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It is rather naive for this writer to assume that things like online reviews will work or continue to work for these illegal sites. Why do they believe that ill

by hristov 12y ago

It is rather naive for this writer to assume that things like online reviews will work or continue to work for these illegal sites. Why do they believe that illegal drug sites will have honest reviews when even yelp, which is supposed to be completely legal and reviews completely legal businesses has obviously manipulated reviews. Of course people will eventually start padding their ratings, and the websites themselves will start manipulating ratings. So this is not some panacea for getting higher quality drugs. It is not even something that will ensure your safety from the police. As I have mentioned before, the police can get you online the way they usually get you -- by having an undercover police agent pretend to be the seller. In fact it would be much cheaper and more effective for the police to collect addresses from an illegal drugs site than the dangerous and tricky business of using undercover agents on the street. I think the economist is being very disingenuous by cheerleading for these online sites. These are not safer from police or drug purity standpoint.

Renaud 12y ago
Regarding the reviews, I haven't been on these sites but I suppose that they would only allow buyers to make a review. Even if sellers cheat and create fake transactions to be allowed a review, people who are not happy with the service will still leave a bad review. So because reviews are not under the control of the seller, there is a high incentive for them to be honest. Don't think of it as yelp, think of it as Alibaba/AliExpress. Sellers can always cheat, but it's harder and the risks of being booted off the site if you are a crappy vendor are higher as well.
gwern 12y ago
> It is rather naive for this writer to assume that things like online reviews will work or continue to work for these illegal sites. Why do they believe that illegal drug sites will have honest reviews It is rather naive to call that 'rather naive' given that the black-markets have functioned well since January 2011 (so, coming up on 4 years soon). I don't think it would take scammers 4 years to realize that reviews can be faked. > when even yelp, which is supposed to be completely legal and reviews completely legal businesses has obviously manipulated reviews. Yelp doesn't control purchases of services and take commissions and only let buyers review, so it's in a different position from the operators of a black-market. > As I have mentioned before, the police can get you online the way they usually get you -- by having an undercover police agent pretend to be the seller. So why don't they? Why are they ignoring the infallible wisdom of the great hristov?
- hawkice 12y ago
  Also worth noting the reason Yelp's reviews are obviously manipulated is that a lot of Yelp's money comes from people paying to be able to manipulate the reviews. Not hard to get better review accuracy than that.
Alex3917 12y ago
> Why do they believe that illegal drug sites will have honest reviews when even yelp, which is supposed to be completely legal and reviews completely legal businesses has obviously manipulated reviews. Because anyone can write reviews on Yelp, but getting privileges to write darknet reviews is fairly difficult. And IIRC if anyone who you invite into the review system tries to astroturf, then you and everyone else you've invited automatically get banned also.
firepacket 12y ago
> the police can get you online the way they usually get you -- by having an undercover police agent pretend to be the seller. Except this method doesn't work online because they can't prove you are the one who ordered it. Anyone can order illicit material to any location and with any name over TOR. Without corroborating evidence, no court would convict purely on the involuntarily act of receiving mail.
x0x0 12y ago
There was a group of folks on Silk Road buying lsd from various vendors, running gas chromatography, and posting externally verified purities and reviews. I'm sure the silk road people will coalesce on some other site and someone else will do this. Remember when you're buying anything but pot or shrooms through the friend network you don't know what you're getting or how stepped that coke is. edit: Also, these sites directly observe transactions plus financial exchange. That gives them a lot more tools to detect straw vendors. What lengths are local cops willing to go to to catch people buying personal use amounts of drugs, particularly when anyone can claim their house was used as a drop address. Virtually nobody has been prosecuted for purchasing drugs on silk road; the only limited attempts so far look to me to be attempts to build cases against the vendors [1]. The guy in that article has purchased narcotics from someone in Washington. [1] http://heavy.com/news/2013/10/silk-road-drug-buyer-reddit-arrest-ross-ulbricht-fbi/ http://heavy.com/news/2013/10/silk-road-drug-buyer-reddit-ar...

by hristov 12y ago

Renaud 12y ago

Regarding the reviews, I haven't been on these sites but I suppose that they would only allow buyers to make a review. Even if sellers cheat and create fake transactions to be allowed a review, people who are not happy with the service will still leave a bad review. So because reviews are not under the control of the seller, there is a high incentive for them to be honest. Don't think of it as yelp, think of it as Alibaba/AliExpress. Sellers can always cheat, but it's harder and the risks of being booted off the site if you are a crappy vendor are higher as well.

gwern 12y ago

> It is rather naive for this writer to assume that things like online reviews will work or continue to work for these illegal sites. Why do they believe that illegal drug sites will have honest reviews It is rather naive to call that 'rather naive' given that the black-markets have functioned well since January 2011 (so, coming up on 4 years soon). I don't think it would take scammers 4 years to realize that reviews can be faked. > when even yelp, which is supposed to be completely legal and reviews completely legal businesses has obviously manipulated reviews. Yelp doesn't control purchases of services and take commissions and only let buyers review, so it's in a different position from the operators of a black-market. > As I have mentioned before, the police can get you online the way they usually get you -- by having an undercover police agent pretend to be the seller. So why don't they? Why are they ignoring the infallible wisdom of the great hristov?

hawkice 12y ago
Also worth noting the reason Yelp's reviews are obviously manipulated is that a lot of Yelp's money comes from people paying to be able to manipulate the reviews. Not hard to get better review accuracy than that.

Alex3917 12y ago

> Why do they believe that illegal drug sites will have honest reviews when even yelp, which is supposed to be completely legal and reviews completely legal businesses has obviously manipulated reviews. Because anyone can write reviews on Yelp, but getting privileges to write darknet reviews is fairly difficult. And IIRC if anyone who you invite into the review system tries to astroturf, then you and everyone else you've invited automatically get banned also.

firepacket 12y ago

> the police can get you online the way they usually get you -- by having an undercover police agent pretend to be the seller. Except this method doesn't work online because they can't prove you are the one who ordered it. Anyone can order illicit material to any location and with any name over TOR. Without corroborating evidence, no court would convict purely on the involuntarily act of receiving mail.

x0x0 12y ago

There was a group of folks on Silk Road buying lsd from various vendors, running gas chromatography, and posting externally verified purities and reviews. I'm sure the silk road people will coalesce on some other site and someone else will do this. Remember when you're buying anything but pot or shrooms through the friend network you don't know what you're getting or how stepped that coke is. edit: Also, these sites directly observe transactions plus financial exchange. That gives them a lot more tools to detect straw vendors. What lengths are local cops willing to go to to catch people buying personal use amounts of drugs, particularly when anyone can claim their house was used as a drop address. Virtually nobody has been prosecuted for purchasing drugs on silk road; the only limited attempts so far look to me to be attempts to build cases against the vendors [1]. The guy in that article has purchased narcotics from someone in Washington. [1] http://heavy.com/news/2013/10/silk-road-drug-buyer-reddit-arrest-ross-ulbricht-fbi/ http://heavy.com/news/2013/10/silk-road-drug-buyer-reddit-ar...