
Dark Web Drug Sellers Dodge Police Crackdowns - wp381640
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/technology/online-dark-web-drug-markets.html
======
cowmoo728
"Richard Downing, who oversees the computer crime section of the Justice
Department, said he and his colleagues have focused on techniques that create
distrust on the sites by encouraging users to believe that sellers and site
administrators have already been compromised and are feeding information to
law enforcement."

This looks like a good way to spark real-life violence in what is otherwise a
remarkably safe way to exchange drugs. In addition, reputation and trust are
everything in dark net markets, and reputation is the only thing preventing
vendors from selling fake or adulterated drugs.

I can't see any way that the police intentionally spreading misinformation is
a good thing, on a practical or philosophical level.

~~~
sandworm101
The police don't know what they are doing. Trying to break the trust of
darkweb users is a fool's errand. The system is built on mistrust. The big
selling point of these markets is that you don't have to know anything about
your dealer, and they need to know almost nothing about you. So there is no
trust system to break.

The other big selling point is that these websites defeat all the violence.
There are no turf wars online, at least not physical wars. No dealer can force
users to buy from them exclusively. No low-level dealer in a neighborhood must
pay homage to a local mob boss. All of that disappears. Any cop that thinks
oldschool tactics like spreading distrust within the supply chain to instigate
internal mole hunts has watched too many movies. Within Tor it is assumed that
everyone is a mole. Each individual protects themselves with the tools
available. Every dealer assumes at least some buyers are cops. Every buyer
assumes the cops are running sting operations. The market functions
nevertheless.

~~~
mirimir
> The big selling point of these markets is that you don't have to know
> anything about your dealer, and they need to know almost nothing about you.

Huh? Sellers need a physical address. Sure, one can use the address of some
senile neighbor, or that of someone on vacation, or an empty house, etc. But I
bet that over 90% of buyers use their actual address. I mean, DPR did, when he
bought fake ID from SR.

~~~
freedomben
My thoughts exactly. People still have to provide _some_ address to receive
it, and if they are buying from a cop then when the package shows up the cops
will be watching and when you grab it, you're busted.

Seems like you still need some level of trust, but please correct me if I've
got it wrong.

~~~
corndoge
Consider that if I know your address, I can order drugs delivered to you. Then
you take the sting. I would think that this factor and the desire to catch the
sellers more than the buyers motivates law enforcement to focus on disrupting
the chain and tracking down sellers more than pursuing all but the highest
volume buyers.

~~~
millzlane
Also there is plausible deniability. "I don't know why drugs showed up to my
house. Look! That's not even my name...clearly a mistake."

~~~
freedomben
What if they just record you taking the package, follow you home, get a
warrant based on probable cause, and search your house and find the package?

~~~
mirimir
That's certainly a risk.

If you're using a market that's not compromised, you trust sellers' ratings.
Sellers who were police honeypots would arguably not have high ratings.
Unless, of course, police had created user bot armies.

From what I've read, you place a test order, shipped to your third-party
address. Relying on tracking information, you anonymously hire someone to
"steal" the package, with the contents as part of the payment. To get the rest
of the payment, they need to message you anonymously, and you pay well-mixed
Bitcoin. You never actually meet them again.

If that works out, you place a real order, shipped to the same address. And
hire someone else anonymously to "steal" the package, and drop it somewhere
for you. And then pay them anonymously, with well-mixed Bitcoin. But it's
gotta be a decent payment, comparable to what they could get by selling the
contents.

Too iffy for me.

~~~
SRTP
define 'well-mixed Bitcoin' please?

Is there a threshold that you'd use? How do you judge whether a BTC tx is
well-mixed?

~~~
mirimir
Between my meatspace identity and Mirimir, which is my least ~anonymous
persona, well-mixed means mixing successively by three different services: A,
B and C. I mix via Tor, using Whonix VM instances, and Electrum wallets. So
three Whonix/Electrum instances: X, Y and Z.

    
    
        source to X via A
        A to Y via B
        B to Z via C
    

Bitcoin in Whonix/Electrum instance Z is available to spend, or transfer to
another VM.

For transfers among ~anonymous personas, I just mix once or twice, depending
on the desired compartmentalization level.

