A Primer on DarkNet Marketplaces | Hacker News Reader

A Primer on DarkNet Marketplaces

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169 pointshuntermeyer213 comments

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.

Weapons in USA are a legal market, and there is some fallout as a result of that since guns will be more accessible to the wrong hands.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm talking about substance use and abuse.

Ah, okay, the article referenced all categories of darknet markets.

I'm genuinely curious what your thoughts are on the argument that criminals will break the law and obtain firearms illegally, regardless of the law.

Yeah we solved that problem in Chicago </s>. We learned that criminals don't obey the law and the law abiding citizens have a difficult time obtaining the proper tools they need to protect themselves.

When you have weapons in every city/states around you, and an already large amount of weapons sold, you will have a problem.

And yet if you compare the US with the next umpteen countries combined, totalling the same number of people, gun deaths in the US are vastly more common.

Do you think it's because Americans are more homicidal by nature? Or is it perhaps because Canada, England, Japan, et al have gun control laws?

Cat's out of the bag though. How are you going to get all of those guns off of the street at this point?

By forbidding them and waiting years.

That might not work, guns last fairly indefinitely if looked after.

Of course the longer you wait, the less practical this solution becomes. In some years the only solution will be to wear a body armor at all time.

Heavy penalties + buy-back program + an amnesty period.

The problem isn't a lack of creative solutions but a lack of united will.

I believe Australia used a very similar plan to this.

Australia did it, and hasn't had any mass shootings in 20 years since it opted to remove guns. You can argue about how much of the change is due to whatever, but the fact is that Australia has seen a dramatic decline in gun-related homicides and suicides.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/23/australias-gun...

I figured someone would bring up Australia. I'd say that they _tried_ to do it, but in reality ended up creating a huge black market for illegal guns.

As far as I can tell, there has yet to be established a causal relationship between the buyback program and a decrease in gun related homicides. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia

The suicide argument appears to be fairly weak. Yes, the rate went down, but suicides by hanging went up at nearly the same pace. Many of the studies which look at hun related suicides ignore suicides by other measures.

Yeah, I understand that Americans are in love with the idea of killing thousands of people a year and there is very little chance of them being rational about it.

When people's lives are at stake, I'll settle for the correlation, which is a matter of fact: gun ownership went down, and gun deaths went down.

QUOTE 1

"Using differences across states, we test[ed] whether the reduction in firearms availability affected homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise [somewhere between 35% and 50%]." http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf

QUOTE 2

"Following enactment of gun law reforms in Australia in 1996, there were no mass firearm killings through May 2016. There was a more rapid decline in firearm deaths between 1997 and 2013 compared with before 1997 but also a decline in total nonfirearm suicide and homicide deaths_ of a greater magnitude. Because of this, it is not possible to determine whether the change in firearm deaths can be attributed to the gun law reforms." http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/253036...

>Yeah, I understand that Americans are in love with the idea of killing thousands of people a year and there is very little chance of them being rational about it.

I'm really not. If I could snap my fingers and get rid of them all, I would. Can't do that though, so not an option. Also, dropping more than 300M people into one bucket like that is just... stupid.

Your quote is from the study I was talking about which is referenced by wikipedia. Sure, it dropped firearm suicides, but suicides by hanging went up at nearly the same rate. So... who cares? Didn't save anyone. In fact, just led to a more brutal death for these people.

The second quote is exactly what I'm taking about. I am all for tighter gun control laws, all I'm saying is that your claim that "Australia did it" is, as usual, not as clear cut as it would seem. There are many factors which may have led to a decline. You are also ignoring that there was no decline for more than a decade after the program was instituted.

You seem to be missing the bits I highlighted:

We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, WITH NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT ON NON-FIREARM DEATH RATES.

There was a more rapid decline in firearm deaths between 1997 and 2013 compared with before 1997 but also A DECLINE IN TOTAL NONFIREARM SUICIDE AND HOMICIDE DEATHS OF A GREATER MAGNITUDE.

Perhaps you should pay more attention.

I accept your claim about your wishes, but I think your arguments are pretty typical of whackjopb gun nuts. I assume this is an example of paid NRA lobbying and blatant lying infecting a whole society and blinding it to realities that are clearly visible from outside the filter bubble.

Why do you only look at gun deaths? Does it matter whether a criminal shoots or bludgeons someone to death?

And if we compare all murder rates (not just those committed using guns), there is very little evidence that guns being available to law-abiding citizens as well as to criminals (even if that makes it easier for criminals to get guns) causes higher murder rates. There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US.

The subject of the conversation is gun deaths. That's why. We weren't talking about knives, ropes, shuriken, or feral animal mauling.

> And if we compare all murder rates (not just those committed using guns), there is very little evidence that guns being available to law-abiding citizens as well as to criminals (even if that makes it easier for criminals to get guns) causes higher murder rates.

Citation needed. Every source I can find suggests that the US has more violent crime per unit population than most other developed countries in the world, and in terms of actual fatalities gun crime leads.

Can you provide some sources for this assertion?

> There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US.

Which first world countries with strict gun control laws have a higher overall murder rate? Because it's not fair to compare underdeveloped nations to developed nations in terms of public order.

"The subject of the conversation is gun deaths."

But it's a wholly irrelevant metric. The argument is 'we should restrict guns in the US because they're causing more people to be killed than in other countries'. But if in other countries people are being bludgeoned, then what good would restricting guns do? Hence, you need to compare murder rate, not gun murder rate. This is such an obvious point, I don't see any way someone using only gun deaths in the US isn't begin deliberately obtuse.

"Can you provide some sources for this assertion?"

Well how about an obvious one, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... . Of course it's easy to pick a bunch of countries, like say based on GDP and then completely ignore geographic and socio-economic circumstances and say 'look at horrible the US is!' (this is the tactic most anti-gun lobbyists use - taking Western Europe and comparing the gun deaths there to the gun deaths in the US, and then go all 'tss tss look at how backwards the US is').

But if you look at the total number of homicides, the US is in the middle of the pack, with less homicides per capita than say Argentina, or Lithuania, or Turkey; and the same as, say, Iran - which I imagine (although I'll admit I haven't looked into it) has very strict gun laws. Or even Mexico - but then people say 'but but drug war!'. Sure, but so is the US; i.e. a large percentage of homicides are part of drug-related crime violence. It's easy to cherry pick a few countries that have lower homicide rates than the US and say 'it's because of stricter gun laws'.

And yet Switzerland is near the top of that list (i.e., few homicides - depends on how you sort it, obviously :) ) and the Swiss have gun ownership rates comparable to those of the US! Could it be (gasp!) that overall economic prosperity, social homogeneity and income equality are better predictors of homicide (and other crime) rates? No that can't be it, we need to take the guns away!

You can say it's irrelevant, but obviously lots of us find it quite relevant. (Telling us again it's irrelevant is not persuasive.)

I also don't need to look to other countries to ask whether a given law makes sense. If it makes sense (reduce the prevalence of guns to curb gun deaths), I'd vote for that no matter what other countries were doing. If the cultural mix here makes guns more deadly than in a more uniform society, well, then that's just what we're dealing with, and let's figure out what to do about guns deaths in that context instead of saying "well, can't do nothin'."

Aaaand, if we're talking about developed nations, then neither Argentina, Lithuania, nor Turkey are on that list. They're all still considered developing nations. Saying that the U.S. is in the middle of the pack of developing nations is pretty shameful for us.

I read your comment three times; I'm really trying to interpret it generously; yet I fail to conclude anything else than that you're saying:

- 'I don't care about no stinking facts! I feel xyz, and you haven't changed my feelings, so nanana!' (your references to what 'a lot of you find relevant' for no apparent reason, and how it 'makes sense')

- You're rather presumptuous, provincial and frankly borderline xenophobic in your assumptions about other countries. Because these countries have a lower GDP, they're some backwater shitholes that can't be compared to the US? Because for example Argentina isn't all that far behind the US in, say, the human development index (because I happened to have a tab open on that from looking it up for another comment in this thread). If that hurts your little feelings of assumed American superiority over other countries in every aspect, well then that's on you.

(PS and this is not even considering that the US is a huge country and that it makes more sense to compare per state; which makes my points all the more poignant. I mean, let's talk about homicide rates for Idaho; or New Hampshire; or Wyoming and compare those to other countries! Geez those Canadians and French are even more murderous than those New Hampshirites who don't even have to register any gun they buy!).

