
Silk Road successors - SimplyUseless
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/daily-chart-13?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/silkroadsuccessors
======
hackercurious
ROSS ULBRICHT has been sentenced to life in jail for his role in the Silk
Road.

This article shows what a waste of resources this trail was. Online markets
for illegal substances are going to follow the path of file sharing, both are
nearly impossible to stop.

"Closing down the web’s biggest drug shop has simply cleared the way for
competitors."

~~~
benguild
Truth. It’s like how ridiculous shutting down Napster was.

However, it does set a precedent for future things of this nature. For
example, shutting down Megaupload caused a lot of other file-sharing websites
to shutdown or clean up their act for fear of a larger crackdown. If anyone
thinks they can just run a website like Silk Road and get away with it
longterm for the sake of just being a middleman (like the file-sharing
networks were), it’s now been demonstrated what kind of attention that will
raise.

~~~
hackercurious
Good point... this trial will not stop anything, just the nature of how things
move forward from here... Perhaps in the future, these markets will be even
more decentralized, like torrents have changed sharing sites. There is now a
huge incentive to run these markets from places like Russia or Mexico.

~~~
draugadrotten
"This trial will not stop anything" may or may not be true, but the trial is
also about bringing justice for what was done, and punish for the crime that
was committed. If a murder was committed, a trial may not stop future murders,
but surely you agree that we must bring the murderer to trial. By selling
drugs and conspiring to murder, Ulbricht must stand trial, even if there will
be another drug dealer tomorrow.

~~~
higherpurpose
This is an interesting perspective on just "how much of a crime" that was:

[http://blog.erratasec.com/2015/06/some-notes-about-
ulbricht-...](http://blog.erratasec.com/2015/06/some-notes-about-ulbricht-
verdict.html)

I haven't followed this too closely, and maybe he is guilty of attempting to
murder people and such, but it does look like the government/judge wanted to
punish him with a life sentence _mostly_ for the the fact that he created a
"drug market outside the reach of the law" (or whatever).

~~~
tzs
Ars covered this much better than did Wired [1]. That's what you want to read
to get a decent picture of the factors that went into his sentence (assuming
you don't get a copy of the court transcript and read that).

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/ulbricht-at-
sente...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/ulbricht-at-sentencing-i-
respect-the-law-and-its-authority/#p3)

------
sytelus
Can you imagine what if someone open sources these kind of websites? Then
pretty much every big shot drug dealer would have their own copy without
needing much tech expertise. Silk Road got busted in part because DPR failed
to fix bugs that caused IP leaks. But if it was open sources then these bugs
would have been quickly fixed and busts would become increasingly challenging.
I think DPR's vision is undeniable. Ultimately, the invention of Internet is
leading to free choices that can no longer be suppressed by laws or even
morality of situation - whether we like it or not. The ethical questions such
as what if children uses these websites or what if your brother became heroin
addict because of it - these questions would painfully be mute in face of
technological reality that will be enforced upon us. In effect, we are slowly
but steadily moving towards a framework that is dramatically going to be
different than traditional governments, regulated economics, monopolized
currencies, power hierarchy, bureaucracy, rather indirect democracy and laws
crafted for vested interests as opposed to people themselves. There seems to
be some purer form of laws that seems to be taking form all by itself that
won't be human manufactured and probably would be as enforcing, universal and
powerful as laws of nature itself - at least as long as we allow technology to
exist.

~~~
runn1ng
I don't think that the software itself is the hardest part.

I think the proper OPSEC in all parts of the process (hosting, finding mods,
finding first customers,... ) is much harder, and cannot be really open-
sourced.

But of course I have 0 experience in running a darknet website.

------
cyphunk
That one chart single handedly shows how permanent the idea of online drug
markets are and also how attractive the field currently is for further
innovation. It shows a market with high turn-over which to the minds of a
geeky criminal translates to the question "can I do it better and survive
longer?"

As a .gov I'd be concerned that the eventual party that does get it right,
might have state support. A situation where instead of paying the bills of
drug addiction therapists within the site, as Silkroad did, it would ban them
outright.

~~~
cyphunk
A response to this inevitable progress would be: A Silkroad where reputation
is tied to responsible drug use. Where irresponsible use, at worse, lands a
therapist at your door rather than police dogs. By turning dark markets into a
means of rehabilitation the justification for official support becomes clear
and would further reduce the market available to more vicious forms of
organized crime.

------
shalmanese
Why doesn't North Korea set up a drug marketplace? It would be diplomatically
impossible to shut down and it would bring in valuable hard currency. Some
users would be put off by funding oppression but others would flock to having
certainty guarantees. NK apparently trains enough security engineers that
building this isn't outside of their scope.

~~~
v41YH0c
[http://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/04/01/democratic-peoples-
repu...](http://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/04/01/democratic-peoples-republic-of-
korea-market-is-now-officially-open/)

------
jordanthoms
I wonder at what point the Drug Cartels just will start running Darknet sites
themselves. It would be a new thing for them, but many of the Mexican cartels
are actually very technically sophisticated (including running their own
telecommunications networks).

I imagine taking down a darknet site run by groups with that sort of power
would be near impossible.

~~~
WildUtah
"Drug Cartels just will start running Darknet sites"

It's not their comparative advantage. Cartels have big overhead expenses in
men with guns. Mexican wages are rapidly converging on first world wages and
men have to be paid to take risks. Mexican youth police trainees are already
getting US$3-4 an hour and that rises rapidly with experience.

No, I expect darknet sites will mostly be small time individual competent tech
operators earning their eff ewe money and then destroying the evidence or
continuing until greed gets them jailed. Or perhaps some will follow the model
of the true Dread Pirate Roberts and pass on the torch.

Of course, operating from a honey badger foreign country is always an option,
too.

~~~
jordanthoms
That's an interesting point. One could look at Cartels as also having a
comparative advantage in subverting the power of political and judicial
processes, which does give then an advantage in running darknet sites.

Your prediction on who will be running the sites seems credible though - I
imagine the groups running them will become increasingly sophisticated over
time, the potential profits certainly justify it.

