Hacker News Reader

Comment by contingencies | Hacker News Reader

Isn't the statistical probability of ordering a non-drug item fairly low? This does not appear to be random. But it's still great art :)

View on HN

Has anyone ever actually done a survey of what's available on these markets. I don't doubt there are a lot of drug offerings but I feel like most of the "It's all drugs!" assertions come authority figures who tend to say that about a lot of new things.

I'd be surprised to see any evidence suggesting anything other than "It's mostly, but not all drugs".

A recent article by CoinDesk [0] quotes the total number of listings on each of the biggest dark markets (before the seizures) and the number of listings for drugs; drugs made up a large majority of listings on all markets except Evolution, about half of whose listings are for drugs.

(The numbers come from a report [1] by the Digital Citizens Alliance; the report says the count is from January 2014, but says nothing further about methodology.)

The markets that sell weapons have significantly lower proportions of drug listings, so presumably many of the non-drug listings on those markets are for weapons; much of the rest is likely exploits, credit card numbers, forgeries, etc.

0. http://www.coindesk.com/dark-markets-grow-bigger-bolder-year...

1. https://media.gractions.com/314A5A5A9ABBBBC5E3BD824CF47C46EF... [PDF]

I wouldn't cite Coindesk for any reliable report. [1]

1. https://ihb.io/2014-11-09/news/official-coindesk-longer-voic...

there are TONS of things like memberships to spotify, bangbros, etc. Probably more digital goods and marijuana than anything.

I assume this is carded?

You're funny

With digital goods it's probably easier to illegally copy them from victim's machine after they've been (legitimately) purchased, so they are more likely obtained via password grabbers.

I imagine stealing paysites' credentials is a sort of a bike theft of the criminal web - low profit, low risk.

I never figured it out. It is tempting, but nothing I would ever risk myself. There are also a ton of new scams such as "buy this MacBook pro for full price, cancel the order then send me $300 in bitcoin and I'll send it to you" (I know I butchered that process)

The thing is my question would be how stupid it would have to be for things like spotify -- which, being streaming media, is shitty to run across a VPN, and if you were using carded goods on your home computer, traceable back to you easily, when the dispute for unauthorized use hits..

Reply on news.ycombinator.com