(edit: added newline because my list was smashed into one paragraph; replaced 'racist' with 'xenophobic')

How is this borderline racist? If you can't defend that accusation you should not add it. The point in question here was the choice of which countries to compare US to, and the other comment about the ranking has no links to race that I can see.

Fair enough, that wasn't a right choice of words; I meant more 'xenophobic'. I've changed the wording.

"I don't care about stinking facts."

So...show me facts? Or some sort of reasoning? I mean, throw me a bone here. You walked into a conversation where we're talking about gun deaths and said "gun deaths are irrelevant!! talk about deaths overall!" Well, no, because we're specifically talking about gun deaths. (Hey, if it makes you uncomfortable, maybe you could hit the range and blow off some steam with a little target practice!)

"You're rather presumptuous, provincial and frankly borderline racist".

We were talking about developed nations. A few different groups put together lists of developed nations, based on various criteria (income, health, whatever). Maybe you didn't actually know this, but that phrase is a, what do you call it, a term of art among economists and social scientists?

So I found one list that included Lithuania, and one that included Argentina. Didn't find one that included Turkey (and I'm not surprised, based on their economy, government, quality of life, etc). This, of course, isn't about race at all, but about the ways mainstream economists and social scientists talk about various countries.

If you think there's a racial component to "developed nations," by all means, take it up with the UN or the CIA or whoever. Hey, you can tell them it's irrelevant, too!

"So...show me facts? Or some sort of reasoning?"

...

I've done nothing but that everywhere in this thread; and I'm the only one doing it, too. Maybe Wikipedia isn't serious enough for you; sorry that I didn't copy and paste the references at the bottom of the Wikipedia page as more 'authoritative'. But maybe Wikipedia is in on it, of course; it's well known to be a bastion of nut cases who are in bed with the Big Weapons lobby (/s, just to be sure). But feel free to point out any factual inaccuracies you find.

"We were talking about developed nations."

Sure, a criterion which you are reducing to 'GDP', because otherwise you can't end up with Western Europe only (OK, plus Australia). Which is a silly criterion, as evidenced by those economists and social scientists making different metrics, such as the human development index. And let that be exactly what I've referenced above! I seem to know much better than you what this term means, whereas you conveniently ignore half of what I'm writing.

"take it up with the UN or the CIA or whoever"

Many government organizations use 'developed nation' in a very specific, economic way; which essentially boils down to 'per capita income > some cutoff'. And as a metric for some economic behaviors or classification for regression analysis, this makes sense. But this is not the sort of 'developed' that matters in this discussion.

"If you think there's a racial component to "developed nations,""

OK, I've conceded before that that was a poor choice of words and I've replaced 'racist' with 'xenophobic'; it was not the objective to make this into a debate on how exactly to define racism in this context. That being said, I still don't see how you can explain your peculiar definition of 'developed' as anything else than 'racist'. I mean, having minimum sentences for crack (a 'black' drug) three times higher than those for cocaine (a 'white' drug) is racist; how is cherry picking a bunch of countries so that they're all conveniently predominantly white and then saying that all 'those others' are such a bunch of barbaric sub humans that they can't even be expected to not murder each other all day every day be construed as anything but 'racist'?

I know that you didn't use those words, and I don't even think you actually think that way (I mean, no sane person could think that way). That's why I said 'borderline' - because the underlying correlation there is clear, even if there any many ways to rationalize it away (because, surely, crack is more dangerous than powder cocaine, and redlining is not racist because hey our data shows that neighborhoods x, y and z have higher default rates - again, /s just to be sure).

So let me get this straight. You've got one key example in a dataset that otherwise has a highly suggestive curve and you don't say, "Interesting outlier, I wonder what other factors are at play?"

I'd love nothing more than to try a grand experiment of having our government sign up for the same social programs and tax rates that the Swiss enjoy. It's a pretty incredible country.

But they have so many other key components of a healthy society, as you set up. We can't have trivial access to highly lethal weapons and then go, "Mental illness, serious income inequality, the total lack of a living wage, lobbyist-driven politics that make no one happy, normalization of violence, a militarized police force... None of these are our problem!"

Gun ownership is a profound responsibility and cannot be for everyone. If we cannot begin to enforce some basic standards than we need to reevaluate the entire concept.

And that means a lot of things that people are very opposed to, like a wholly socialized public health system. If the free market was capable of delivering on this, it would have by now.

So you ask me for data, I provide it, and then you move the goal post by saying 'but but but Switzerland doesn't count because reasons that have nothing to do with guns'?

But hey, this is your lucky day, because as it so happens there are other countries where firearms are available not only to criminals so that those criminals can more easily rob and murder law-abiding citizens!

So you're saying about social programs and tax rates; OK let's take the Czech Republic. Let me copy/paste from Wikipedia to set the stage:

    Income taxes in Czech Republic are levied at a flat rate of 15% on gross income with an additional 7% solidarity tax surchage for individuals making over 48 times the average wage (CZK 1,277,328 annually in 2015). The corporate tax rate in 2015 was 19%.

(hey I'd sign for those tax rates! And better than the US too!) and SS you can read on https://www.justlanded.com/english/Czech-Republic/Czech-Repu... .

So how about them guns in CZ? Well you do need a permit, but you can give any reason you want, and you'll be issued a permit unless you have some priors, or failed the exams you need. If you selected 'self defense' as the reason for your permit, you get to carry concealed, too! There are about 1/2 million permits issued, out of a population of 10 million. Not quite US levels but still enough to suspect that the Czechs would be going around shooting each other left and right every day, right? Well actually their homicide rate is 0.7 compared to the 0.5 of the Swiss, and the 1.4 of Canada and 0.9 of the UK.

Sure sure you say, but them Czech are an exception, like the Swiss!

OK then how about Italy? Again, you do need a licence to own a gun, but you'll get one unless you have a criminal record or are an alcoholic or some other restrictions; and once you have your licence it's valid for common 'assault rifle' ammunition like 5.56 nato (for AR15) or 7.62 nato (for your AK74)! Man those murderous Italians with their 'assault rifles' - must be a bloodbath there every day! tabs back to Wikipedia page Uh, look at that, homicide rate of 0.8!

But but but you say - those are all - uh - either ex-commies, or they consume above-average amounts of pasta! Surely those countries are special! Well then let's look at other countries where law-abiding citizens can legally buy guns. Take Sweden, number 9 on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c... . Yes, with only 1/4th as many guns per capita as the US, but the question is how easy it is to get access to a gun. Well, you either take a hunting exam or join a shooting club, and you'll get a licence and can buy a gun. Homicide rate - 0.9.

But but but you say - statistical significance! Still only a handfull! OK, there are a few more countries that have loose gun laws, and they have higher homicide rates; yet there are insufficient countries to draw a conclusion one way or another. So let's look at the US again, because as it so happens the US functions almost as a continent and we have numbers per state; states that by population, GDP and many other metrics might as well be compared to countries. New Hampshire? Idaho? Utah? Vermont? Wyoming? All 'middle of the pack' homicide rates when compared to other countries, even when you cherry-pick those countries without civilian ownership (like taking 'only OECD countries', or 'only Western European countries' like so many gun control advocates like to do). And those states aren't exactly the ones with the strictest gun laws either, to put it mildly.

Look, I'm not going to convince you one way or the other anyway, my original point was that the claim that 'data shows that civilian gun ownership causes high murder rates' is wrong, and that those who do claim so only can make their point by cherry-picking or deliberate misrepresentation of the issue. That's what rubs me the wrong way about it. Either there is a point and then it can be made fair and square; or don't make it all. Don't play me for an idiot with sophistry and misrepresentation.

How many mass-bludgeonings have there been on US, Canadian, British, French etc. campuses?

How many mass shootings?

I hate this site sometimes. I can't speak my mind or else I'll just get flagkilled. You seem so desperate to shift the blame off of US gun culture and the surrounding laws that it's bordering on absurdity.

Thank you for slumming it around here and enlightening us idiots.

Meanwhile, in the real world, literally two hours after you posted this comment there was a mass stabbing on a school campus in Mountain View

That is a tragedy, and it's true: we do have "mass stabbings."

It's important to recognize the relative scale. "Mass stabbings" seldom exceed 12 victims, let alone fatalities. Gun violence easily extends past that.

There is a common counter-argument here that the US is inherently a violent country and therefore limiting gun ownership wouldn't decrease violence. I'm not sure that follows, but it misses a central point: Guns enable violence at an industrial scale. They're mechanized killing devices with tens of thousands of engineering hours around making it quick and reliable to critically disable a target, often via death.

