US Government Lurked On Silk Road For Over a Year

angry tapir writes "In order to build a case against the notorious Silk Road underground marketplace, a team of U.S. law enforcement agencies spent well over a year casing the site: buying drugs, exchanging Bitcoins, visiting forums and even posing as a vendor, although they did stop short of selling any illicit goods. From March 2012 until September 2013, Federal agents closely tracked the site, making over 50 drug purchases, according to Jared DerYeghiayan, an agent with the Department of Homeland Security who was part of a special investigation unit looking into the site.

Comments

Your Tax Dollars At Work

[hyades1]

So how many millions of dollars did this "team of U.S. law enforcement agencies" spend in a whole year of fattening themselves up at the taxpayer's expense?

And what did they accomplish? They knocked Silk Road off the net for a few months, and in so doing helped it improve its security for next time. Now it's up and running again, making scads of money for the operators, and thumbing its nose at the U.S.

Oh, well, at least long-suffering taxpayers can happily contemplate about all the boats, cottages and retirement homes they've bought for Norbert the Nark and his Homeland Security buddies.

Re:Your Tax Dollars At Work

[Anonymous Coward]

Money laundering shouldn't be illegal because of the 4th Amendment/5th Amendments.

It's only due to presumed guilt that such an absurd concept even exists. It's partially drug dealers fault for dealing in cash instead of gold. If drug dealers only accepted gold coins as payment, the US Government would have a hard time going after them for money laundering.

Murder for hire gets blurry around assassination markets vs Life Insurance.

Nobody is arguing that shutting down child porn and slavery is bad. They are great examples of better uses for tax dollars than harassing the retailers/consumers of the few naturopathic medications which actually work. If Weed, Coke, Opium, Peyote, and Mushrooms were legal, very few people would consume Meth, Crack, Heroin, Methadone, PCP, or LSD.

Amphetamine salts/Provigil should be available with prescription, but that prescription should be "shall issue" unless a compelling reason can be demonstrated by the prescribing physician that the danger to the patient is immediate and compelling. The pill bottles should come with big nasty bold text like on cigarettes:
"Sleep is the only medically recommended treatment for fatigue. Use of this substance is known to be bad for your health. Extended periods of sustained use are dangerous and will have permanent and lasting negative health consequences including cardiac disease, dementia, or even death.

Please consult a sleep therapist or make the necessary lifestyle changes if insomnia or schedule problems are requiring use of these substances on a regular basis. Contact the Labor Board for assistance if your employer is not making the necessary accommodations to allow adequate sleep."

I have a small hand-full of mental illnesses but sleep problems are the worst. Sustained treatment for depression/CFS with Amphetamines/stimulants has given me some pretty good insight in to the merits of those medications. I think anyone should be allowed to have them for any reason. They're better for you than cigarettes, which is the socially accepted stimulant of choice for stressful occupations. People literally kill themselves for their jobs. I'm still physically recovering from my last extended period of overtime. High-stress occupations are just workaholics with a lack of professionalism required to pace themselves at a sustainable level.

Despite the fact that speed/stimulants are a band-aid to poor decision making: having a large portion of society sucking down energy drinks and no doze because it's somehow more socially acceptable to do heart damage with caffeine than speed/cocaine is fucking stupid. I've been stimulant free for nearly 3 months now. I'm much happier and in better health without them(but I get much less done). Oh well: It's not worth it and the productivity gains are short lived. Borrowing against the future, even with CFS.

I've never done coke, but despite it being a terrible-samaritan of a drug: it's less damaging to society than banning it and having to deal with Meth/Crack as a consequence. Ditto in regards to opium vs heroin/methadone. I'm not even touching on the reduction in abuse of prescription pain killers.

I don't have any comment on benzo's. I don't like them or understand their appeal.

Muscle relaxers are pleasant and should probably be available just like Amphetamines/Provigil.

Short version:
Legalize Weed, Coke, Mushrooms, & Opium and leave Crack/Heroin/Meth illegal. Society will immediately benefit with true addicts getting the help they need after a complete collapse in consumer demand for the majority of the smuggling/black market problem.

Re:Slashdot messing up their UI?

[BarbaraHudson]

You forgot that the massage list is also now fixed-maximum-width, glued to the left side, which looks stupid on larger monitors

Free Keen and Jury Nullification

[Okian Warrior]

I've been following the trial with some interest.

The Free Keene group went down (from NH to NYC) to protest the trial and hand out Jury Nullification pamphlets, for which they were threatened by the judge.

The government is using threats to prevent jury nullification information from getting to potential jurors. Doesn't seem fair to me, but then the constitution is probably written in some strange dialect of English where the meaning is something different to a lawyer.

It occurs to me that this is one way we can have an effect on government in addition to the vote. By informing people about jury nullification, we can encourage juries to ignore unfair laws.

Re:Free Keen and Jury Nullification

[whoever57]

Doesn't seem fair to me, but then the constitution is probably written in some strange dialect of English where the meaning is something different to a lawyer.

Substitute Supreme Court for Humpty Dumpty:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

Re:the thing i never understood was

[Anonymous Coward]

So in all your big spiel, you either think that the government is still covering up their "exploit" of tor, or you are just spreading FUD.

Tor was taken down do to a social slip and not anything technical.

The TOr project openly acknowledges they are vulnerable to timing attacks by an entity that an view all of the network or at least a large segment of it. The US government is definitely such a entity. That isnt even remotely controversial. Thats probably why the Tor project itself warns you not to depend on Tor if you truly need strong anonymity.

Why would they need an "exploit" when they easily have the resources to take advantage of a fundamental weakness in the Tor design? Methinks your "anti-tinfoil-hattery" is far in excess of your actual technical knowledge of what you're talking about. It definitely wouldn't be the first time a Slashdotter "argues" from emotion and is easily refuted.

Re: Over 50 drug purchases.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most police bashing is quite well supported. Take for example the enormous waste of time and money this represents, while as many others have pointed out, actual crimes with actual victims are not dealt with. Of course, dealing with actual criminals is HARD and harassing people whose crime has no victim is so much easier and yet still headline grabbing.

Re:Bitcoins - Good Enough for Government Work!

[Shakrai]

Parts of the US government hold that Bitcoin is property, namely the IRS. However, the government certainly counts it as money with regard to money laundering - just ask Charlie Shrem.

Laundering can be done with any tangible asset, from cash to diamonds to Bitcoin. That's hardly news and doesn't suggest the Government considers Bitcoin to be a currency. Bitcoin can be considered a currency when it's legal tender for all debts, public and private. Until then it's merely an asset. The fact that some people are willing to trade it for goods and services does not make it a currency. You could exchange everything from beer to securities for goods and services. Maybe I'll start charging people shares of GOOG for my labors....