
A Primer on DarkNet Marketplaces - huntermeyer
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/a-primer-on-darknet-marketplaces
======
atom_enger
You'd think someone in the chain of command would say, "what would this look
like as a legal market? How much could we generate in taxes? Do these people
really belong behind bars?"

A few questions I have: * How many schools and hospitals could we fund from
taxes? * Could we redirect these users to hospitals or treatment facilities,
and if we can't, so what? * Could these agents be considered adrenaline
junkies?

This cat and mouse game will have no end until they can tap into your brain
stem and prevent you from committing these 'crimes' or modify your brain
chemistry in a way that will make you not yearn for altering your
conciousness. Either way, that's not a world I want to live in. How can we get
the government to respect our right to put anything in our body that we want
to? As long as it does not hurt others through the production or the
consumption or harm the environment, I really don't understand the moral hard
on people get from telling a group of people what they can and can't do.

I'm kind of rambling, but this is what comes to mind when I see these types of
articles.

~~~
chinese_donald
"This cat and mouse game will have no end until they can tap into your brain
stem and prevent you from committing these 'crimes' or modify your brain
chemistry in a way that will make you not yearn for altering your
conciousness"

As someone that doesn't do any drugs, I'm all for drug legalization.

However, there needs to be limits. I should be able to fire someone that is
high on the job, for instance. Driving a motor vehicle while under the
influence should also be illegal.

'altering your conciousness' can directly harm the people around you and they
have the right to not be harmed by your personal choices.

"How can we get the government to respect our right to put anything in our
body that we want to?"

Another issue is health care: Should the government continue to pour tons of
money into allowing you to kill yourself with drugs?

"I'm kind of rambling, but this is what comes to mind when I see these types
of articles."

You never mention firearms, which is another primary business on the dark web.
Are you also fine with anyone being able to buy a weapon at any time?

~~~
atom_enger
> 'altering your conciousness' can directly harm the people around you and
> they have the right to not be harmed by your personal choices.

I stated clearly "As long as it(drug use) does not hurt others through the
production or the consumption or harm the environment".

> However, there needs to be limits. I should be able to fire someone that is
> high on the job, for instance. Driving a motor vehicle while under the
> influence should also be illegal.

If you are the employer, you should absolutely have the right to fire someone
for being under the influence during their hours of employment. Driving is the
same -- you're putting other people at risk. Not acceptable.

> Should the government continue to pour tons of money into allowing you to
> kill yourself with drugs?

The government pours tons of money into fighting the wrong fight at the
moment, they're treating the symptom, not the problem. They're inflating law
enforcement budgets and eroding our rights every which way to "fight" this
battle. I say if they could take that exact same amount of money they're using
to "fight" this battle and put it towards healthcare and treatment, then yeah,
they should pour tons of money into it. Our current solution isn't working.

> You never mention firearms, which is another primary business on the dark
> web. Are you also fine with anyone being able to buy a weapon at any time?

I'm not talking at all about firearms. I'm naive in the sense that I dream
about a world without them but I recognize they can be useful tools in certain
situations.

~~~
EpicEng
>I stated clearly "As long as it(drug use) does not hurt others through the
production or the consumption or harm the environment

But... It does. We know that it does. There are classes of drugs which don't
lend themselves to responsible use. That problem will remain, and you'll still
have the junkies stealing to get high, regardless of where they spend that
money. These drugs have a negative societal impact, of course exacerbated by
the fact that using them turns you into a criminal.

I don't know that e.g. unfettered access to heroin is a good thing. I do know
that treatment instead of jail is a good thing.

~~~
atom_enger
What if a junkie could go to a clinic and get their fix? I'd happily pay more
taxes to get junkies their fix. I'd also be happy to pay taxes that would help
them seek treatment as well.