A knife is a knife. Like any sharp object, it can be dangerous. A baseball bat is similarly potentially dangerous. But the scope of the dangers of these things is smaller. It seems unfair to compare them directly to gun ownership.

It seems strange to say, "We cannot stop all murders, therefore we shouldn't try and stop the easiest kind." Every life saved is someone's mother/brother/father/sister/child. It's a human story that isn't ended in tragedy and pain. Pitting that against these rhetorical devices about "all violence" seems to me to not address the central question we're asking: "Could we save more lives if we made it harder to own guns?"

Did I say something about how mass stabbings don't happen?

Nope.

...

Really, you're going to take the French, who were attacked with a heavy truck 4 months ago resulting in the death of 86 people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_attack, because you might not believe me of course), as an example of a country where no killings with other weapons than guns happen?

Or you're going to ignore the last 10 entries on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... which are all stabbings?

But no, these all aren't 'campus shootings' so they probably don't count in your (again) cherry-picked narrative.

But sure, feel free to continue your 'arguing by eye rolling', because if only everybody else was as enlightened as you are (you don't even need to look at reality to know you're right!), the world would be a better place, right? Excuse me if it's my turn this time to roll my eyes.

>as an example of a country where no killings with other weapons than guns happen?

Again with the straw man.

Did I say no other killings than with guns? Of course not.

You insist on putting words into my mouth so that you can attack an argument other than that which I'm making.

Strawman, as USA has the highest murder rate of all first-world nations.

Counterexample - Switzerland. "The Small Arms Survey of 2007 placed Swiss gun ownership per capita at between 30% and 60%", but with a much lower murder rate than the US

>There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US.

Name an industrialized/developed nation with strict gun control with a higher rate of gun deaths than the US.

I'll wait.

Sure, if you constrain the discussion in such a way that you restrict the candidate set to only countries that have lower homicide rates than the US, the result set is empty. But even then; let's take all countries with a human development index in the 'very high' or 'high' categories; there is Argentina, Turkey, Russia, ...

Or I can just as easily flip this around: why don't you list some countries with as high economic inequality and poverty problems, and as diverse a social make up, with strict gun control laws that has lower homicide rates?

If you're going to subset countries into comparable groups, at least do it on honest criteria - like relative poverty rates or other income inequality metrics. Then it becomes obvious quite soon that the major driver of crime is (get this!) economic in nature.

(edit: changed 'you if' to 'if you')

Are there any countries with comparable inequality and diversity? Only South Africa and maybe Australia come to mind, but I think even those lag behind on diversity quite a bit.

Devils advocate asks: so maybe it's diversity that causes higher murder rate, not guns? Switzerland has very low crime afair

I totally got your point and you actually convinced me of it. I do wonder though if given the diversity and disparity of income banning guns wouldn't help getting the homicide rate down. Even though the guns aren't causing the issue (as you well demonstrated) they might be exacerbating it. We are not gonna make the US magically less diverse and unfortunately won't close the income gap over night.

I was still curious though if there are other countries with the same diversity and wealth gap. That's what prompted my original comment.

You're constructing a straw man to argue with.

My point remains that in the case of the US vs a similarly-sized population drawn from other first-world countries, the US has a dramatically higher rate of gun deaths.

There's really no point in arguing this fact; you can go look it up for yourself. If you think that that is a dishonest comparison, well, I can't help you.

Well I have rebuked the core two tenets of your argument several times in this thread, i.e. the cherry picking in your 'first world countries', and the 'gun deaths are different from other deaths' part, and all you can come back with is 'there is no point arguing' (uh?), 'you can go look it up' (I did, and showed you where, and you just ignore it) and 'I can't help you'. It seems to me you're the one who's too caught up in their identity politics to entertain the facts.

Literally nowhere have I mentioned identity politics of any sort.

Your "rebukes" have been nonsensical, as if you're not actually reading what's written. You're responding to some imaginary argument that you have constructed.

It was an interesting question, and I learned a lot from its review. There is only one developed country; South Africa.

However for industrialized countries there are a few, including Mexico. Lithuania and Russia are industrialized, and have more restrictive laws than the US, but not "strict" by most standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook_list_of_dev...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

But I believe your point stands.

Perhaps my understanding of the term Industrialized is lacking.

The USA is the only developed country which shows up in the list of the 50 cities with the highest murder rates in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate

It matters because guns are more effective at killing people. You easier kill someone with a gun than with anything else which makes criminals more likely to do it. My guess is that there is indeed a correlation between availability of weapons to criminals and murders. There are also other ways of obtaining weapons for criminals: From the military, which you see for instance in eastern europe. Or from other countries with lax weapon laws, like most of the Americas get their weapons from the US.

The USA does not even need to outlaw weapons, but it certainly needs better regulations.

Ah yes, the venerable 'we can't stoop so low as to be comparing ourselves to those barbarians in countries where they don't even speak English, can we' argument.

> And yet if you compare the US with the next umpteen countries combined, totalling the same number of people, gun deaths in the US are vastly more common.

The comparison is not as simple to make. Virtually very few other countries have metropolis/urban centers like in the US, or any culture resembling it. I know it's the best data that we have, but it's certainly not apples to apples.

I fully agree that criminals - and basically any determined human will always find a way.

If a market is illegal, it will be artificially limited, because only the businessmen capable of getting around the law will thrive, leading to massive profit margins.

If the market is legal, anyone can do it - which also means it's a lot simpler for wrong hands eg. a kid, to gain access to a gun. Where as in eg. Europe it would be much much harder.

It will be harder. Way harder.

And common people who bought a firegun don't protect us against real and organized criminals. The police or the army does.

The police don't protect people against criminals - they only attempt to bring criminals to justice.

Long and short of it is this: black markets have fundamentally higher barriers to entry and substantially higher costs.

An AR-15 in Australia costs as much as a very very fancy car. Moreover, the people who will sell it to you are deeply risk averse.

Sure, criminals will have them, but it will be an entirely different class of criminals, specifically, those that benefit from low "random violence" environments.

If there is a market there will be people willing to satisfy. I am sure someone who can't afford AR-15 would be able to hire a pistol for a price that won't break his bank.

> I'm genuinely curious what your thoughts are on the argument that criminals will break the law and obtain firearms illegally, regardless of the law.

It's a rhetorical device. Every shred of actual evidence we have is that making gun ownership illegal reduces the number of gun crimes that occur.

There is this strange equation of all gun violence with either extremist organizations or organized crime. In actual stats, that's only one relatively minor component.

What's more, I genuinely question the premise that we want to respond to acts of gun violence with more projectiles. As every gun owner who takes a safety course is taught: every bullet goes somewhere. Just because you miss doesn't mean the bullet dissolves into the ether.

Every shred of evidence we have is that violent crime is decreasing whether we make guns illegal or not.

Also, in the US, significant gun ownership is for the 2nd Amendment purpose of being a safeguard against a tyrannical government.

Hah. Good luck against the 101st airborne.

Yeah - that's the usual flippant kind of answer - pistols and rifles are no match for the military.

But it's a bogus position - if a significant portion of the country is armed, a very strong resistance can be mounted. In any such situation it wouldn't be the 101st airborne against a civilian population.

So if you're pro-civilian resistance to tyranny, I suppose you supported the Oregonian federal occupation, the civil disruptions caused by Black Lives Matter, and the Alcatraz occupation?

Forgive me, but lately I've run into a lot of people who talk about the importance of enabling civil resistance until they actually see civil resistance and suddenly they're the living embodiment of law and order.

Those examples of civil disobedience have nothing whatsoever to do with fighting tyranny, and whether I support them or not is irrelevant.

A president-elect exists having soundly lost the popular vote. Over half the voting population is begging the electoral college to be faithless. The very first acts pledged by the presidents staff are to immediately challenge long-standing civil rights issues only pressed by a relatively small minority of those polled.

What is your metric for tyranny, zepto? When, exactly, is the civil disobedience part of the founders intent? Do people need to shoot a gun to invoke the intent of the 2nd? Is having a gun with them not enough?

I think it's relevant to any discussion of the 2nd amendment to ask what it's actually for. I think the intent of the 2nd was to enable political expediency, but maybe you imagine something grander.

A president-elect exists having soundly lost the popular vote.

Soundly? A plurality, yes. Soundly seems like an exaggeration. What to you justifies the use of soundly?

Over half the voting population is begging the electoral college to be faithless.

Are you saying all (or nearly) who voted against Trump are in support of faithless electors?

I agree the voting population is split and there's a lot of dissatisfaction (to put it mildly). This sounds like hyperbole to me, which makes you sound like you're misrepresenting the facts, which plays right into the narrative that those against Trump are out of touch.