~~~
mirimir
Damn, I was brain-dead when I wrote that. Make it:

    
    
        source to X via A
        X to Y via B
        Y to Z via C

------
rolltiide
This is a really good article on this topic: this is the first mainstream news
article I've seen on this topic that wasn't fearmongering and instead showed
how benign the services are and merely acknowledged their existence and the
accurate complacency of the expanding user base. On the other side, the only
other literature are the official releases from governments grandstanding
about their takedown efforts, where they aren't even acknowledging that the
markets have only grown and gotten more resilient because of their efforts.

This article balances that all in reality very well.

It doesn't mix up the terms Deep and Dark web. It doesn't feel the need to
explain how bitcoin works, it acknowledges the prevalence of Monero. It
mentions the current marketplaces and TOR news sites, it shows the perspective
of the software engineers running the websites who realize that prior
takedowns are largely a result of error and laziness.

Lets do more journalism like that

~~~
wallace_f
Granted, you're basically right; but still reads as biased to me.

What if they replaced terms like "narcotics traficking" with "drug purchases?"

What if they changed "authorities" to "creeps with badges stalking ordinary
people for buying drugs?"

Remember when the Panama Papers were leaked... And nothing happened?

Our taxpayer dollars are diverted to this crusade and so shouldn't we just
call it what it is?

~~~
nyolfen
"this is good journalism, reporting solid facts without unnecessary skew and
invective"

"yes, but what if we used skew and invective instead"

------
Sargos
These drug markets are open to the entire internet and the customers and
suppliers are global. The fact that US officials consider this their
jurisdiction is troubling to say the least. All of this, in my opinion, unsafe
propagation of misinformation is harmful to all users of the service and not
just those based in the US.

Would we be okay if Russia decided that Facebook breaks its laws and then went
and created fake profiles to cause enough disturbances to make people quit
using the service? I would think not.

~~~
vkou
> These drug markets are open to the entire internet and the customers and
> suppliers are global. The fact that US officials consider this their
> jurisdiction is troubling to say the least.

If you're marketing securities to US citizens, that part of your operations is
under the jurisdiction of the SEC.

If you're selling food to US citizens, that part of your operations is under
the jurisdiction of the FDA.

If you're selling drugs to US citizens, that part of your operations is under
the jurisdiction of the DEA.

I don't understand what's troubling about it. Don't want to be under the
jurisdiction of US agencies? Don't do business in the US.

~~~
nameismypw
> Don't want to be under the jurisdiction of US agencies? Don't do business in
> the US.

The Internet is not "business in the US," hence GP's comment. Am I "doing
business in the US" by posting this comment? This is really just digital
hegemony from the USA.

~~~
chii
> The Internet is not "business in the US,"

then why does GDPR affect US companies as well?

~~~
noobiemcfoob
Because of the same misguided sense of hegemony the parent references.

------
rolltiide
Great article! Aside from the pointing out expansion of the markets I would
have liked for the author to show how the costs for taxpayers are rising with
the returns for the government diminishing.

With Silk Road 1.0 it was mostly a single government that had a lengthy
expensive investigation that resulted in upwards of $50 million in Bitcoin
seized and auctioned off. With the massive expansion of these market places,
MULTIPLE governments are involved and barely seize or disrupt $1 million any
more.

A better use of their population's money is consumer protection.

These market places have enough high quality but regular testing and alerts
would protect their citizens. Governments have consequences by being seen to
endorse drugs, I think this is a happy medium as the private sector has
already picked up the slack here, and the government doesn't need to be seen
as legalizing and regulating in stores just to keep people safe. Instead it
can just review on these high quality marketplaces.

------
kache_
With ring scheme signatures [1], people are now able to prevent police
enforcement from tracking cryptocurrency transactions. Many dark web sites are
switching to use crypto that implements this protocol.