I'm not at all qualified to propose real solutions to this problem but I know
from watching this failed drug war that we should start talking about
alternative solutions and the way we do that is start considering other
options. I feel like our current solution is hurting us as a whole more than
it's helping us.

~~~
leakybit
Yes, but how do you stop people from becoming junkies in the first place?
Opiate addicts already have access to methedone and some countries are looking
into giving pharma grade heroin replacement, but these types of addicts are
essential lost causes and will always be addicts.

I believe sentencing laws/guidelines needs to be reformed, but you have to see
it from the governments perceptive. How do you stop people from becoming drug
addicts? Legalize the drugs your trying people not to use?

~~~
girvo
> _Opiate addicts already have access to methedone and some countries are
> looking into giving pharma grade heroin replacement, but these types of
> addicts are essential lost causes and will always be addicts._

I'm a "lost cause"? Thanks. I was a heroin addict from 16 years of age until I
was 24. I've been clean for four years now, due to my governments excellent
opiate-replacement therapy program.

The dehumanisation that happens when people discuss "junkies" makes me sick,
and _directly_ contributes to why a lot of us never ask for help.

~~~
another_account
Hear, hear.

Coming up to two years clean from an IV habbit. So, also a "lost cause."

I feel if people had the slightest idea just how many people around them are
high on some kind of opiate, and how indiscriminate addiction really is that
this type of language would be less prevalent.

Congrats on beating the gorilla.

------
mabcat
I think the screenshot tells a much more accurate story than the text. 120,000
listings for drugs, 1,900 for weapons, no main category for child porn. Based
on the listings, the kinds of activity that actually go on would seem to be in
reverse order from what the press release suggests. I'm struggling to imagine
anyone leaving feedback about how potent a poison was or chatting away about
their last 'cache of guns'. I could be wrong.

~~~
ramblenode
The items are purposefully listed in order of concern rather than volume. The
FBI is also in the business of selling its utility to the public, and its
pitch should be treated with as much skepticism.

~~~
elcct
> Some of these individuals confessed to ordering a range of illegal drugs and
> controlled substances online, including heroin, cocaine, morphine, and
> ketamine.

And yet they don't do what they tell they care about. Such a waste...

------
jstrieb
This talks a lot about drugs and weapons, but it says nothing about what I've
heard is one of the most commonly-purchased dark-net commodities: fake over-21
American licenses. It's ridiculously easy to buy a fake ID online and have it
shipped right to your door, from basically any state you want---even high
security states like California and New York---and for relatively cheap too. I
suppose that might be because several fake ID vendors will only sell ones that
show an age between 21 and 25 and only sell to people in the US to deter law
enforcement based on the idea they're only selling to teens for alcohol as
opposed to allowing people to be smuggled into the country or other such
things.

Though I have no personal experience with making purchases from darknet
markets, I was curious about how easy it would actually be to get a fake ID
after watching the movie Superbad. I was astounded at the wealth of
information available to the benign Googler.

For more interesting info:
[http://reddit.com/r/fakeid](http://reddit.com/r/fakeid)

~~~
baby
This is interesting, needing a fake ID could be the gateway to get drugs as a
young student in America. The common problem of getting alcohol when you're
"under age" is leading you to learn how to get drugs online.

------
FELEG

      Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group (FELEG)
    

Sometimes I wonder is Snowden was an orchestrated provocateur, tasked with
dropping things in the open so that the operations that were big enough to be
hindered by covert practices could now operate freely, in the open, and
accelerate their programs.

15 or 20 years ago, an INTERPOL style coalition of this sort would have raised
eyebrows. Snowden blew the lid open, and nothing changed. In fact things are
taking shape faster, if (we know about them) at all.

------
throwatme
(throw away). I am technical and recently tried Tor / AlphaBay for the first
time to experiment and see what it would be like to buy MDMA online. I
followed the excellent guide at
[https://getsafedrugs.org](https://getsafedrugs.org), but ended up not
purchasing. I have friends who have purchased successfully and surprising the
entire process works.

~~~
keyboardhitter
Adding onto this, I prefer to research this kind of web content with a VPN or
public internet that isn't associated with my ISP. Paranoid, sure. But the
less personally identifying information involved in these transactions, the
better.

------
baby
Honestly Darknet marketplaces are doing a good thing for a lot of people.

Think of all these people who would buy their drugs in the street instead.
They would probably get the worst quality, and even damage themselves just to
try something.