I'm not sure what your threshold of "soundly" is, but it's not a margin of 10000 people were talking about. It's an odd word to take exception to.

It's a genuine question Americans need to ask though: if presidents can win while losing the popular vote, does the current electoral college system exist only to enable that? Or can/should it do more in exceptional cases?

I'd argue that if the only reason the current system exists is to allow the Republican party to win on a popular loss (which is what it enables, Democrats only take the presidency with huge popular vote margins) then it should be no surprise that we are seeing widespread protests and civil disobedience.

I suppose were lucky that Democrats as a whole are less likely to own a gun.

My threshold for "soundly" would be at least 2 percent of popular vote. I agree that an actual threshold would be subjective. What's yours?

That we can have disagreement between the electoral college and the popular vote is also an issue that we need to look at very seriously. I'm not contesting that. I'm contesting your contention that Over half the voting population is begging the electoral college to be faithless. To my reading, there are two interpretations:

- "begging the electoral college to be faithless" is a colorful rephrasing of "voted for the candidate that did not win the electoral college"

- over half of those who voted are now asking electors to be faithless

Is there another interpretation that I'm just missing? I'm open to correction.

I guess it depends on what message you're trying to send and who you're trying to send the message to.

If you're addressing those who already agree or are likely to agree with you, the language doesn't matter as much, as it's clear what side you favor. Exaggeration, hyperbole, misrepresentation will generally go unnoticed or be forgiven. Your message is effectively "I'm on your side" and serves to energize those you agree with.

If you're looking for a wider audience, the language matters more, especially in a political environment as polarized as the one we're currently in, where both sides are hypersensitive to language and how it's used. Also, people respond emotionally: it takes active effort to parse messages rationally, particularly if they're messages you're not already inclined to agree with. This is why I'm paying attention to words like "soundly". Those who agree with you don't really care. Those who don't are going to respond emotionally, put off by the language and no longer listen to the content of the message.

Given the attention I've paid to this, you're not going to be surprised that it's something I think is really important. I'm not ready to accept that the divide in America is insurmountable, but to close it we need to be engaging each other across the divide.

If the Electoral College votes for Trump, there needs to be cross-party support in government to fight the efforts Trump you oppose, which means working with people who don't already agree with you.

Does this seem misdirected to you?

> My threshold for "soundly" would be at least 2 percent of popular vote. I agree that an actual threshold would be subjective. What's yours?

The counts are not in, but it appears that >2% is indeed the number we're settling at. Historically the democrats need to win by 4% to reliably take the white house. I'd say that it is relative between the average statewide absolute margins and the popular vote's margin. This election was "close" for Trump in many districts, but is not close for Trump in the popular vote.

> "voted for the candidate that did not win the electoral college"

You do not "win" EC votes in most states. EC voters are installed to reflect the will of their states, but it's an explicit feature that they can override popular votes if they feel exceptional circumstances have been enacted. Ostensibly, this is why the system is the way it is. Over the last few decades, we've seen this system cleverly modified to strongly favor very specific states in the union.

Wisconsin, for example, has enormous political power over the entire nation. Not because it has more people, provides more resources, seats government, etc. No, the system has been carefully centered around areas where voting margins are narrowest.

In a simple popular vote, Clinton soundly defeated Trump. In our system, less than a quarter million votes decided an election with a margin million_s_ of votes on the popular. The truth is that this engineering takes place because those Republican politics are not remarkably popular or competitive outside of specific regions where a sort of slanted ideological arena has been constructed. The Republicans can't really outspend the Democrats effectively over time, so they limit the field to these battleground states with clever politicking.

> I'm not ready to accept that the divide in America is insurmountable, but to close it we need to be engaging each other across the divide.

I'm not sure exactly what you'd like me to say. Several people in Trump's proposed cabinet think I am a sub-human who needs to be re-educated to be less queer. I find it very difficult to be "centrist" about fundamentally asking me to accept that.

And that's just my personal axe. People of color have a whole another thing going on. A thing that certainly has roots in the actions of the Obama administration, but that Trump's new cabinet is promising to promote.

What exactly are the centrist terms of discussion for de-militarizing a police that recklessly endangers people of color and then refuses to prosecute police officers who violate new laws?

> there needs to be cross-party support in government to fight the efforts Trump you oppose, which means working with people who don't already agree with you.

I think we should do this from a civil side. But I also think civil disobedience is entirely appropriate at this juncture. People begging for order are the people with the least to lose.

So yeah, it's misdirected insomuch as we can simultaneously agree to work to keep the country running, but if it's used as a baffle to stifle unrest and upset, it's wrong. I maintain a professional relationship with people in my organization who voted one way or another, but I am very clear that I think this is a disaster. This is not a contradictory position; it's a quintessentially American one.

And for the record, I am all for modifying the system such that the popular and district votes come back in line. I am also very much in favor of runoff voting being mandated at a national level so that idiots like Stein and Johnson can run and not risk destroying close elections.

"The counts are not in, but it appears that >2% is indeed the number we're settling at."

Great! The numbers I've seen show it closer to .5%. For example:

"The most comprehensive vote-tracking analysis is published by David Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. As of 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 14, according to Wasserman’s calculations, Clinton led Trump by 784,748 votes -- specifically, 61,422,098 for Clinton, 60,637,350 for Trump, and 6,691,311 for other candidates."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/...

  Clinton 61,422,098  47.7%
  Trump   60,637,350  47.1%
  other    6,691,311
  total  128,750,759

With the total vote not yet counted, different sources, sourcing the data at different times, I'm open to other sources for this data. I think one of the problems with the Electoral College is that it changes voting behavior, particularly in states that have a strong bias towards one candidate or the other, affecting the popular vote. This makes it more difficult to assess what the actual popular vote would be if there were no Electoral College. Publicizing exit poll results can have a similar effect, as can time zones. I also haven't looked closely enough to see what the estimates are that these different effects would have on the actual outcome.

"You do not "win" EC votes in most states."

Perhaps a poor choice of words. It was only an attempt to express how a state's votes get allocated to a candidate. (Btw, do you think that choice of words was important to what I'm trying to say? Or that it's a reflection of me in general, that I'm ignorant and to cast doubt on everything else I'm saying? I don't think I'm even arguing that the EC is a good thing! Am I giving you the impression I am?)

Regarding "engaging each other across the divide", I'm not implying some kind of centrist agenda. I do think there needs to be compromise of some variety if we're trying to address the issues of the population in general. Two buckets don't describe the population, yet the presidential election is effectively a binary choice. Yet we seem to be making it such when we not only stop listening and talking to the people who voted differently than we did, but actively work against them? I'm all for fighting for issues you believe in. I also want to make sure that I'm working to make sure I'm not alienating people who agree with me on a particular issue (or may, with some constructive discussion) by refusing to listen to what they have to say. Listening doesn't mean agreement, nor does attempting to understand constitute support. I also want to make sure I'm doing what I can to make what I want to say as effective as possible at reaching the people who don't necessarily agree with me.

Am I confused here? I'm honestly asking if there's a useful distinction between engagement (which I'm trying to argue for) and centrism (which I disagree with).

But I also think civil disobedience is entirely appropriate at this juncture.

Completely agree. I also know there are people who may want to support the same issues in other ways. I also hope it's clear that I'm not trying to silence or stifle any unrest and upset. I want it to be constructive. If you have suggestions for me on how to be more effective in conveying that message, I'd appreciate it, especially as I haven't necessarily been very effective here :)

I've been trying to make clear that I'm discussing language that's useful in making change. I'm not arguing about the Electoral College, or Trump's choices for cabinet positions. I think both of those are discussions very much worth having, and ones I am having. Just not here. I also want those discussions to bring people together, not further polarize society. Something I try to keep in mind is that if Clinton had won the Electoral college, there'd be a huge segment of the population very upset right now as well. Whether or not you think one side's feelings are justified doesn't deny the fact that they're having them.

If you don't want to talk about tactics for constructive discussion, that's fine. I certainly can understand that, too. The reason I entered the discussion is that I think you can be more effective at making your case by taking into account the words you're using to do so. So it's on me for entering a discussion about the Electoral College without explicitly wanting to argue one way or the other. I also take it upon myself to have not been able to do so here, given that was my goal.

Thanks for taking the time to engage with me. I've found it useful. I've appreciated it.

Keep refreshing those numbers. They're changing rapidly, and the ones you used were at least a day old when you posted them.

We're almost at the point where even conservative counts put us at a point where no president has ever lost the election while winning the popular vote by this much.

