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After Over a Year of Police Action, Dark Net Black Markets Still Growing
When the original Silk Road was shut down in 2013, it provided definitive evidence that federal law enforcement was targeting online black markets. Later, after the fall of Silk Road 2.0 and the Evolution Market's admins running off with their customers' money, you might have expected people to become more wary of dark net markets — but that doesn't seem to be the case. The number of products being bought and sold is up significantly since last year, and it's quadrupled since the original Silk Road fell. "The most enduring institution on the Dark Net is Agora. Founded in December 2014, amid the rubble of Silk Road's fall, Agora now accounts for 37 percent of all Dark Net product listings. It's a drug-heavy market with substantial supplies in marijuana, ecstasy, prescription drugs, and stimulants—and nearly any other drug you can imagine."
The honey tastes sweet, doesn't it?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Haven't 'drugs' been winning the war on drugs by almost unbelievable margins more or less continually since it was declared?
Why, if they were as dangerous as my kindly DARE officer claimed, we'd probably be living under the iron heel of a drugs occupation force right now.
Black markets pop up when free markets aren't available. Legalizing drugs would do wonders for the economy. Not only do we spend a heap of money on the war on drugs: militarized police, overburdened legal system and oversaturated prisons, but then there's also the costs in terms of innocent bystanders who are injured or killed in this war. Over 70,000 people have been killed by drug cartels in Mexico alone. How do a lot of terrorists fund their activities? By selling heroin. If they were available for over-the-counter purchase at a reasonable price, like alcohol & tobacco are, it would make a whole world of problems disappear. That's not to say that there wouldn't be new problems in terms of addiction, but these problems would be minor in comparison to the ones we have now.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
The way to "get around" the law is to change the law.
You cannot change the law without public support. One way to get public support for repeal is to show that a law is dysfunctional. If drug prohibition laws actually worked, did what they were designed to do, and had fewer bad side effects, then support for repeal would be much weaker. We are better off if people buy their drugs online, then if they get them on street corners. The only people harmed by these online markets are the drug dealers, the police, and the incarceration industry.
I can't find anyone selling SuperCool or Glint in any form; powder, gel, runtime-capulets, particulary-waveform, in-grease suspension, toenail suppositories, etc.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
The exact same thing happened in the '90s with online purchasing.
At first everybody thought it was crazy. "Who would give their credit card details to people over this new fangled Internet thing?" There were legitimate businesses and total scams. But things grew and grew, and now nobody bats an eye about one click purchasing on Amazon.
I figure this will go the same way. Right now it's the wild west, but things will settle down and eventually nobody will bat an eye about spending a few doge on an impulse.
Question everything
... and we can't fix that.
As long as people want stuff, someone's going to supply it.
It's not a war, it's whack-a-mole.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
IIRC, they got Al Capone for tax evasion.
The best way way to make "crime" go away is to repeal stupid laws. No victim, no crime.
"You cannot change the law without public support."
...unless your name is "Bush" or you are the NSA.
Actually, they don't change the laws; they ignore them. Nevermind.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Yep, and taxes - that's money.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I read a little about how this system works because it seemed soooo sting-able. It turns out nope, they send their shit through the mail. THE MAIL! The US postal service. I have an idea. Put a drug sniffing dog at every USPS hub. Problem solved. 100% of packages intercepted. Why the hell aren't they doing this?!
I don't know about that, I can imagine quite a bit.
The primary objective when shutting down crime is to follow the money and make the crime unprofitable.
A far simpler method is to legalize the activity so it is not a crime. The problem is not the profits of the drug dealers, but the profits from civil forfeiture, and the vast profits from the prison industry, more than $74 billion annually.
George Bush was elected by close to a majority of the people of the United States. The NSA exists due to law created by the elected legislative branch.
Or do you mean that the people have to have approved every decision for it to have public support?
There are a lot of people who support the *mission* of something like the NSA, while not enjoying some of the ways they go about fulfilling that mission. I suppose you could say that the warrantless wiretapping situations and dragnet on electronic communication does not have popular support, but would we directly support many of the things that we nevertheless know must exist by the nature of the mission of our intelligence agencies if we were directly asked?
