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Orkut Linked To Drug Ring Bust
Dynamoo writes "Google's Orkut service has been allegedly used to sell drugs by a Brazilian outfit, according to a BBC news report. According to the report, the dealers offered pot and ecstasy for sale via the system to Brazil's large Orkut user community. Google is reported to be investigating. One interesting issue that springs to mind is: how can you monitor and moderate such a large, multilingual community such as Orkut? And what are the limits of criminal liability in a case like this?"
What is Cingular, T-Mobile and Verizon's legal liability for illegal activity ranging from petty drug dealing all the way up to terrorism when their products and network are used to perpetrate those crimes?
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
I'm sure such services facilitate the transaction between brewers of beer and makers of wine. Why does marijuana which is less damaging than both when injested instead of inhaled deserve any attention from police? MDMA is different and has been linked to brain damage by multiple studies I believe.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Since when is Orkut multilingual? I gave up on the site many many months ago when posting something in english in any of the dozens of forums I was in resulted in 20-30 abusive responses in portuguese.
The Brazilians took over Orkut long ago, it's useless to anyone else.
this is getting old and so are you
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In other news, a new device called a "cellphone" was recently used in the bust of three columbian druglords. Apparently they were using the address book feature to store phone numbers of other drug lords and were using the "voice" features to network and make deals. How does one go about "wiretapping" and busting such a multi-lingual and diverse group of folk who use "cellphones?"
And what are the limits of criminal liability in a case like this? Gee, I don't know... what are the limits of liability for the phone companies, postal server, or the package delivery companies if they are used by drug distributors? I beleive the answer is "no liability whatsoever". Why do people think that everything is different if it's done on a computer?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
332 dime bags jamacain hashish to kilos ::search::
332 dime bags = 0.71548362344 kilos
How would Orkut be any different than having a coffee shop where some people were dealing drugs without your knowledge? Yes you provided a gathering place, but it's not like you really did anything other than that to facillitate it.
Obviously if you knew about it and didn't make some effort to stop it, that would be a different scenario but there's no indication that's the case here.
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These guys seem to have gotten caught after being found out on a telephone conversation - leading to the authorities to get access at their internet connection. First rule of traffic is to keep a low profile, and apparently someone broke that rule (and got phonetapped in the process, which blew the rest of this open).
I honestly don't see how Google (or anyone else for that matter) could manage policing this type of environment. Instead of saying "Hey I have $SUBSTANCE", smart dealers will say things like, "Free kittens to good home" or whatnot.
Of course, I could springboard from here to legalization arguments, but that would bring me way OT...
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
...the phone companies were charged with conspiracy to sell narcotics after it was discovered that people were using the phone to help sell drugs. Not.
Seriously, I don't see any legal implications for Google, as they didn't set up the system to sell drugs... it was just an avenue of communication that drug dealers/users took advantage of to sell and buy drugs.
Any form of communication can be used for that purpose... photocopiers, phones, carrier pigeons.... Actually, that's not a bad idea... hmmm...
$0.02 (CDN)
I don't think there should be any liability for providing a service like this. Thats like saying the US government is responsible for drugs that someone sold using the US mail. Or UPS being responsible for the same thing. However this begs the question should a more dangerous item such as a bomb be the shippers responsibiliy? Personally I think it should not be. However in a good free market I think you should see some competition in this area, "our service is better because we scan your packege before you get it" which of course spawns services that are completly scan free and so everyone ends up buying home scanners. Or not ;)
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what has made Orkut such a popular site for Brazilians? (aside from drugs!)
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
I guess this explains how Google beat forecaster's predictions on profitability.
Gates won't take this sitting down. Maybe we need to take another look at that recently discovered drug tunnel on the Canadian border. I wonder if it was meant to go all the way to Redmond?
People are using a communications medium for drugs and it's something newsworthy? I would think the proper response would be duh. Careful guys, next thing you know they'll start using IRC networks even, or maybe IM services like AIM and ICQ! Criminal liability? What a joke. What next, holding telephone service providers accountable when a drug deal goes down on their network? Give me a break.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
So since Ortuk is an "Invite Only" community who invited thier Law Enforcement friend? Guess they don't have to worry about getting "wacked" since on the internet everyone is anonymous...oh wait...shit...
Ave Molech Setting
What's the liability of the government for building the roads on which the drug transport takes place?
This space for rent.
And that will put an end to illegal drug sales. The War on Drugs has been won!
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
So, take a quick look at craigslist.org - I'd say one in 5 personal ads includes the dollar-sign refernce for "will pay" or "for pay" and a similar ratio of them includes a "420" reference for pot smokers.