This phenomenon is only going to become exacerbated as the population becomes
more technologically copmetent. It's use is not only drugs, but also moving
money in and out of countries, tax evasion and money laundering.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature)

~~~
rolltiide
The article mentions that some sites use Monero and it is getting more
prevalent, but it doesn't explain to readers the significance of that.

That aside, when Monero gets an easier to use Multi-signature capability,
people won't even have to deposit onto the marketplace websites anymore. So
when the government spends millions to take them down it won't seize anything
of value and won't disrupt commerce one bit.

Before then, JP Morgan and Ernst & Young's open source private Ethereum
transactions are a great new mixer for Bitcoin. JP Morgan's Zether and EY's
Nightfall allow for erc20 transactions to be private. You can wrap Bitcoin
into an Ethereum erc20 asset (WBTC) and clean it and unlink it for use back on
the Bitcoin network. Dark Net Marketplaces can also just require private
wrapped assets and inherit all of the multisig and contracting capabilities on
the Ethereum network right now.

Bitcoin's Lightning Network can also unlink transactions, but you have to
trust that no intermediary nodes are recording transactions. You can just make
a payment channel between two addresses you happen control, and then send them
onchain from the new address, OR Dark Net Markets can just have payment
channels for deposits. It would make the government have to spend even more
resources to make their own nodes to track transactions, or would simply just
remove their onchain blockchain sleuthing capability.

------
marpstar
Never forget Ross. He was railroaded hard over Silk Road.
[https://freeross.org](https://freeross.org)

~~~
modzu
i thought the harsh sentencing was because he tried to pay a hitman to kill 5
people?

edit: apparently the murder charges were dropped[0] but the evidence that he
hired a hitman was deemed "unambiguous" and factored into his sentencing[1]

these facts should probably be acknowledged, even if disputed, on the freeross
page, otherwise it reads like propaganda.

a related and interesting twist: it was an fbi informant he paid to be his
hitman, who staged the murders. so nobody actually died, even though he
believed they did. crazy.

[0] [http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-
ross-...](http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-
ulbricht/)

[1] [https://freeross.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/Sentencing_2...](https://freeross.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/Sentencing_2015-May-29.pdf)

~~~
anbop
He forgot the cardinal rule of hiring a hitman... don’t. Your probability of
talking to the police or a buffoon who will get you caught is close to 100%.
Actual hit men work for established criminal organizations, and don’t look on
Craigslist for freelance gigs.

~~~
modzu
one has to wonder how much the fbi was involved in entrapment here

~~~
ceejayoz
Sting operations are not entrapment.

Entrapment requires coercion by the police to push you into something you
wouldn't have otherwise done.

Selling drugs to an undercover cop? Not entrapment.

Selling drugs to an undercover cop because they said they'd kill your family
if you don't get them some drugs? Entrapment.

~~~
futureastronaut
There have been "sting operations" where cops offered somebody a ridiculous
low price on some drugs, then busted them for going for it. Easy to get caught
trafficking several kilos of coke when you paid $100 a kilo. Sounds like
entrapment to me though.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's not entrapment, at least not in the USA. A normal law abiding person
doesn't deal cocaine even if it's really cheap.

~~~
dragonsngoblins
I mean, if I'm a regular user and I can afford and obtain a big supply for
1/10th the going rate I'd seriously consider that, even without an interest
for selling it on. This would be true of any shelf stable product I use
regularly and could effectively store

~~~
ceejayoz
"Regular cocaine user" and "law abiding citizen" are in conflict. A cheap
price isn't coercion.

~~~
dragonsngoblins
Oh I know, I'm not arguing it is coercion.I'm arguing that it indicates an
attempt to distribute is tenuous

------
spraak
> The packages flowing from China are blamed for compounding the opioid crisis
> in the United States.

I doubt they meant it, but it's a pretty good pharmacy related pun [1].

And more sincerely, this is a very superficial take on the opioid crisis and
misplaced blame. The problem with opioids in the US _starts_ in the US with
overprescription of opioids, lack of other pain management options, etc.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compounding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compounding)

~~~
adventured
It's not misplaced blame. It's an accurate statement: China's fentanyl has
made the opioid crisis in the US far worse and far more deadly. China entirely
deserves blame for the fentanyl coming from their country. They're blatantly
allowing very large amounts of fentanyl to flood into the US, even while they
know exactly what the end result is. They've hardly lifted a finger to stop
it. They're an hyper-surveillence totalitarian dictatorship that can control
every aspect of their system, including the ports. If fentanyl is pouring out
of China, it's because the authorities there are knowingly allowing it.

~~~
1024core
Some people say that it's payback for the Opium Wars
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars)

~~~
chillacy
Shouldn't they be shipping the fent to the UK then?