Here's some other things our intelligence agencies do: breaking and entering, obtaining foreign agents via extortion, spying on our allies and their military capabilities. They also spy on the opposition political parties in foreign countries and suggest which we should support based on our interests. Of course, we also likely have the occasional shoot out with foreign police and counter-intelligence agencies. Shall I go on?
The fact that we do have civilian oversight and that our people do affect how we go about intelligence gathering is probably head and shoulders above the public support that you'd find in a lot of other countries.
Though the public is made up of individuals and, I have seen many of them change their tune after running into some debate on the matter.
Especially when you point out to them that despite the fact that 50% of people in burn units are there for accidents involved with making meth; then you point out that addiction rates don't change (they fluctuate but trace a pretty horizontal line).... it really does get hard to justify the benefits of drug policy.
When you have a policy that can be directly linked as a major cause of the first wave of the HIV epidemic, that has skyrocketed prison populations, and created and funded violent gangs across the country.... all while....not even achieving its most basic goal.... most people do come around when presented with the onslaught of evidence that the current strategy is bullshit and bad for everyone.....
Everyone except the cartels, the gangs, and the police unions whose membership lives off hem.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
And Eric Garner. Taxes are regressive.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That said, if you're going to participate in that marketplace, stay far, far away from the big players. The smaller ones may be less of a known quantity, but they tend to be less of a target too.
While true, in a marketplace like that, a number of the smaller players are likely government* operatives. While hiring a hit man is likely illegal anywhere, there are legal methods for obtaining most of what you'd find on those sites -- it's just a lot more work, and significantly more public.
*not necessarily the US government
For a second I thought the title said Dark Matter Black Markets still growing like wow people are trained the stuff on the black market? Wow
The problem is, drug laws are doing exactly what the designers intended. They were intended to be public weapons against minority groups and immigrants, as well as assist in the political careers of people involved.... of which they have been extremely successful.
Thank God the Grammar NAZIs lost the war!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No surprise. Has been running almost a century now, no positive effects, but a lot of negative ones. To any sane person that would suggest it was not a good idea in the first place, but, quite obviously, its proponents are insane.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
>George Bush was elected by close to a majority of the people of the United States.
You mean a minority.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
By making drugs illegal, they become expensive and create a pool of dark money which can then be rerouted to:
1) Banks ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... )
2) Federal agencies and lobbyists ( http://www.thenation.com/artic... )
3) Three letter agencies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... )
4) Local police ( http://my.chicagotribune.com/#... ) where traffic stops are now an entrepreneurial opportunity, as in "I had a thought about drugs, so give me all of your money."
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Actually, they don't change the laws; they ignore them. Nevermind.
Doesn't matter, they won reelection after the fact. The voters approve (ie: public support). Resistance was less than feeble.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Darkcoin changed its name to Dash, sans the 'coin'. There was already a preexisting Cryptonote-based currency called Dashcoin when Darkcoin made the switch.
Oh well, that sure clear things up then. /Facepalm
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
gaining a majority is not a mandate , it is just persuading a large group.
untill we get past the notion that one party/idiom should be in charge we will not have real democracy.
the whole point of democracy is to have all the views represented in the choices the government makes
not choosing one or the other every few years.
we have only got to the point of this flip flop form one side to the other because of corporate funding of
the major parties , its easy to fund the top two and switch between the too whilst they keep the same agenda.
if you tried that with a proper democracy with more than a few parties it would be prohibitively expensive to
by influence.
IMHO government in a capitalist society should exist to protect the people from negative effects of the market, this isn't happening
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The way to "get around" the law is to change the law.
You cannot change the law without public support. One way to get public support for repeal is to show that a law is dysfunctional. If drug prohibition laws actually worked, did what they were designed to do, and had fewer bad side effects, then support for repeal would be much weaker. We are better off if people buy their drugs online, then if they get them on street corners. The only people harmed by these online markets are the drug dealers, the police, and the incarceration industry.
considering the funding, behind the scenes pressures over intrests and the privatisation of the prison system (not just the US sadly) somehow I think police and the prison industry wins the most. The goal isn't to "stop" drugs which is clear from methods of operations and who is targeted when