If we cross that threshold we need to think long and hard about how the system can structurally provide that big a bias towards a specific candidate.

Just reminding you, we have ~4 million blue state votes to count and we're at HRC's 62,829,832 votes compared to Trump's 61,488,190.

The spread is now massive. One of the largest in history for a losing candidate.

I'm incredibly frustrated by my inability to express clearly enough that whether or not the electors should be faithless was not why I initially commented. Hopefully I'll do better in the future. I wish you the best. Be well.

So... We are at 2% now with millions of votes still uncounted, and canvassing is giving back votes to HRC.

We've seen beginnings of evidence of strange vote count issues in some counties in Wisconsin that gave more votes counted for Trump than ballots cast in total, and as these are corrected Trump's lead in that state lowers noticeably and even threatened to flip some districts.

I'm curious if, upon this information, you're still in favor of the EC not being faithless.

This is massive straw man.

The point at which the 2nd amendment becomes relevant is the point at which a sufficiently large part of the population becomes motivated to act together to overcome an oppressive regime.

Being armed and yet not acting collectively to overthrow the government is the essence of government by consent.

There is a nonzero chance were about to see direct civil resistance at scale and you call it a "straw man?"

I'm confused. What point do you think I am making. I've been asking you questions.

Consider how well the Iraq insurgency managed against coalition forces, or the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

History suggests that your (commonly held) position is empirically untenable.

Er, the military in question for this hypothetical example speaks the same language as the civilians they would make war upon and knows the terrain and is from the same culture and therefore understands the civilian social dynamic. I mean, there's lots of obvious difference between an American soldier and Taliban fighter, but between a soldier and American civilian? "Training and a better gun".

I'm shocked that you could consider invoking historical references to equate the US military skirmishing with desert tribesmen from another culture with overweight American gun-nuts. If the brown people we currently fight don't really have answers to C-130s or mortars or MARPAT, then I'm not sure that hypothetical North American insurgents would, either.

So your argument is based on the trope that gun owners in America are overweight?

>So your argument is based on the trope that gun owners in America are overweight?

Yeah, that must be what my argument is. Don't bother reading any of the rest of my comment; you might become exposed to nuance. As long as you're not exposed to nuance, you will be able to go toe-to-toe with the 101st Airborne. There won't be massive casualties. You are exceptional.

I don't see any nuance. I don't claim to be able to go toe to toe with the 101st airborne. And I certainly don't claim that overthrowing an oppressive government wouldn't involve massive casualties.

Are you saying anything that isn't straw men?

And considering your question of coming from the same culture - you are assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people - a very different proposition to the wars they have been fighting.

Even the war in Iraq is considered not to be what they signed up for by many service-people.

>I don't see any nuance

Yeah, I can tell!

>Are you saying anything that isn't straw men?

Hey man, I'm just replying to things.

>And considering your question of coming from the same culture - you are assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people - a very different proposition to the wars they have been fighting

Hey man, I'm just replying to things! I am not assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people -- I'm just responding to that already established hypothetical. I infer that you want to yell at people who claim that, by your alleging that I called Yank citizenry fat. The clownfight you seek is upthread, where people established that we were talking about the US military going to war against their own people. I didn't establish anything.

You infer that I want to yell at people... clownfight...

Erm, looks like you are the one who wants to start a fight rather than have a discussion.

So you claim, but anyone who opens up the "discussion" with "So, [misrepresentation of parent opinion], huh?"[0] is clearly not seeking a discussion and is instead seeking a clownfight. You had every opportunity to prove me wrong.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958354

I have proved you wrong. I didn't misrepresent you. I quoted you, picking out the line which is most emblematic of your prejudice.

You strawmanned me, and then accused me of strawmanning. Enjoy your victory!

I don't think you know what a straw man is.

It's an intentional misrepresentation of an opinion, such as "So, [misrepresentation of parent opinion], huh?"

I didn't misrepresent you - the text I quoted was part of your argument. If you didn't mean it, why did you say it? If you did mean it, then why not simply stand behind it?

I don't have time to put together every thought I hav eon the subject. Suffice it to say I believe an armed populace discourages tyrannical government more than an unarmed populace. The same way I don't want to register my IP address and cell phone to be able to post online, I don't want to hand over all forms of self-defense against mass civil unrest or war.

Finally: Whether you believe it or not, the purpose of the US 2nd amendment is self-defense, including from government. If you don't feel that is necessary, be inellectually honest and advocate for its repeal.

>Whether you believe it or not, the purpose of the US 2nd amendment is self-defense, including from government. If you don't feel that is necessary, be inellectually honest and advocate for its repeal

If you feel that I'm being "inellectually" dishonest, have the courage to stand up to me and tell me directly, instead of implying that I am (assuming, as you have, that my point is actually another point entirely, of course, which itself seems a bit intellectually dishonest).

>The same way I don't want to register my IP address and cell phone to be able to post online

I see what you're going for here, but to pretend that this isn't functionally what is required in order to "post online" is unrealistic. I assume that you're posting from behind seven proxies and a few Tor jumps? Otherwise, I don't really see how you haven't created a link between the things you post and the devices you post from, which the government can then exploit.

If you feel that commercially available guns would equip the US civillian populace to repel the US military, that's your opinion. But I strongly disagree that this presents any realistic impediment.

Commercially available guns are the same or better as the guns used by US soldiers for the most part.

If you are talking about the US military doing aerial bombardment etc, of course these guns will not be a defense.

But if troops are going street to street, commercially available guns would enable resistance.

And the point here is not that the population would be able to win an all out war against the fully equipped army. That is a nonsensical scenario. It is that an armed population would be able to resist the Army, making all out war the only option. US army won't launch an all out war against the population, so this level of resistance is sufficient.

Sharing the same language and social background would make military occupation more difficult, as it reduces the ability to other the occupied population. It also makes it easier for insurgent elements to infiltrate your own units. For an example of this, consider the infiltration of Iraqi units by insurgents and the ensuing problems they caused.

As for training and "better guns", the service weapon of the Army and Marines is the same weapon system family as is the most popular rifle in the United States: the AR15 (with military variants, the M16 and M4 carbine). Additionally, private owners are likely to have optics on par or better than are available to servicemen. And better-maintained weapons--you don't have to look far to get stories of infantry complaining about their gear. During the day, they'd be about equally matched individually. At night, NVGs and thermal sights would give the occupation forces an edge.

The infantry "better guns" that are out of reach of civilians in your scenario would be things like anti-material rocket launchers (AT4, SMAW) , grenades, and LMGs (M240s, M249s, etc.). With the exception of the rocket launchers, all of those are things that can be improvised or worked-around with the correct doctrine.

Rocket launchers, and more generally the air support and artillery that forms the true bulk of American land warfighting capability, are things that are vertboten when used against civilians. There's no credible armored targets requiring their use (except for perhaps captured law-enforcement surplus MRAPs) and so their deployment against a native insurgency would likely fall outside of the rules of engagement. Additionally, calling in airstrikes on insurgent positions in American cities has severely negative long-term implications for peacekeeping.

In short, fighting an urban or even exurban native insurgency the US military would possess only a slight material and technological advantage and even that would likely be severely undercut by having to follow very conservative ROE unless they wanted to rile up resistance further.

As for your remark on historical references, if you want something a little more contemporary and probably more reflective of what we'd expect to see in your hypothetical scenario, please consult the history of Ireland in the 20th century.

Your remark on "overweight American gun-nuts" is misinformed. I know that's a popular stereotype, but it is neither accurate nor even useful. Again, the sort of engagements we'd expect wouldn't be "Let's hump our gear ten miles to the AO", it's "So, after work tonight, let's do this mission on the local garrison". To be blunt, for that style of warfare, you can use women, children, fatties--anybody that can hold a gun.

Also, on your last point--they have developed countermeasures to things like mortars and counterbattery fire and whatnot.

Underscoring all of this thought experiment is something you're missing: in a supposed US insurgency, the huge non-combat advantage of the armed forces goes away. Our adventures abroad are backed by a logistics system and lift capability that boggles the mind, only made possible because we can keep all the ruckus of battle away from our airbases and factories and transportation hubs. In an insurgency, that massive advantage--one that's nearly taken for granted in the last two decades of warfare by our populous--disappears.

Hmm. Big guns "that can be worked around with the correct doctrine" and unnamed "developed countermeasures to things like mortars and counterbattery fire and whatnot" and the assumption that the military loses its entire support system all at once. I think you believe in an organizational capacity that doesn't actually exist in untrained civiliian populations (or are personally part of a militia whose training is sufficient to back up your words). Thanks for your thoughts!