------
buildbuildbuild
Ironically this is best privately viewed in Tor Browser to avoid their “You’re
in private mode” paywall. (or at the official nytimes3xbfgragh.onion)

Also I am questioning my assumptions as to how HN works. I submitted this
yesterday, how was a duplicate URL not detected?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20155909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20155909)

~~~
freedomben
This has happened to me before as well. I have no proof at all, but I suspect
that certain users just get straight in and can get to the front page with
only a few upvotes, while other users (like myself) can get 15 upvotes in an
hour or two and never make it above 75.

Would love a little more transparency from HN. I know it will enable
manipulators but it would also help people like us not feel as shafted (which
has really disincentivized me against submitting stories).

~~~
ufmace
The user that submitted this story has a pretty new account with modest karma
and only 5 stories submitted. Odd that they would have some kind of special
permission implemented by YC. On the other hand, all 5 of their submitted
stories have pretty high number of upvotes. Maybe they know something about HN
clickbait and the best time to submit stories? Maybe they're one of a batch of
accounts of someone who does have some special top-level exceptions? Pretty
strange.

~~~
robbintt
I've been lightly submitting personal work to reddit and hacker news for years
and it's pretty obvious that post title, time of day, and day of week are the
primary driving factors.

------
theturtletalks
To see how drug sellers are using extensive tech to avoid detection, read
this:

[https://opaque.link/post/dropgang/](https://opaque.link/post/dropgang/)

------
pier25
The war on drugs is such a waste of money.

Not only alcohol and tobacco account for many more deaths than all the illegal
drugs combined [1], but the effects of alcohol on society are worse than any
other substance[2]. This is information from the UK but I very much doubt it
will be much different from any other first world country.

Plus people who want to consume drugs will find a way to do it, legal or not.

[1] [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/alcohol-
drinking-s...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/alcohol-drinking-
smoking-drugs-addictive-health-worst-bad-cannabis-cocaine-amphetamines-
opioids-a8345741.html)

[2]
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/206300.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/206300.php)

~~~
narag
I can't help wondering... is alcohol damage worse because more people use it
because it's legal? I accept weed is somehow different, but what if opiates or
amphetamine were legal and easy to get?

You can convince me that testing mind-altering drugs as an experience is a
human right or something like that. Really, no sarcasm here. But dealing with
a sizable portion of a society getting hooked on artificial gratification is
on a totally different level.

Not liking war on drugs, still don't buy that 'alcohol is worse' is a valid
point. On the contrary, it seems proof of how things can go astray when you
normalize an addictive substance.

~~~
pier25
> is alcohol damage worse because more people use it because it's legal?

It's certainly possible but if we look at countries like Portugal people
actually consume less drugs now than before the decriminalization.

[https://beckleyfoundation.org/2018/04/23/lessons-from-
portug...](https://beckleyfoundation.org/2018/04/23/lessons-from-portugal-the-
case-for-drug-policy-reform/)

~~~
narag
In Portugal they can't buy drugs legally. So they need to resort to black
market, just like anywhere else, except countries where weed is legal from
authorized vendors. If you're caught with heroin, I understand the government
makes an intervention, confiscating the substance and forcing you into some
rehab program. Of course better than jail, but still far from walking into a
bar and, no joke, asking for a beer.

As an aside, could somebody (specially someone with specific knowledge)
enlighten me about the difference with Spain? Here possesion of weed was
_legalized_ in the eighties (though later re-punished in public with a fine
and confiscation) and possesion in general was decriminalized while it's an
amount small enough to assume it's for own use.

Has the situation in Portugal really improved there because of legal status or
because rehab programs receiving proper funding? Or even economic upturn?

~~~
pier25
I'm from Spain actually, but I really don't know the technical differences
between the two countries.

------
braindead_in
No mention of Dream Market. They just shut down. Didn't exit scam, didn't get
seized. Probably the admins made enough money and retired.

------
driverdan
> Dark web markets are viewed as one of the crucial sources of fentanyl and
> other synthetic opioids.

[citation needed]

I strongly doubt this claim. Dark net markets are a fraction of all drug
sales.