Is craigslist responsible too? Or are they just a "common carrier" of information? [As a voting libertarian, you know my feelings, but, it is an interesting question anyway.]
I'm brazilian and I canceled my Orkurt's account because criminals are using Orkut information to extort people.
It is a shame.
> how can you monitor and moderate such a large, multilingual community
Within a few years ISPs will be required to store *everything* they transfer so peoples internet usage can be scanned for copyright materials, evidence of drug dealing etc. The government will spend a lot of money developing code to track social networks (quite apart from just taking the data from Orkut and similar), AI to locate people using codes etc. It'll be an offence to operate as an ISP without such storage (perhaps you'll have to get a license from ICANN, which will be run by the UN).
This just in:
"The popular Craigslist bulletin board service has been allegedly used to offer sex and drugs. According to the report, members are using the system to conspire with other members, offering companionship, massage, and sex in conjunction with variety of controlled substances for fun and possibly profit.
One official was quoted as saying, "It took some time, but the guys in our Cybersecurity Department finally cracked the secret codes"
Don't get me wrong, most of them are extremely nice people who are eager to learn about other cultures, however there are some who are incredibly racist, and think that just because they have the largest population on Orkut, that they don't have to follow the rules when it says English Only in a community.
I've since enforced a rule that drew a LOT of hostility whereby I deleted every post that did not contain an English translation, and banned people for disruptive behavior (you have no idea how many attacks there were on the community).
I've grown a little lax due to work lately, but I can easily say they ruined it for the rest of us. Too bad, with a bit more work, Orkut could have been quite cool.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
There are DOZENS of drug deals happening on Craigslist all the time.
Check it out.. look for the names like "Crystal," "Tina," "Mary Jane," and any post that says "party tonight."
They're all dealing with drugs. People flag them, but more just pop up.
back on track, used properly, they could net a lot of good intel in the drug trade keeping quite instead of playing cowboy... there's no reason Google wouldn't cooperate with investigations by providing logs or even fake accounts if the police just asked rather than made a heavy-handed power grab out of everything they don't understand.
Damn! Why didn't I think of using a social networking site to buy drugs? Now it's too late...
Erm, I mean, that's reprehensible. How dare they be so ingenious.
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
What next, pub owners held liable in Ireland because they let IRA bomb plotters meet during happy hour? The London Underground Authority held liable because it is so trivially easy to leave a backpack filled with about 5 kilos of plastic explosives (or a bunch of repackaged M80 firecrackers) and ball bearings behind, yet SOMEONE must be found at fault?
This is a pretty lame argument against Orkut, etc. Who is to say that the "criminals" using the cell phones in other countries are actually who they say they are, even though the phones have to be "registered"? If it is trivial to buy fake visas and other credentials, it is probably not that hard to come by falsely registered cell phones or phones registered to non-existant people or entities (especially if they've been hacked outside of the country where the crime has been facilitated).
What if the phones had been cleverly hacked in Brazil to be from Brazilian government accounts?
Cuba has a pretty low (petty) crime rate. Why? Because of the ever-present fear of oneself being turned into the internal security aparatus or police, where tattling on your neighbor is pretty common (and a good way to earn a few pesetos). But not too many people from Cuba or who have been in Cuba say that things are particularly free there, as in, open exchange of words, associations, etc.
It's too bad, really. A few people acting madly have such a huge effect on everyone else. Car-jacking and road rage cause everyone to just cave in and let things happen which in the past would have been dealt with and de-escalated.
In SoCal, it's OK to completely follow 10 other cars through a red light to turn left, because getting in an altercation is perceived to greatly increase the risk of pissing off the offender to the point where he does a u-turn, follows you down, and beats the shit out of you basically for the hell of it.
We Americans like to talk about the "tyranny of the majority", but more or less it has really turned into the "tyranny of the minority" (and, no, I'm not referring to the puritanicals ranting against 'the gay minority wagging the dog' [sic]) in so many facets, not the least is if you happen to stop someone from robbing a store, and happen to cause intense physical pain to the creep, and perhaps a few broken bones in the process, you get sued by the perp, and the perp wins.
So in some arenas the courts enforce this tyranny as well.
Oh well.
There are also substantial Iranian, Estonian, Pakistani communities... If you don't speak their languages, how is that their problem? Most of them have made the effort to learn yours. Here are Orkut's actual demographic statistics. It would be interesting to see statistics based on proportion-of-population. I think Estonia would be quite high on the list. Where else could you meet these guys if you don't travel?
you had me at #!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."