the lines of picking out the ones they can find and making a gruesome spectacle to scare the rest it still seems unrealistic, although so do a lot of things happening with drugs cartels these days to be fair.

pizza234 13y ago
>> it's not at the point where it would be realistic to have them say "here is a list of a few hundred usernames from SilkRoad spread out all over North America. Find them and murder them all." This is not exact, unfortunately, because it depends also on some other factors. If the drug lords decide that they want to impose the fact that they don't accept opposition, they are actually going to do exactly that. They've done it already for several bloggers, it would make little difference if they decided to do it for the little indipendent dealers. Keep in mind that in order to take out a few hundred independent dealears, they only need to torture and kill a few, and have the word spread.
- protek 13y ago
  "They've done it already for several bloggers" as in people that blog about drugs? Could you elaborate?
  - alasarmas 13y ago
    Here's one example. Googling for something like "cartel kills social media activist" will probably yield more. http://techland.time.com/2011/11/10/fourth-blogger-reportedly-killed-by-los-zetas-mexican-drug-cartel/ http://techland.time.com/2011/11/10/fourth-blogger-reportedl...
  - ebrenes 13y ago
    Another example was when Anonymous decided to start outing Cartel members. They kidnapped one of the people involved and Anonymous declared a truce to get that person released. source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/member-anonymous-released-violent-mexican-drug-cartel-viral-video-threat-article-1.972507 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/member-anonymous-relea...

lem72 13y ago

But the Mom and Pop shop can now be anonymous and the evil druglord will have a hard time finding them since they can't go torture the street dealers that peddle Mom&Popshop & Co drugs.

pizza234 13y ago
There is no certainty of anonymity, especially in Mexico, for two reasons. First, drug cartels have very easily control of the IT infrastructures, and second, they now employ hackers exactly to keep the internet information under control. They've killed several bloggers already, and you can be sure they thought they were anonymous.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Why would mom and pop want to base out of Mexico?
- spikels 13y ago
  The cartels can employ all the hackers and torture all the bloggers they want but it will still be very hard to find sellers on SilkRoad. You will need to break Tor, trace BitCoins, trace deliveries, or trick sellers. This takes national or even international resources (NSA, FBI, Interpol, etc.). And they will have to do this in the US and Europe not Mexico.
  - iskander 13y ago
    >You will need to break Tor, trace BitCoins, trace deliveries, or trick sellers. These aren't all of equivalent difficulty...
  - draugadrotten 13y ago
    >it will still be very hard to find sellers on SilkRoad. Apparently not hard enough. It is being done in Europe already. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Six-More-Silk-Road-Drug-Dealers-Arrested-in-the-UK-and-Sweden-389493.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Six-More-Silk-Road-Drug-Deale...
- 13y ago