Online Narcotics Store 'Silk Road' Is Showing Cracks

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Online Narcotics Store 'Silk Road' Is Showing Cracks

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 1, 2013 @08:15AM from the until-the-internet-routes-around-the-cracks dept.

pigrabbitbear writes "It always sounded like a hoax, didn't it? Silk Road: an Internet website where you can buy any drug in the world? Yeah, right. But it's real. It was almost two years ago that we first heard about the site, which hosts everything from Adderall to Ketamine, LSD to MDMA and tons and tons of weed. After it started to pick up a ton of press and exposure, we all thought that certainly the Silk Road would get shut down. It's super illegal to sell drugs or even to help people sell drugs. But it didn't. Silk Road survives to this day. However, with the arrival this week of the first conviction of a Silk Road-related crime, you have to wonder if Silk Road's days might be numbered after all. The trouble is brewing in Australia, where a guy named Paul Leslie Howard is facing as many as five years in prison for selling drugs on Silk Road. We're not talking millions of dollars worth of drugs, but we are talking about thousands of dollars worth. And just as Silk Road natives had feared, Howard was one of those Silk Road n00bs who read a newspaper article about the site and decided to try it out for himself."

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Idiots don't get it. by Corwn+of+Amber · 2013-02-01 08:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

SilkRoad is a sort of eBay for drugs. One guy was caught selling drugs, big deal : there are still thousand of others selling drugs on the site. It's like saying "Craigslist is DOOMED : a date rapist was caught using it!"

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Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
1. Re:Idiots don't get it. by Githaron · 2013-02-01 08:53 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I have heard of similar hacking sites that using Onion sites to host their stores within the Tor network anonymously. I would assume they do something similar. The same protocols are used to protect online political activists and speech in repressed countries. Anonymity brings out both the best and worst of society.
2. Re:Idiots don't get it. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-01 09:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Anonymity brings out both the best and worst of society.
  I disagree. I think that anonymity just brings out the human condition in general. Your judgement thereupon is yours, and yours alone.
  
  Many people feel the need to hide who they are from the world, and are able to express their needs in an anonymous setting. Whether that need is to express their frustration with a corrupt totalitarian regime, or self-medicate with substances frowned upon by a government, or even simply to call somebody a fuckwad for whatever motivation compels them, anonymity does nothing but lay bare the desires of a person when they feel nobody is looking and judging. If you feel any of those are prima facie good or bad, it's difficult to know without understanding the context that person is coming from. Maybe buying pot helps the person with anxiety, maybe calling somebody a fuckwad is somebody's only outlet in life, maybe that struggling dissident is a con artist who simply wishes to weave a tale of woe... you can't know. Which is the beauty of anonymity.
  
  Posted anonymously for hopefully obvious reasons :-)
Re:Before the libertarians start preaching... by ColdWetDog · 2013-02-01 08:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

A brilliant strategy: A stoned out populace that 1) pays taxes and 2) doesn't give a shit about anything.
What's not to like?

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Before the libertarians start preaching... by jjsimp · 2013-02-01 08:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Sure, Ron Paul wants you to be able to buy drugs on the street or in walmart - as long as you pay taxes on them. Don't let the slashdot paullowers tell you differently, their interest is in getting you to pay more taxes so they can pay less.
And what's wrong with that? We quit spending money on this pointless "War on Drugs", and start making money off the Rastafarians. And we might finally have space in our jail system for "Real" criminals. The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
Re:Before the libertarians start preaching... by jjsimp · 2013-02-01 08:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

The only people that should be against this is the Cartels and the ATF.
and Border Patrol, the Tobacco Industry, the Alcoholic Beverage Industry. Definetly, will help the junk food companies. Doritos and Taco Bell will make a killing.
Re:Great! A place where I can buy nothing! by bsDaemon · 2013-02-01 08:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, for some people, their "normal" is pretty terrible and anything that can help them escape it is worth it.
Re:Great! A place where I can buy nothing! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-01 08:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

You can get anything from Silk Road. People focus on the drug aspect, but you can buy counterfeit coupons, fake IDs, real IDs, software, pr0n, weapons (until recently), school assignments, hit contracts, and the list goes on.
And no one gives a shit that you don't like to get high, it's the principle of being able to do whatever you want with your money and your body. So quit worrying about why the rest of us like to get fucked up and stop asking questions that are nothing more than your thinly veiled criticism of someone else's life choices.
Re:Great! A place where I can buy nothing! by Hatta · 2013-02-01 08:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

That's great, as long as you don't begrudge others who do enjoy them. Imprisoning people who have fun in a way you disapprove of is no way to run a supposedly free country.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Before the libertarians start preaching... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-01 08:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

A brilliant strategy: A stoned out populace that 1) pays taxes and 2) doesn't give a shit about anything.
What's not to like?
We already have that, it's called TV. The fact the viewer remains miserable doesn't matter, they docile and are too scared to fight back. The dulling of the masses while the oligarchy destroy the middle-class is all that matters.
2. should be "about anything that matters".
Re:Before the libertarians start preaching... by CRCulver · 2013-02-01 08:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

And businesses that would like to have employees that show up and work.

I don't think you have an inkling of how common marijuana use is in Middle America. An enormous amount of people with steady, respectable employment and dedication to their careers are toking secretly. Legalizing marijuana would not suddenly make the nation's workforce drop out.

And people who don't like having druggees steal their stuff so they can sell it for drugs.

While that might continue to be a problem with hard drugs like heroin (but even here therapeutic approaches are better than an unproductive "war"), legalization of marijuana would result in prices dropping down to that of tobacco. How much of a problem is it now for people to steal from others just to buy a pack of ciggies?