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Comment by rglover | Hacker News Reader

“This is something we want to keep for ourselves,” he said. “The way we do this, we can’t share with the whole world, because we want to do it again and again and again.”

That is so freaking evil.

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That confuses me. How can they prove that the people they arrested are actually connected to these sites if they won't show how they came to that conclusion?

They might have 10x or 100x the evidence they actually need. So they provide the least compromising to their own operation. They don't need to show the courts exactly what vulnerabilities they've targeted if the courts are willing to accept "they got the guy's confession on tape" (and they didn't somehow screw that up to make it inadmissible.)

They say this but why aren't they targetting the real evil shit on the dark web? Why the hell are they wasting their time and resources on drug busts when there are seriously sick dangerous people using those services, hunt them. They're the real dangers to society, not the ones selling weed and ecstasy.

Makes me feel sick all the wasted talent that isn't being used to take down the dark dark corners of this world.

You say that as if organisations involved in the international drug trade are not engaging in "real evil shit". Not all cannabis sold in the United States is grown by long-haired Californians. Much of it is grown in Mexico by violent drug cartels that use slave labour and kill indiscriminately. They are practically the definition of evil, and sites like The Silk Road are pushing their product.

Of course, the ideal way of sucking out the oxygen from these entities is to legalize the product they're pushing. Perpetuating the drug war is some "real evil shit" when you consider the police unions are among the biggest lobbying groups fighting to keep these substances in question illegal..

Prohibition drives prices sky-high, drives out law-abiding brokers, but doesn't affect demand. The Mexican cartels are yet another bad consequence of the war on drugs.

It's the way the game works. Busting drug related things is a lot more lucrative than busting "other evil" things. Did you really think law enforcement cares about principle or morality? It's all about money.

Revealing the trick and giving illegal ops a hint on what not to do would be much much more stupider, innit?

Depends. What if they're using vulnerabilities that affect a wide variety of sites?

So much for responsible disclosure.

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