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Comment by joosters | Hacker News Reader

The FBI raids might actually be giving free publicity to these kind of markets. People who had never heard of them have now read news stories about the markets and might now seek them out.

After all, the services that sprang up to take the place of the original silk road soon grew bigger than the original site. Perhaps the same thing will happen now with whatever new services now emerge?

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I think that you're right. The FBI has (so far) only managed to take down three of the top six darknet markets[1]. It seems likely that the majority of the sellers from the shutdown sites will move their operations over to the remaining three; bolstering their sizes and attracting more customers.

[1]: http://www.digitalcitizensalliance.org/cac/alliance/content....

The FBI is acting as a good litmus test of the security and confidentiality of these sites as well. If they got three but the others are still running, then maybe it means it is harder for them to find out where or who is running those sites.

You would hope eventually we can use this evolutionary process to see completely opaque black markets emerge. Or you may not hope, depending on purview.

> If they got three but the others are still running, then maybe it means it is harder for them to find out where or who is running those sites.

Maybe they're running the other three. :-p

Strictly speaking it's a joint venture with the CIA :p

That's some dangerous survivor bias.

It could be the other sites don't have as much traffic, or the FBI hasn't pinched them yet.

Honeypot? That sounds like a trustworthy name. Everyone likes honey.

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