~~~
GordonS
I agree. One of the biggest problem with illegal drugs is adulterants/fillers,
and drugs not being quite what you thought they were. For example, a lot of
drugs sold as MDMA contain amphetamine or worse [1]

The reviews on DNMs don't eliminate this problem, but they certainly help.

[1] [https://www.ecstasydata.org](https://www.ecstasydata.org)

------
tn13
Wait till someone exposed that FBI itself is selling explosives, weapons and
child porn on dark web.

[http://reason.com/blog/2016/08/31/the-fbi-distributes-
child-...](http://reason.com/blog/2016/08/31/the-fbi-distributes-child-
pornography-to)

~~~
atom_enger
Don't know why you're being down voted. I thought it was well known that they
actively commit/participate in crimes in order to entrap people.

------
qwertyuiop924
There's something really disturbing about this. The FBI is cheerily talking
about attacking "darknet infrastructure".

In layman's terms, they're saying they want to wage war on TOR. It's kind of
disturbing how pleased with themselves they are about it, though.

------
LeoPanthera
> Payment for these goods and services is usually through virtual currency
> like bitcoin, also designed to be anonymous.

Bitcoin is not, and was not designed to be, anonymous.

~~~
delcaran
Actually, bitcoin is anonymous: no information links an account to his owner.
However it's true that the owner of a specific account could be guessed with a
good amount of precision going through all transactions history and pairing
the data with those of bitcoin exchanges.

~~~
juliangoldsmith
That's not anonymous, that's pseudonymous. You still have a name (an address),
it just isn't your real name.

------
jdironman
As I posted further down in the comments:

"I don't understand something. Why is a compromise not an option?

Like safe spaces for such vices. State or city, or even privately owned venues
with highly audited and regulated enviornments. Solid security, but also
inviting enough to be an option for anyone.

Revenue and taxes generated from them ofcourse benefits society, while also
putting a damper on crime lords income that could possibly end up being used
to fund worse activities such as human trafficking.

Those who currently refuse to observe laws and still want that 'fix' have a
legal option in a controlled enviornment. Reducing convictions to only those
who do not utilize the safe space and put theirself and others at risk. They
can cheaply and efficiently be monitored to know if they are well enough to be
back in public. If not, sleep it off or have a verified driver pick them up.

Consumption can be monitored possibly greatly reducing accidental overdoses.

Increases availability which may lead to less 'its hard to get, I want it
more' scenarios that strengthen addiction and habits. It may also help prevent
people from getting in over their head by racking up debt with individuals who
have no problem resorting to violence and sometimes also intentionally or
unintentionaly hurting other innocent people.

I truly cannot think of any 'Cons' to having such a system other than the
possible general public's opinion that 'we have accepted defeat and decided to
join them' pinning involved organizations and business as effectively drug
dealers and just as bad.

Let me summarize with an example:

Gambling other than lottery is not permitted in my state as far as I know. If
I want to gamble I have to hit the casinos 1-2 states over. Knowing I have
such an exquisite option available if I decide to do so allows me to
appreciate that. I've never stepped foot inside a casino, nor done any type of
serious gambling, but if I ever did I would like for it to be in a nice, fair,
and engaging enviornment like those available. Just as if I decided to take a
trip on shrooms, or hit a line of cocaine just for the experience with
friends. I'd rather be in a place that I can relax and know everyone involved
is exponentially safer than doing so in the neighborhood crack house.

I would love to hear others thoughts."

~~~
kefka
Mainly from the US perspective, "It's an affront to God to allow such
debauchery, so no one is allowed to, except for those dirty natives, that we
had to allow because of the Constitution."