~~~
Synaesthesia
I think that’s possible for the case of fenatyl and similar synthetic opioids.
They and other RC’s have been largely popularized through the internet.
Because the amounts required are quite low it’s actually plausible.

~~~
bduerst
RC's have been a plague on the dark net markets for almost a year now. They're
basically the new fentanyl of contaminates, but without easy detection methods
and even more unknown side effects.

------
anonymous5133
So maybe perhaps going after the supply side of the drug trade is a waste of
time? As long as there is a demand, there will be a supplier. I think we need
to get tougher on drug treatment. Make it a mandatory punishment.

------
jason_slack
"Shortly before that, American authorities took down a news website, known as
DeepDotWeb, that lived on the traditional web, providing reviews and links to
dark net sites. The absence of the site is likely to make it harder for
newcomers to find their way to dark web markets."

So, it is illegal to advertise dark web markets? DeepDotWeb must have done
something else to get taken down?

------
noarchy
>This looks like a good way to spark real-life violence in what is otherwise a
remarkably safe way to exchange drugs.

It seems the entire drug war has managed to spark almost incomprehensible
levels of violence. There's some in the US and Canada, to be sure, but it has
turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones.

There needs to be a change in thinking. Cracking down on dark net drug sales
is nothing but the expansion of a failing war.

~~~
lostmymind66
"but it has turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones"

Legalizing drugs will not fix the problem. The cartels run the government now.
Do you actually think they will just pick up their things and go home? The
violence will continue and they will move onto the next, illegal, lucrative
product to sell.

The US in the 1930s had the same problem. It was only stopped by stamping out
corruption and outright the murdering of criminals. I don't see Mexico having
even a small handle on corruption in the next 50 years.

The Opioid crisis is going on right now..and this is with legal drugs. Drug
companies are being sued for millions and millions of dollars.

From one side, I'm told legal adults should be able to do what they want with
their bodies. From the other, when bad things happen..like addiction, I'm told
it's the fault of the company that made and sold the drugs. This doesn't make
any real sense if we are trying to legalize drugs. It will only increase costs
as the result of liability insurance and other risks that are now involved.

Legalizing MJ in California is turning into a failure. The problem is that
companies that sell legal drugs need to pay taxes and go through many more
regulations than the guy down the street selling it. The end result is higher
costs for legal drugs.

Legal drug companies selling MJ are being put out of business because the
black market is thriving as a result of lower costs and better availability
(which will always happen with black markets). The legal market is only
helping the black market because there are many people that are using MJ now
that otherwise wouldn't have when it was illegal.

When the legalization of MJ was proposed, the proponents (including many
people here on HN) said that there would be no black market after it was
legalized. This never made sense to me and now I'm being proven correct. The
black market is not only there, it's thriving.

~~~
theslurmmustflo
What are you talking about? Your arguments are all over the place.

How exactly would legalization hurt Mexico? Look at Portugal to see how we
should all move towards dealing with drugs and addiction as a health problem
instead of a criminal problem.

The violence in the 1930s WAS caused by the prohibition, sure it had lasting
effects but ending prohibition was still the right move.

Can you cite the rise of black market marijuana in California? The market is
doing well and bringing in good tax revenue in every state I've read about.

As for the opioid crisis, the issue wasn't that people one day decided they
wanted to get hooked on them. The issue was they had pain or were recovering
from a surgery and were being prescribed highly addictive medication that was
being pushed by pharmaceutical companies without proper warning or care.
Marijuana could have been given in these cases and it without the same
problems of addiction.

~~~
gamblor956
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/marijuana-
california-l...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/marijuana-california-
legalization.html)

First search result in Google. Black market for pot growing in CA at the
expense of the legalized market.

 _The violence in the 1930s WAS caused by the prohibition, sure it had lasting
effects but ending prohibition was still the right move._

No, the violence was caused by criminals funded themselves primarily by
breaking prohibition laws. If violence was caused by prohibition, Utah would
have been the most violent state in the nation for most of its history, since
prohibition was the law in most of Utah for most of its history. It _still_ is
the law in parts of Utah.

~~~
tyingq
Utah is a somewhat oddball case to cite as evidence around prohibition. They
are 60+% Mormon, with a strong religious directive not to drink.

~~~
gamblor956
Right, and my point was that it was the _people_ that were responsible for the
violence, not prohibition.

After all, marijuana was technically subject to prohibition until quite
recently, and yet the very lucrative pot market was not marred by violence.

~~~
theslurmmustflo
Theres been plenty of violence due to marijuana prohibition! Never mind all
the human misery from incarseration.

------
throwaway100773
Yet prescription opioids are still a thing.

------
vernie
Great.