How is this comment anything more than sarcasm and condescension?

You haven't offered any counterpoints here.

You're really concerned about my opinions, aren't you? Hey man, if you don't think the quoted bits of my comment weren't just evidence-free appeals to the poster's claimed superior knowledge of the military capabilities of untrained civilians, you're welcome to elaborate on all those unexplained countermeasures and doctrines. Why I have to offer a 'counterpoint' to unsubstantiated claims is beyond me -- something tells me it's because you disagree with me, and that you wouldn't hold yourself to the same standard were our positions reversed. Why do I say this? Your previous interactions with me, which were disingenuous as hell.

Nope - nothing disingenuous. Other posters may not have offered evidence, but they have offered arguments and explanations that can be evaluated and rejected on their merits.

The only person in this thread who has claimed superior knowledge is you, because that is the the only basis for being dismissive rather than offering alternatives.

I do disagree with you. What does it even mean for our positions to be 'reversed'? We are simply people who disagree with each other. What is there to 'reverse' about our positions?

As for my previous disingenuous interactions, if you are referring to me quoting you about overweight gun owners, I stand by that. You were simply being dismissive and I was pointing that out. Nothing disingenuous about that. If you didn't mean it as part of your position, you wouldn't have said it.

>What does it even mean for our positions to be 'reversed'? We are simply people who disagree with each other. What is there to 'reverse' about our positions?

This is a pretty common English turn of phrase ("what does it even mean to 'turn a phrase'?"). This is what revealed your hand. Good try!

All you've done here is to further amplify your condescending attitude.

My point is that we are not in different positions, therefore there is nothing to reverse.

So, at the risk of feeding the troll still further...

What I meant by "big guns" is that the equipment the theoretical occupying force would have access to that the insurgents wouldn't, like rocket launchers. The stuff like grenades and LMGs are things that can be substituted--to some degree or another--by things like Molotov cocktails or hi-capacity magazines.

"Countermeasures to things like mortars and counterbattery fire" is not some special doctrine utterly beyond the reach of American populace; instead, it's the observation that, if you shell an American position, you need to be somewhere else in a minute or two before your position gets blown up. This is something that is quite empirically learnable, and something that has been learned multiple times by untrained insurgents fighting US occupying forces.

> the assumption that the military loses its entire support system all at once.

Where are you getting that assumption from? I made no such claim.

> I think you believe in an organizational capacity that doesn't actually exist in untrained civiliian populations

I think you live in a fantasy world where civilian populations both have no trained members (false) and are unable to improvise and learn tactics of their own through trial and error (also false).

You keep coming back to the same circular "I define the civilian population as incompetent and worse than the military, therefore they are incompetent and worse than the military", despite a lot of evidence and arguments that your assumption is wrong and your conclusions incorrect.

If you want to actually pull on your big kid pants and argue why each of my points in the preceding post were wrong, please do. If you just want to continue shitting out little paragraph-long "but but but civilians populations are always going to looose" zingers lacking any critical thought, we've all got better things to do.

>we've all got better things to do

Yet you keep replying! You're a solid troll, though -- I especially like the way you're willing to descend into insulting me far before I insulted you, but I'm glad the gloves are off. Could you be the other guy in a sockpuppet account? It's funny -- I'm the one claiming bullshit without evidence or argumentation, but your posts are really really light on what these "correct doctrines" actually are, why the civilian population would have access to any of them, how the resistance would communicate, insisting on the primacy of various rules of war that would have presumably been rescinded if the kind of tyranny that required standing up to was running the military... It's almost like you're just bloviating about American exceptionalism, handwaving about "doctrines" that all good minutemen surely already know. Sorry, but you guys have the biggest, best-equipped military in the world. No matter how Rambo the local shooting club might consider itself, it doesn't seem up to the task. But what do I know?!

>If you want to actually pull on your big kid pants and argue why each of my points in the preceding post were wrong, please do

Oh, don't worry. I can't do that! You won't accept it. That'd require not having an untenable position you're honour-bound to defend! I think you've already decided that your exceptionalism will protect you. I'm just having a bit of fun!

>"Countermeasures to things like mortars and counterbattery fire" is not some special doctrine utterly beyond the reach of American populace; instead, it's the observation that, if you shell an American position, you need to be somewhere else in a minute or two before your position gets blown up. This is something that is quite empirically learnable, and something that has been learned multiple times by untrained insurgents fighting US occupying forces

Uh. So you're arguing against the general use of mortars? "Get out of the way" only works if the mortars didn't kill you already. This isn't a doctrine, it's common sense. Yet, something tells me mortar operators still successfully kill people. Presumably it's not so easy to just... dodge. You're the obvious military expert, though -- maybe people do dodge mortars and they're basically useless once the Correct Dodge Doctrine permeates the opfor!

>> the assumption that the military loses its entire support system all at once.

>Where are you getting that assumption from? I made no such claim

Yeah you did. Where? Right here, from this linked post [0]:

>>>Underscoring all of this thought experiment is something you're missing: in a supposed US insurgency, the huge non-combat advantage of the armed forces _goes away_. Our adventures abroad are backed by a logistics system and lift capability that boggles the mind, only made possible because we can keep all the ruckus of battle away from our airbases and factories and transportation hubs. _In an insurgency, that massive advantage--one that's nearly taken for granted in the last two decades of warfare by our populous--disappears_

Emphasis mine. Man! Wow! I thought for a brief moment that you were a genuine person and not a troll. This cinches it. Thanks for the game, gg no re

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12963765

> Hah. Good luck against the 101st airborne.

You assume a great deal with that statement. Namely that more of the "101st airborne" than not would be willing to open fire on their friends, family, and neighbors. And that other elements of the armed forces wouldn't face the exact same issue on a larger scale.

Not OP, but here's some unsolicited thoughts.

While it's true that criminals, by definition, will break the law, all laws are not treated equally by individuals. Millions of people litter or speed despite the law, but I imagine not all who speed in a car also rob banks. It's my understanding that psychological, social, and legal thresholds are not the same for all people, nor are they binary (there's some really great research into ethics thresholds if someone knows of a link). Sure, adding an additional law might not deter the truly determined, but what about those who have a lower threshold for criminal activity? Why not call all manslaughter murder? Would those who commit suicide with a firearm (half of American suicides [1]) choose a more difficult and less immediate method?

So the question might be, how does changing a law affect those thresholds? Maybe we don't stop determined criminals or mass shootings, but maybe we can make a dent in the more than 20,000 Americans who choose to shoot themselves every year, or make a difference in urban gun violence.

That said, I personally believe that American society is probably too violent and too committed to gun ownership change anytime in my lifetime. We as a society value arguing about gun ownership over actually taking steps to reduce gun violence, or even gathering data on it. The folks that crack me up the most are the ones who say things like you can take my gun from my cold, dead hands because that'd somehow be a check on government power, despite the fact that the federal government possesses tanks and stealth bombers and whatnot. Bonus points if they also think net neutrality is bad, even though open information is demonstrably better for civic checks and balances.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm

"maybe we can make a dent in the more than 20,000 Americans who choose to shoot themselves every year, or make a difference in urban gun violence."

If those are your goals (and noble goals they are), why not work on health care, notably mental health. If we fixed that, we would probably make an even more substantial dent on the number of suicides, improve the quality of life of those who aren't killing themselves, reduce the amount of urban violence, and even possibly make an impact on mass shootings.

I can certainly understand the compelling societal goal- but I'm a big fan of using the least restrictive (and most effective) means to achieving those goals.

Why not both? Feels like only doing one is like only putting airbags in cars when seat belts are also effective. I don't get why there has to be only one approach to solve societal problems.

Well, I knew someone would eventaully ask this... I should have addressed it in my orginal comment. I kind of hinted at it.

"I'm a big fan of using the least restrictive (and most effective) means to achieving those goals."

That is perhaps the best reason to follow my recommended course. Another reason is simply opportunity cost. Society faces many challenges, and we can't pursue every possible solution to all of them, so it is best to focus first on the best options that are likely to have the greatest impact on the highest priority problems. For the problems noted above, the solution I proposed is more likely in my estimation to have a greater impact, and at a lower cost.

Your gun problems in the US appear to be not so much about "criminals" using guns as it's about random ordinary people under influence of stress or propaganda shooting ordinary people. Having a legal firearms market with ready availability makes it demonstrably easier for such characters to acquire firearms and shoot people vs. other developed economies.

