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The Silk Road Is Back
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Silk Road is rising from the dead. After the FBI seized the deep web's favourite illegal drug market and arrested its alleged founder Ross Ulbricht last month (for, among other things, ordering a hit through his own website), the online-marketplace-cum-libertarian-movement has found a new home and opened for business at 16:20 GMT this afternoon. In the wake of the original Silk Road's closure, everything became a little turbulent for its users. First, they had to get used to not getting high-quality, peer-reviewed drugs delivered direct to their sofas. (Though presumably they didn't stop getting high, instead forced back to the 'mystery mix' street dealers and surly ex-Balkan war criminals who have spent years filling cities with drugs at night.) Some users were pissed off that they'd lost all the Bitcoin wealth they'd amassed, or that paid-for orders would go undelivered, while small-time dealers freaked out about how they suddenly lacked the funds to pay off debts owed to drug sellers higher up the food chain."
I've never seen nor participated in Silk Road. But, you'd have to be an utter moron to participate in the Silk Road "Phoenix"! It is sure to be either an FBI honey pot or a scammer looking to steal BitCoin.
Go ahead, prove me wrong.
Lots of silk roads have opened up since the original one was raided. Some have taken orders, collected the money and done a runner with it. Some presumably are still operating. Some will be fronts and honeytraps set up by various law enforcement bodies around the world. Some will be real genuine marketplaces. Nobody knows for sure which ones are the genuine ones.
...is that this instance is run by FBI.
I don't see other reason why anyone would take the risk without - at least - a massive security technology change.
of course it's not a honeypot. What would ever make you think that?
to be clear, i do not support the Silk Road.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Bitcoins went way up shortly after Silk Road was shut down because the Chinese took interest, so that's extremely risky. Do not assume that Bitcoin value is tied to availability of politically incorrect drugs sold for bitcoins.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is very happy to hear about that.
On teh intarwebs, no one can tell you're a FED.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Bitcoin was at $130ish when Silk Road shut down. Then there was hand waiving about a "crash." It "crashed" all the way to $100.
As I write this it looks like Mt. Gox is $265.
You're whole posit is bullshit.
Well, that depends on the details of what the transaction actually was. SilkRoad was involved in a lot of things besides harmless recreational drugs, including quite a few products and services that were intended to hurt people.
Just like being illegal does not automatically make something unethical, being illegal but in demand does not automatically make something ethical either.
It could be a honeypot, but since everything done through a site like Silk Road is anonymous except receipt of delivery of items, the only users of the site the FBI would catch would be the drug buyers. Sellers, provided they're not using an OS or browser with the vulnerabilities that the FBI has used to de-anonymize TOR users in the past, and provided they don't do something dumb when they mail a package like reveal their identity, are safe. And since when is the FBI interested in going after drug buyers? Typically they only bust such small-time participants in the drug trade to get them to rat on their dealers, but that obviously won't work when your dealer is anonymous.
Or am I missing something here? My understanding was that Silk Road did things entirely through TOR and Bitcoin, meaning that those ends of the transactions are (excepting user stupidity) completely anonymous.
Liberty in your lifetime
True. The freakiest thing I saw when taking a look at SR was large amounts of cyanide from one vendor. I haven't heard about mass-poisonings, but making it that easy for a crazy to hurt a lot of people is very worrying. Other black-market sites I researched were worse, with guns available to anyone in addition to the poison and dangerous drugs.
It seems to me that we shouldn't be banning reasonably safe in-demand products because having products that mainstream people want only available though the black market, enables the terrible things that also go on there. A drug should have to be really destructive like Meth to be banned.
Your point is so nuts that the only appropriate response is to hold it up to the light for people to observe exactly how deep the well of objectivism can go.
There already exists recreational drugs without addiction or health issues... they are also all illegal.
Yes, exactly like tulip bulbs, gold or US dollars.