I blame Christians, and their previous roots from the Puritans. I've seen
enough other Christian-majority things shoved through as laws - it's no long
stretch. And I come from the state that thinks, and funded, "electrocution to
fix gayness". That was one of Mike Pence's doings in our state.

~~~
jdironman
I politely dissagree. Puritan / christianity beliefs may have once been at the
core of America's original founders visions but it has been a rather
progressive 200+ years. We now can find and see things, rather common place at
that, that a majority of the forefathers would be enraged over.

I think while morality issues play the largest role in such a decision, it is
in reality a 'technically' hard problem that we still feel we can 'fight'.
(War on drugs since early 60's and seventies). The majority is not ready to
admit defeat by accomodating, no matter what benefit.

------
losvedir
I must not understand how Tor works because it seems pretty trivial to me for
the FBI or a government agency to identify users. Where's the error in my
thinking:

Tor works by routing a connection from your computer through a few hops in the
network and then to the server. If the FBI operated the relay connected to
your computer and also the server (say as a sting operation, or if they
identified one and downloaded the logs), then wouldn't it be pretty easy to
match the traffic through their relay (which has your naked IP address) to the
traffic in the server logs?

~~~
allemagne
It doesn't even need to be infiltrating TOR. They caught a kid who called in a
fake bomb threat to get out of a college test because his connection to the
TOR network coincided with the threat.

You could relay your traffic through one or more VPNs before connecting to the
TOR network if you trust the companies not to keep logs or be beholden to the
FBI/NSA.

But realistically your only friend in a worst-case scenario is the fairly
reasonable hope that these agencies don't have the ability to parse all of
their raw data, that they wouldn't waste time looking for you, and that you're
not important enough for them to show their hand to everyone else and reveal
exactly what they're capable of.

------
libeclipse
> Payment for these goods and services is usually through virtual currency
> like bitcoin, also designed to be anonymous.

Not true. Bitcoin is pseudonymous at best.

------
enneff
There's not really any information in this article, unfortunately. I know the
FBI don't want to tip their hand, but I am genuinely curious to know more
details about how they are investigating crimes online.

------
reducesuffering
Did the FBI really think it was a good idea to start with a huge picture of a
"hacker" like that? Aren't they just romanticizing the DarkNet and possibly
interesting new opponents?

------
micaksica
As an infosec fan, I'm curious what "network investigative technique" (ie
0day) they used against these servers to pop them. Criminal complaints will
tell what FVEY LE hath wrought.

------
kilroy123
I know people really buy drugs on these markets. Are people really able to buy
weapons so easily?

~~~
asddddd
A recent and high profile example is the Munich shooting from this summer:
[https://www.deepdotweb.com/2016/08/25/german-dnm-vendor-
arre...](https://www.deepdotweb.com/2016/08/25/german-dnm-vendor-arrested-
selling-glock-munich-shooter/)

------
AlphaWeaver
Though quite a long read, the feature WIRED did on the story of Silk Road [0]
talks more in detail than this article about the FBI's infiltration and
takedown of the site. Great read!

[0]: [https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-
road-1/](https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/)

------
Steeeve
I thought they did a decent job of explaining it, but by publicly exposing it
in a high profile case (Silk Road) they did themselves a disservice.

The fact that it's referenced regularly in primetime TV means that thousands
of people who never would have heard of it now check it out - increasing
darknet sales well beyond what they would have been otherwise.

------
jyap
Posting this story since people seem interested.

The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 1 | WIRED
[https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-
road-1/](https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/)

------
id122015
A man is a wolf for his fellow men. Ancient quote.

Now do something "good" and save all those bastard children because, we were
taught we are different and not animals.

Law is a hipocrisy.

Disrupt banking and national bank monopoly, dont run after bank fraudsters.

Teach people to treat other people like humans, and disrupt the sex and mental
health industries.

Always resolve the root cause.

But be aware, if all people were saints the pope would go bankrupt, so know
who the pope is and be prepared to fight him.

------
SSLy
We're sorry...

The request has been blocked.

Anyone got a mirror?

------
syngrog66
don't think I'll visit an FBI page on that topic. talk about the honeypot
potential. esp given the potentials of a Pres Trump.