Criminals in contrast in most jurisdictions (except notably in Mexico) tend to want to limit violence and fly under the radar and tend to use firearms as a last resort.

I'm in Europe. I could get weed within 3 minutes, on the street. Hard drugs would maybe take a day. But I have no idea where I could buy an illegal gun. Not saying it isn't possible, but it seems to take a bit of work.

That sort of friction doesn't deter a would-be bank robber, but by and large the gangs here don't acquire guns. I've seen a few ugly scenes in public transport, and I'd be hesitant to use it if I thought the people who have knives today had guns.

So that's the answer to your question. It's the same as "why are shoulder-launched AA missiles illegal in the US – only criminals will use them".

The other part of an answer is that as far as I can see the deaths from accidents and suicides are vastly more important, and I believe even for crime, it's still an open question if gun-owners are safer.

Obviously all this depends on the low amount of firearms in circulation, so it doesn't directly apply to the US. There, it would require a transition period with buybacks etc. – which may or may not have worked quite well in Australia.

In France gangs have aquired weapons, you can't read the weekly news without having at least one gun related crime.

And there are weapons in Europe, mostly from the Balkan war and circulate easily within Schengen space (no border control).

Even if a criminal can still acquire an illegal firearm, that wouldn't be in his best interests if it's prosecuted with sufficiently more vigour than the other crimes they intend to commit. For example, your average British mugger or burglar is exceedingly unlikely to be so armed - the UK police will dedicate a lot more resources to catching a thief if his victims report he has a gun, and once caught he'll be locked up for a lot longer with it added to his rap sheet.

"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?

  Are you also fine with anyone being 
  able to buy a weapon at any time?

Yes.

> '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.

>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.

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.

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?

> 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.

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.

> but these types of addicts are essential lost causes and will always be addicts.

That's just flat out not true. It's absolutely possible to beat an opioid addiction, though it can be extremely challenging.

To anyone who may be addicted to opioid's who is reading leakybit's words, please don't take them to heart. Despite what they say: There is hope. It is possible.

Am I also a "lost cause"?

Echoing comments below, please watch your language. You are part of the reason people struggle to hold their hand up and ask for help.

A clinic isn't really the optimal setting for this sort of thing. And what about the people who have jobs and families? Hard drug use is demonstrably bad for society on the whole. It's tough to argue that the government should be playing drug dealer to heroin addicts.

> It's tough to argue that the government should be playing drug dealer to heroin addicts.

Mine did for me, and I'm clean now. Opiate-replacement therapy is one of the few proven ways to truly help addicts reintegrate back into society. I can somewhat understand the moral argument against it, but the facts don't really support it; I am quite biased, however, as I'd be dead or in jail without it.

Sure, but I wasn't really talking about those sort of programs, more the unfettered access to any drug you like that was the context of my response.

"course exacerbated by the fact that using them turns you into a criminal."

If you mean just using and nothing more, it's not really true. Junkies don't get arrested for only getting high. It usually involves some other crime like robbery or petty theft.

Legalizing these drugs won't really solve the issue. Opiates are already legal, but expensive. Most addicts start out with the expensive prescriptions and then end up getting street drugs like heroin because it's so much cheaper. Street drugs will always be there because people the government always needs their cut through taxes.

"I do know that treatment instead of jail is a good thing."

..but to what end? If a person chooses over and over to take drugs, It's their freedom to take them, but also their responsibility to figure out a treatment plan.

I'm really tired of people demanding they can do what they want with their body and then demanding that I pay money to fix all of the negative consequences that comes along with it.

> I'm really tired of people demanding they can do what they want with their body and then demanding that I pay money to fix all of the negative consequences that comes along with it.

But your happy to pay for jail or did you have something else in mind?

Your're also ignoring a huge amount of people that take those drugs but don't end up being junkies.

Having been arrested for possession on more than one occasion, no, that is total crap.

As for the rest of your comment; yeah, it sucks, but that's the price you pay to be a part of a civilization. We all benefit from a healthy and happy population, so don't pretend like helping those at the bottom doesn't also benefit you.

> 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?

Yes. In America, this is pretty much how it is. Without a violent criminal record or a restraining order for domestic violence, in a lot of states you can go spend a couple hundred bucks and have yourself a nice handgun.

I am curious just how deep the "firearms business" goes on the dark web. I suspect the majority of sellers are not capable of delivering. Most arms dealers on Tor are pretty well known to be scamming people.

"Yes. In America, this is pretty much how it is. Without a violent criminal record or a restraining order for domestic violence, in a lot of states you can go spend a couple hundred bucks and have yourself a nice handgun"

You must not be from the US or ever tried to get a gun. I can't order a gun through the mail, for instance. It needs to be sent to a regulated dealer and I will have to go through a background check.

"I am curious just how deep the "firearms business" goes on the dark web."

According to many of the ant-gun advocates in the US, you can just order it online with no checks or problems. But the reality is much different.

>I should be able to fire someone that is high on the job, for instance. You can >Driving a motor vehicle while under the influence should also be illegal. It is.

>You'd think someone in the chain of command would say, "what would this look like as a legal market?

If you are working for law enforcement, making this a legal market would mean less crime and could cost you your job.

If you are running a prison, the more people behind bars, the better it is for you.

I know that's the reality, but isn't this fucked up?

Shouldn't _this_ be illegal?

You mean having conflicts of interest?

Don't want to make a straw man, but whatever you meant we ran in to this problem (black markets) precisely because we kept thinking we should make all kinds of things illegal.

To solve this problem, make fewer things illegal not more.

We make things illegal for a reason. Often times, a very good reason. And there will continue to be very good reasons to ban things from society.

But just because we made it illegal once doesn't mean it should stay illegal.

>>We make things illegal for a reason. Often times, a very good reason.

So? We also often make things illegal for a very bad reason. Just because something has been made illegal doesn't mean it's bad or harmful. Often times, someone powerful simply made people believe that it is because they stood to gain from that decision.

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.

I know of places in Paris (France) where they provide a safe space for heroin addicts, safe clean needles, resting beds, etc.

There is only one place and the people living around are very unhappy, especially since it is a safe haven for dealers and junkies.

Wasn't there more places at some point? or planned others at least? I think I heard/read something about Ivry.

Yes I know the neighborhood unfortunately...

> We make things illegal for a reason. Often times, a very good reason.

I think more often than not the other option rather than making stuff illegal is to leave it to the individual's responsibility. Unless there is a clear story that an individual is going to go to harm someone else by pursuing a specific behavior, the rationale for illegality is not very strong.

A lot of the things that are illegal are illegal due to "child safety" concerns. It's not enough to tell people be responsible when then counterpoint is, "but think of the children."

Good point. What can we do instead? How would making fewer things illegal solve the problem of corrupt institutions locking people up for money?

Make it in their (financial) interests to not have prisoners?

>You mean having conflicts of interest?

I think it just depends on the values and societal norms of a territory.

In the Middle East for example, their "Dark Markets" mostly sell alcohol.

Welcome to Earth.

(I wanted to say "America" but then I remembered that things like that happen everywhere, it's just human nature)

True - in other countries it's called corruption; in the US it's called lobbying.

Police and so-called "correctional facility" unions are among some of the highest and most effective of lobbying - especially elected judges (yes wtf).

>Shouldn't _this_ be illegal?

They are law enforcement, not law makers.

I think this is overly cynical. It's simply a question that this is law enforcement not law improvement. If you want the laws changed, look to leglislators not enforcers.

>If you are working for law enforcement, making this a legal market would mean less crime and could cost you your job.

Pretty sure this is only true if there is no other crime to spend your time on (e.g. more officers than crime, rather than vice versa), which seems to be a ways off from reality.

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

Sounds simple in principle, but too many people making too much money off stuff being illegal.

Normally you ban things that have significant negative externalities to others.

Hard drug addiction tends to be a negative externality because addicts tend to be easily manipulated to commit crime due to their dependency and also tend to have skewed judgements for being good at regular jobs.

Weapons tend to be a negative externality because ready weapon availability lets random ordinary people under stress or influenced by propaganda to shoot up other people and makes it more dangerous for police to operate.

Gambling tends to be restricted for a similar reason to reduce availability since there are too many instances of families ruined by someone's gambling addiction.

To play devil's advocate, there are too many instances of families ruined by alcoholism and heart disease, but you can still buy beer and cheeseburgers.

We clearly will tolerate negative externalities to some degree; a good or service having a negative externality shouldn't be justification enough for banning it.

Well either you ban it or put frictional controls that make it more difficult or expensive to access (steep taxes etc). It's a continuum based on how negative an externality does a community judge something to be and how much opposition do they think it would stir up.

You'll find provinces in India and many countries outside of US/Europe do ban alcohol even today. In US and Europe, the problem is alcohol is too entwined in popular culture to outright ban. However in some places, sale of hard liquor is controlled through government monopoly shops which amounts to another form of control or frictional control. For instance, I recall seeing government liqor shops when visiting Sweden (Systembolaget). Similar restrictions are applied to tobacco practically everywhere.

No need to look as far as Sweden, in most Canadian provinces, alcohol is controlled through a Gov-monopoly. In some of them, you can buy beer&wine at the grocery store (or convenience stores), but even they have to buy it from the official government supplier and sell at the fixed price.

DABC in Utah is a perfect example of a government run monopoly on alcohol. The only wine and liquor stores in the state are run by the state. Many absurd regulations crop up alongside this, for instance the Zion Curtain.

Also cigarettes and second hand smoke. But go ahead, smoke all you want.

Problems with hard drugs come mostly from their legal status.

> you ban things

Except those things arent banned. I can get all those things before sunset.

> 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?"

When you look purely at the drug section, yeah, that makes sense. Keep in mind though that the market also facilitates less morally ambiguous things that involve (from TFA):

- child sexual exploitation

- chemical, biological, and radiological materials and knowledge

- stolen goods

- counterfeit goods

Legalising drug use would only remove one class of product from these marketplaces. They're still going to need to be shut down.

> Legalising drug use would only remove one class of product from these marketplaces. They're still going to need to be shut down.

Operators who allow these kinds of products on their markets are assholes. 99% of the visitors come for the drugs and these markets are exposing them to all kinds of bullshit crap, like guns, stolen credit card numbers or child porn.

I think there would be a lot less 'public' support for markets that sell this crap if drugs were legalised.

If legalisation is too complicated politically, then they should at least allow one or several "honest", drugs-only markets to exist peacefully.

This way the 'asshole' markets would loose all their traffic - both vendors and clients - making them unprofitable.

Exactly this ! It's really the same out in the real society, i think many gangs and irresponsible pushers etc. would not be tolerated where it not for the drugs. If drug use is as widespread as it seems, many people would have "good"/selfish reasons to hold their hand over people as these people are their only source for mind altering substances. IMO it will be much easier and acceptable to weed out the bad apples once we get our shit together and legalize it all.. At least it will be much harder for criminals to thrive if you remove their financial foundation.

Someone addicted to heroin or cocaine has lost their agency, lost their ability to make rational decisions. We should do everything we can to remove these drugs from our society and protect our fellow man from these horrors.

To what extent does society need to be the paternalistic caretakers of us all? Research seems to hint that opioid addiction is as much a side effect of a poor life than a cause for it.

Opioids are definitely a slippery slope, but imprisoning users seems like the wrong way to treat the epidemic.

I don't advocate for imprisoning users. But we should punish manufacturers, traffickers, and dealers harshly.

>To what extent does society need to be the paternalistic caretakers of us all?

Tough line to draw, but heroin is firmly on the "protect us" side.

>I don't advocate for imprisoning users. But we should punish manufacturers, traffickers, and dealers harshly.

It should be obvious by now that this method doesn't work and we can't just erase the habit of using recreational drugs from human history.

Humanity is a species obsessed with experimentation and exploration. We take mind-altering substances for a wide variety of reasons. Solving problems, winding down at the end of the day, trying to get a boost of creativity, having a spiritual experience or just getting fucked up for the sake of it.

If the lawmakers really have our best interest in mind, they should concentrate on education, harm reduction and making sure the drugs people consume do not contain any other, potentially very dangerous substances.

We don't need our governments to protect us from ourselves. We need them to make sure these substances are clean, people are aware of the risks and that they have somewhere to go if they need help.

Is it so obvious that it doesn't work? To use an extreme example, countries that execute drug dealers have very minimal drug trade and usage.

Well, many of us are not willing to live in a police state in order to achieve that end. You know the cliche about the definition of insanity, right?

same can be said about alcohol. and tobacco doesn't bring a single positive thing for the health, and we all know the negatives. yet this is legal

Implantable “Neural Dust” Enables Precise Wireless Recording of Nerve Activity [0]

BOO! Did I scare ya? ;)

[0] http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2016-08-03

I consider myself pretty open minded, but when I first logged onto Tor I was kind of shocked. Assasins for hire amongst other things, do you really think that should be legal?

Tor et al. should be just as legal as speaking or passing notes without an omnipresent camera and microphone. Using one's faculty of communication to plot murder should not.

It's reasonable for law enforcement, with a valid warrant, to install a hidden microphone in a suspect's basement to record evidence of a crime, yet sometimes that's literally not possible. The solution is not to install microphones in everyone's basement, just in case. But law enforcement is continually lobbying for digital equivalents of that solution, and it's really getting tiresome.

I am not saying Tor should be illegal, far from it. Assassins for hire is what shocked me.

Isn't it largely the case they're all scam artists.

I hope so.

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.

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.

> 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...

It's fake. Weapons are rarely sold on marketplaces and when they are it's bait.

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

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.

These sites use bitcoin, but operate on the clear web (well they don't need tor anyway). See for example: http://scannablefakeids.com looks fake but it is a real vendor

  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.

(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, but ended up not purchasing. I have friends who have purchased successfully and surprising the entire process works.

It "works" because the eyes that watch willing gloss over it because it is looking for something else. If everything in the priority queue before a schedule xxx drug get sorted out, which will n'r happen (lol), maybe then the eyes will be interested in these cases.

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.

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.

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

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-...

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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

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.

Consumption can be monitored possibly greatly reducing accidental overdoses.

Let me summarize with an example:

I would love to hear others thoughts."

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.

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.

I like this idea better than any of the ideas I've come up with or have heard from others. I think this is something that could accompany full blown legalization, as a few people have pointed out(and I agree) that some drugs are more likely to have a person react outwardly(heroin, meth, pcp) as opposed to something like cannabis.

Could you imagine being able to convince your great aunt who has back pain to head down to the local safe space to try out a small chunk of a cannabis brownie? You could rent a room with a tv and some movies/video games/board games and just let it ride out. Once she realizes how much she can take safely and how she feels on the drug, she can purchase some from the dispensary around the corner and confidently enjoy herself when she'd like to at home by herself.

I'm not familiar with the effects of more serious drugs as I haven't had any interest in trying them but I imagine there are similar things you could do for a person who wanted to try them or who was addicted. I'm sure there's scientific and unscientific ways of calming someone who has lost touch with themselves on different substances.

We could do so much for each other if we are to embrace the fact that humans have the propensity to ingest substances to directly impact our state of consciousness. Whether it's for fun or to escape, it's a reality of the human condition that we can't ignore for much longer. What we're doing in response to this behavior is extremely damaging to our world and our kind.

I think this works for some of the softer things like the vast majority of drugs, but i don't know if i want there to be an easy way to get "clean"/untraceable weapons, chemical weapons or child porn. Even some of the harder drugs can have a significant negative impact on your life and society after a single use.

Basically telling people they cannot have or do anything would create a black market and the associated problems. So assuming there is anything we want to regulate (which i think most people do) then we don't really solve the core problem, we just change it and potentially make it smaller or bigger.

In terms of most drugs though i am 100% on board, especially if it goes along with treating addiction like other mental illnesses and provide help, instead of prison.

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?

Part of Tor is making sure the FBI (or any other party) can't operate sufficient relays (3) to demask users.

It seems likely that the NSA is running a large fraction of tor nodes, and doing exactly what you suggest. It would cost a trivial fraction of their budget, and yield huge amounts of relevant information.

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.

The traffic is encrypted from relay to relay and end to end.

You can theoretically prove that someone used Tor and perhaps prove that they connected to a certain Hidden Service, but proving that they actually did something illegal (rather than just curiously browsing) is not easy to prove.

Also, I think that each relay is unaware of their order in the flow, so the other connected nodes could be a Hidden Service, a Tor client, or just another relay.

> 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.

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.

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?

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.

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

If it were difficult the US govt wouldn't be able to give weapons to friendly rebels around the world. Same with drugs, they are an easy source of income that doesn't need to be accounted for.

There's very little reason to buy weapons through an underground market like this. Most can be openly purchased in large parts of the country.

A recent and high profile example is the Munich shooting from this summer: https://www.deepdotweb.com/2016/08/25/german-dnm-vendor-arre...

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/

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.

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/

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.

We're sorry...

The request has been blocked.

Anyone got a mirror?

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.

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